Feb. 8. 2023, GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Jamillya Hardley was a first-generation college student who was determined to succeed as a student, but also as an athlete, playing for the University of Michigan women’s basketball team.
Hardley said she draws on her experiences in her role as assistant director of the Grand Rapids Community College Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Hardley shared her journey to GRCC and how her new role finds her supporting students and planning important campus events including Black History Month activities and next month’s Salute to Women on the My GRCC Story podcast.
Hardley said she faced adversity as a student and an athlete, and was supported by strong mentors who challenged and motivated her. She thinks about the support she received as she builds relationships with GRCC students.
“I’ve sat across the table from many different folks, a wide variety of races, cultures, backgrounds,” she said. “I’ve been able to identify some sort of aspect or trait or characteristic that I’ve seen in myself in the students that I’m working with. I am able to naturally learn and listen and then identify some of those characteristics that we have in common, even though we may not look the same. A lot of the stories and the incidents and the situations college students are going through, I’ve done it. I’m a walking testimony.”
Hardley graduated from Grand Rapids Christian High school. She played sports, focused on academics, and earned a full-ride scholarship to University of Michigan, where she played four years on the basketball team.
“Playing in the Big 10 conference, you are learning every single day,” she said. “You are learning on the court and off the court. You have to be all in. It taught me time management, it taught me to be on a routine, and it taught me family. I’ll never forget those conversations around ‘It’s bigger than us.’ ‘It’s bigger than you as an individual player.’”
Living away from home and going to college was challenging.
“I had to figure it out on my own,” she said. “I had to bump my head. A few times I had to learn from my mistakes. I had to hear rejection, a few nos to learn and shape myself as a student. And even personally, being first generation meant that I had to have it together while learning while I didn’t have it together.”
She is excited about the events planned for Black History Month, with a keynote address from Grand Rapids Pride Center Director Jazz McKinney at 4 p.m. on Feb. 9 in GRCC’s Wisner-Bottrall Applied Technology Center Auditorium, 151 Fountain Street NE.
Details and registration for the month’s events are here.
“What we learn in a text book, it can be beyond that,” she said about the month. “Conversations around different cultures, and identifying African American contributions to the world. And we get to expand upon that, whether it is music, food, clothing, fashion, modern arts. There are so many things we don’t talk about in school or especially when growing up, and we need to have those conversations and learn. The key component is that continuation of learning and being able to find beauty in diversity.”
The My GRCC Story podcast is available here, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other hosting sites.