不管卡莉·丹尼斯在做什么，她都想改变别人的生活。

That includes the teenagers with criminal records she used to work with at Independence High School in Provo. It includes the students at 犹他谷大学, where she earned a degree in criminal justice and now works. And most of all, it includes her three children who motivated her to obtain a degree.

丹尼斯说：“18年前我刚离婚的时候，我试着回到学校。 “但我没有足够的帮助和支持来照顾这么小的孩子。 只是时机不对。 但这一次，一切都走到了一起，就像命运一样。 我的孩子们非常支持我。”

与少年犯打交道为她提供了动力。 Coworkers encouraged her to become a probation officer, which would allow Dennis to work more closely with individual teens. But those positions required a bachelor’s degree, and Dennis didn’t have one.

In 2013, Dennis met David Dominguez, a law professor at Brigham Young University, who brought a class of his students to Independence to observe. When Dominguez met Dennis and learned she was considering returning to school, he directed her to UVU assistant professor Bobbi Kassel, who now serves as the criminal justice department chair.

丹尼斯说：“我就是这样来到这里的——有人指导我。” “波比太棒了。”

While learning from Kassel, assistant chair Melissa Noyes, and other UVU criminal justice faculty, Dennis realized that a degree in criminal justice could lead to far greater possibilities than becoming a juvenile probation officer. But she also had the opportunity to see some of her former Independence students in UVU’s halls — and not all of them had as much success as she did.

“当我想戒烟的时候，有六只小眼睛看着我。 I finished because of them. 我不能放弃。 我是想戒，但我戒不掉。 I couldn’t let that be their example.”

“Before the end of the semester, those students were gone — they weren’t here anymore,” Dennis says. “So I had reached out to a couple of them, and they just said it was too hard. 我意识到这些学生需要留在这里。”

She continued her criminal justice classes, but during her junior year, Dennis took advantage of another opportunity that would shape her future by becoming a UVUSA senator and representing her college in student government. Initially, she believed she wouldn’t qualify for participation because working part time to support her children meant her free time was limited. 但弗吉尼亚大学的教职员工鼓励她继续参与。

“Through my involvement with student government, I learned about all these resources that UVU actually has for people,” Dennis says. 这变成了我的激情所在。 Yes, I finished my degree, but I wanted to work at UVU because I wanted to connect somehow with those students I saw in the halls, to keep them here.”

Participation in UVUSA helped Dennis pay for school while her parents helped with her children when she couldn’t be at home. For a period of time, the family had one child in elementary school, one in middle school, one in high school, and Dennis herself in college. They did homework together around the kitchen table and shared in each other’s successes and struggles.

“当我想戒烟的时候，有六只小眼睛看着我，”她说。 “I finished because of them. 我不能放弃。 我是想戒，但我戒不掉。 I couldn’t let that be their example.”

When Dennis completed her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice in 2017, the juvenile probation industry was in the middle of a hiring freeze. But she wanted to put her newfound passion for higher education to work, accepting a position with UVU’s Career Development Center, then moving to the Center for Constitutional Studies while pursuing a master’s degree in higher education leadership.

“Had I not been in criminal justice, I wouldn’t have ever been a UVUSA senator, and I wouldn’t have ever made those connections,” Dennis says. “I just fell in love with what UVU is about. 我爱上了我们的使命，每个人都有一席之地。 Even as a nontraditional, single-mom old person, I can come to school and feel supported and meet amazing people along the way and be able to do something with my life and better my children’s lives. 我想我找到了自己的使命。”