No one would fault Jemima Pierre-Jacques if she decided to put off her studies this past spring semester at Prince George’s Community College.
The native Haitian was mourning the loss of her father, Jude Pierre-Jacques, and eight other relatives in Port-au-Prince, casualties along with thousands of the 7.0 earthquake that devastated Haiti in January.
But school became her refuge, and her father— a second grade teacher who died in his classroom with all of his students — became her motivation.
“The earthquake struck [shortly] before school started,” Pierre-Jacques says. “Taking a semester off could have cost me my scholarship and the opportunity to attend Howard University. My father devoted his entire life to education. He would not have wanted me to take time off. I had to succeed.”
Pierre-Jacques, a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and an All-USA Academic Team nominee, graduated from Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Md., last month with an associate degree in general studies and is starting later this month on her nursing degree from Howard.
“The thing that I find most remarkable about Jemima is how strong she has been in the face of such devastating news,” says Dr. Melinda J. Frederick, the Honors Academy coordinator for Prince George’s Community College and Pierre-Jacques’ mentor. “Beset with very tragic circumstances in Haiti, I started to think about all the things Jemima needed to do instead of going to school. [But] Jemima wanted to come back because it gave her an opportunity to focus on something else.”
When Pierre-Jacques came to the United States in 2007, friends told her mother to enroll her in high school. But Pierre-Jacques, who had graduated high school in Haiti, refused.
