Title III specialist leaves to pursue her doctorate
April 1, 2008

Cayla Thomlinson
Editor

After a stint in jail that opened her eyes to her anger, facing racism that influenced a change of major in college and the fact she avoided gang activity in the past, have made Dr. Davis a possibility.
Chrissy Lynn Davis is a ball of energy and ambition with tremendous faith and a past full of tribulations that have made her who she is today.
However, most people at Seward County Community College “don’t know the real Chrissy,” and won’t get the chance. She will leave the college June 30—after working with the Title III grant for the past three years—to pursue her doctorate degree at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas.
Davis is the student success specialist and activities director of the grant and is responsible for the updates to first year seminar courses, academic advising, bridge program with Colvin Learning Center and for the introduction of the early alert program. She is also the sponsor for the Black Collegiate Union which went inactive for nearly 10 years before she began working at SCCC.
Born July 26, 1980, into a large family living in a small home she remembers as “the yellow house on the hill,” Davis recalls her grandmother Essie Davis’s run of the household. Around the age of 5, Davis, her mother and younger bother and sister moved to the Dallas, Texas, area, then she moved to Denver, Colo., with her family, new stepdad and his three sons around her middle school years.
At an early age Davis began to work to help keep the lights on.
“My first job, I was 12 years old, and I worked for D’Clememt Florist and I still remember it to this day,” Davis said.
During the summer when she was 16, she started working a second job for a government program.
Davis was very active in high school.
“Man, what didn’t I do,” Davis said. “Anything that involved movement, I was probably a part of it.”
Although she received track scholarships to several colleges, Davis chose to accept an academic scholarship to the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyo.
As a child she wanted to become a pediatrician, but after a few bad encounters with a chemistry instructor and poor academic advising, Davis was ready to go home. However, her mother took the tough love position and told her she couldn’t live at home if she quit school.
“At the time I thought, ‘How mean, how mean,’” Davis laughed. “But now I see why she forced me.”
One of her peers turned it all around by urging her to stay in school and introduced Davis to the idea of changing to a social work degree.
“That changed my life. The experience from that point forward—positive,” Davis said.
After that, she worked hard and made her way back to the “4.0 Chrissy,” and received both her bachelor’s and master’s degree.
However, Davis recognizes where she came from and the obstacles that she has overcome through the years believing that God has a plan for her.
When she was just a sixth grader, she’d made up her mind that she would join a gang. As a child, Davis was exposed to gang violence and drug distribution through family members, and thought that joining a gang was a right of passage. Thankfully, an older cousin, already in a gang, “put a hit out” on anyone who helped Davis join a gang. Her cousin told her that she was better than that and that she was going to be somebody.
When she was 14 years old, Davis’s 17-year-old half-brother was killed by the police on Halloween. She acknowledges that when she was younger she held on to a lot of anger.
Davis’s worst and best experience was going to jail for seven days. She spent a week in jail for beating up a woman who continually tormented her and crossed the line by calling her a derogatory name.
“I didn’t realize how angry and upset I was,” Davis stated.
After the week in jail she learned to manage her anger and really became interested in educating people on diversity and multiculturalism.
With everything Davis has been through and her mothering personality, her siblings often look to her for advice.
“I’m not the momma. I’m only 27; I’m still learning,” Davis said, laughing. “I learn something new about myself everyday.”
She has taken on a similar mentoring role at SCCC with students. Davis has done her best to show the importance of an education to students.
“Your education will take you places that you never ever dreamt of,” said Davis.
Good friend and Title III teaching and learning specialist Patsy Fisher comments on Davis move.
“We won’t know the impact she’s made here until she’s gone, and that make me really sad. We’re going to miss her. She just has a connect with the students, and they respect her, because they know she cares about them and their academic success,” Fisher said.
Davis plans to obtain her doctorate degree by the time she’s 35, then pursue positions that will eventually enable her to become the president of a community college. Her choice to return to Texas is to be closer to her family.
Her favorite book is “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” by Dr. Seuss. But she’s had her own fair share of writings published in advising and higher education sources.
“You hold the key to all the places you will go,” reflected Davis. “I look back on my childhood and all the opportunities I’ve had—how fortunate I’ve been and all the obstacles I’ve over come.”