Miami Dade College nursing student Shelia Martin was re-applying for food stamps online in the school’s downtown computer lab Friday, when she looked up to find Dr. Jill Biden, along with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and a dozen news photographers, hovering over her.
“Well, nice to meet you,” said Martin, 50, subtly closing her computer screen and smiling broadly at the vice president’s wife.
As flashes popped and news crews pressed in, Martin, a grandmother of four, happily chatted with Biden about how she had enrolled in community college to “reinvent” herself. She never mentioned the food stamps.
“I was thinking, ‘Wow, I hope they didn’t see what I was doing,’” Martin later said sheepishly. “But then I thought, ‘You know, I shouldn’t be ashamed of that.’”
Actually, the episode would have only reinforced the message Biden and Duncan brought with them on their symbolic visit to the South Florida school, the largest and most diverse college in the nation. Duncan
With their open-door policy and reputation as the gateway to higher education for many minorities, community colleges are the lead brigade in “getting America back on its feet again,” Duncan told a crowd of students at Miami Dade’s downtown Wolfson campus. Next to him on the raised platform: Vice President Joe Biden’s wife, who taught at Delaware Technical & Community College for 15 years and is now teaching English composition to remedial and English as a Second Language students at Northern Virginia Community College.
Biden has two master’s degrees and a doctorate in education. Her dissertation topic? How to retain students in community colleges.
