“It’s the hardest job I’ve ever had and it’s the best job I’ve ever had,” Jennifer Graves said about her role as director of the EDGE program.
Graves and I had decided to meet in her office at 9:30 on Tuesday morning, and when I arrived, she got up from her desk, shook my hand, introduced herself and sat on the guest chair right next to me. She answered my questions with a shining smile, and I was struck by her passion for the program within the first minute of our conversation.
Graves used to be the middle school and high school counselor at Briarcrest Christian School in Eads, TN, and she had started a program there for students with learning disabilities. In 2014, during a dinner with Ann Singleton, her former Union professor, and Michelle Atkins, her friend and fellow Union alumna, one question changed the course of her life.
“They said, ‘Hey Jennifer, we’re starting this program. Would you be interested in coming up and running it?’ and I remember looking at them and going, ‘I’m a teacher! You don’t leave in the middle of the year,’” Graves said, and we both laughed. “Because I was at Briarcrest. I was perfectly happy at Briarcrest.”
But earlier that year, Graves had decided that her motto would be “Trust and obey.”
“There’s an old hymn. I don’t know if you know it.” She began to sing it but stopped herself. “I won’t sing,” she said, and we laughed again. I looked up the hymn later and was inspired by its message of determining God’s will and unconditionally obeying Him. I was just as inspired by Graves’s story as I continued to listen.
“My husband told me, he said, ‘Jennifer, don’t you think it’s time for you to put your money where your mouth is and trust and obey?’ And if God was telling us that this is what I needed to do, I needed to come here and do this program. And so, we made that decision, and I went into Briarcrest and talked to the principal, and he and I both cried. And I told him I really felt this is what God wanted me to do.”
Along with Graves, her husband and kids are Union University graduates. The one thing she knew was that if the EDGE program was going to be anywhere, it needed to be at Union.
“Union students are kind. Union students typically are welcoming,” Graves said. “Are they perfect? No. Is everybody kind? No. But these students need to grow, and they need to learn. And I couldn’t think of a better place than here at Union University. I think this program is exceptionally important because by having it on a college campus, future employers are coming alongside our EDGE students. And they won’t be afraid of them.”
The word “afraid” came up multiple times during our interview. One thing I learned from talking with Graves is that she strives to be anything but. After all, the last verse in the hymn “Trust and Obey” says “Never fear.”
I asked Graves about the differences between running a program at Briarcrest for learning disabilities and running the EDGE program, which specializes in helping students with intellectual disabilities.
“Probably the biggest difference is this is residential,” Graves said. “It’s 24/7, and I don’t think anything you can say or do prepares you for 24/7 jobs. Learning disabilities means that these students learn differently. Students with intellectual disabilities struggle with learning. It’s a whole different situation for preparing a student with an intellectual disability to live on campus versus helping somebody with their reading.”
Still, despite the jarring differences between her past responsibilities and her current ones, Graves emphasized that seeing how the EDGE program impacts everyone involved makes it all worth it. She told me how much she loved seeing pictures online of a Union graduate who had an EDGE student in their wedding. That’s the goal of the EDGE program, she said.
“I don’t know about you, but I think we’re afraid of what’s different,” Graves said. “And a lot of people prejudge or think poorly of people who may not look like them, act like them or have the same skill set as them. I think it’s really, really important that we show people that we’re more alike than different.”
“I mentor Brooke Stamps, and it is the most rewarding experience I have had at Union,” Allison Eichenlaub, junior elementary education major, said. “It definitely is challenging and draining at times, but looking back at how far Brooke has come proves what this program is really all about. They all learn so much about who they are and what they are capable of while being away at college. They genuinely are the most happy people and find joy in the little things. They teach me to appreciate the simplest things in life.”
“I truly believe this has been a situation where I’ve been blessed,” Graves said. “I’m grateful. And every day when I come to work, I know every day is going to be different, and there are always going to be bumps in the road and there are going to be problems, but we trust and obey, and we try to treat our students with respect and help our mentors and other Union students understand disabilities and what those look like and how we can interact with them.”
