Martha Harper
Student Support & Great Expectations Success Coach
Where did you grow up and what was it like?
When we moved, my younger brother entered Kindergarten and my mother went to work with gusto as a 2nd Wave Feminist, first as a secretary for the City Manager, and then as the first female employee at the water filtration plant. She was also the first female Class A water plant operator in the state of Virginia and eventually Superintendent of Waterworks.
I was the fifth out of six kids, three boys and three girls. We lived right in the city next to James Monroe High School and the hospital. I say all this to show that we, my little brother and I, were just neglected enough to experience a world of our making. We wandered all over that town on our bikes from the campus of Mary Washington College to the Rappahannock River and from Motts Run to Alum Springs Park. We just had to be home by the time the streetlights came on. It was the kind of childhood depicted in southern movies full of racism and color lines and negotiating that world. We were great observers of all that went on, and developed very early into crusaders for justice. Much of what we saw as little kids was obviously wrong yet we had to process how so many adults in our lives seemed just fine with it. Despite that, I loved growing up in Fredericksburg, but when I was eighteen, I was ready to go to college for sure. I went to Richmond for VCU.
So, college brought you to Richmond?
I have lived in Richmond now since 1982. The punk scene was in full swing and I discovered rock and roll nights and big city lights to be very dazzling. As I said, my mother was deep in her career, and don’t get me started on how J. Edgar Hoover abused the lives of agents with the craziest work hours ever. By 1975, my parents were divorced and my Dad was shortly thereafter remarried and transferred to Omaha, Nebraska. There were lots of issues with staying in college, including my own ennui about the meaning of it all and I dropped out. Fast forward twenty years with a whole lot of Richmond engagement in there, and my own marriage and divorce, with my wonderful daughter born in 1990. I returned to school in 2004 to earn a BA in history, and religious studies and then a Masters of Education in Counselor Education: College Student Development, all from VCU.
Before coming to Reynolds you were with VCU. What was your job there?
My last job at VCU was Senior Academic Advisor for Interdisciplinary Studies. That’s a really great program for students who want a taste of several disciplines and extremely marketable to employers. I got to help them put together a declaration and ask the university for permission to study that plan. We were always able to do it in the credits they had left of college too, so always the shortest time to degree completion when switching majors or transferring and finding out you may have to exceed 120 credits to graduate. Before that, I was at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee from 2013 to 2017 coordinating a center for nontraditional students, though I hate that term, and helping adults, especially students with children stay in school. Like Reynolds, Austin Peay was an all access school, and it was also located outside Fort Campbell, so we were full up with adult and military affiliated students. Before that, I was at VCU earning those degrees I talked about, and managing Off Campus Student Services from 2004 to 2012.
Tell us about the Great Expectations Program and your work as a Coach?
Well to be honest, I can’t yet. I can tell you what the mission is and how I plan to fulfill that, but as of now I am just getting started so expect to hear lots of stuff from me. Great Expectations is a VCCS program on many Community College campuses, though not all of them, that serves students who are currently, or formerly were in foster care. The statistics on young adults failure to launch after foster care are appalling and a Great Expectations Coach is there to help those interested in higher education, but have no parent or person telling them just how to do it. I am also responsible for Single Stop, like everyone else in my department, serving not just students who have experienced foster care but all students at Reynolds.
What is your favorite book, movie, or TV series, and why?
Like most people, that changes all the time. So today Thursday, September 30th, I am reading and enjoying The Virginia State Penitentiary, A Notorious History by Dale Brumflield, and a work of historical fiction, Washington Black by Esi Edugyan. You can see my bent toward history topics. Favorite movie will probably always be It’s a Wonderful Life despite how dated it is, the message still applies and still makes me cry every time George finds Suzu’s petals in his watch pocket.
What do you like to do outside of work?
Walk and read and meet friends for a cold beer. Travel when I can find the time or the money, but I like short local touring also. My daughter lives in New Orleans so I go at least once a year and try for twice, I love that broken city too. Probably for none of the reasons tourists go there. But I could talk to anyone who stops me about the cool places to hit off the beaten track.
Do you have a favorite local restaurant or event? What is it, and why is it special?
I will always love the Richmond Folk Festival. I started going and volunteering when it first started as the National Folk Festival. My daughter and I did that every year together till she left for college, so it brings back lots of fond memories. I look forward to seeing how it will be this year.
If you won $100 million in the Virginia Lottery, what would you do with the money?
First secure my family’s financial needs. Then, and this is a fantasy I have had a long time. I would set up a scholarship by buying a house on Monument Avenue, one of those big fourteen room jobs and provide that for low income first generation students who want to study history. Complete with a chef and tutor on premises. I imagine teaching them to democratically run the house, steward the endowment, hold events etc. all while going to college, and funny I have had this idea long before George Floyd died and Monument Avenue became a focal point for demonstrating structural racism in this country.
When I was finishing my history degree, I pictured a house full of diverse students coming and going among the residents and knowing far more about the problem with those statues and the history of them than the people who already lived there. That was my former approach to the monuments, mostly because I lacked the creative thinking to see them just come down! With $100 Million, I would expand that scholarship to a second house maybe in Jackson Ward and house students with children in a big communal house providing that essential daycare and security while they could study full time any major!
