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[Music] hello Blue Jays and welcome to the nest stories about life after Manor College I'm your host Kelly Peiffer vice president of marketing Communications and this is the best part of my day my hope is that this podcast will encourage inform and inspire you making you feel like at Manor College you belong here always before we get to today's guest it's time for a segment I like to call did you know where we will share some fun facts about Manor that you may or may not have known did you know the story behind The

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Manor College mascot Manny the blue jay Manor College has been home to the fighting Blue Jays since the 1980s and due to the high volume of blue J birds that can be found around the woods that are backing up to our campus property we have Alverthorpe Park and we have Manor woods and there's a lot of blue jays in those woods but Manny our mascot was founded in 2017 and created as part of a college-wide Rebrand that we did so Manny was created by the same company that creates a lot of professional sports and athletic mascots and funny

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enough when Manny was shipped out to us Manny came from Canada the company sent us the wrong head so I remember opening this giant bag this giant red bag had this big zipper top and remember I was so excited we designed this head and we've gone back and forth with colors and fur and all these different details about Manny and um instead of this beautiful blue jay head in this bag was a St Bernard head at the time I did not know what team this head was tied to but I found out it was the Colorado

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Avalanche and ice hockey team and it was Bernie the St Bernard so of course I had to try it on there might be some footage of a me wearing it and then I shipped it back to the company back to Canada and kept waiting for our Manny to arrive so the day finally came Manny arrived and was born on campus we officially debuted him in 2017 at new student orientation um we had a mascot training that summer with um this incredible person his name was Dave Raymond he was the original Philly fanatic and he really invented like

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mascots having such personality and character and movement um and he taught us about the values of mascot how to build a mascot program how to give your mascot personality and different tricks and tips for performers um we learned that when you're inside a mascot it's you're called a performer and not just like the guy in the mascot so trying to give that more value and obviously respect because it is really hard work to to be in a mascot costume so we created a backstory about Manny that we continue to use to

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this day um some of Manny's backstory is Manny was an abandoned egg next door in Alverthorpe park and some of the Sisters of St basil were on a walk one day and they found this egg and cared for him and nurtured him and taught this uh baby blue jay everything that he needs to know from math to science to Ukrainian language to how to make a free throw um Manny loves to play with our vet tech teaching horses that we have and he has a really soft spot for lavender the pony at any given moment Manny can be found

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on campus tapping trees for maple syrup greeting students dancing eating chocolate chip cookies from Manny's market and cheering on our Athletics teams Manny's favorite color of course is Manor blue his favorite song is can't stop the Feeling by Justin Timberlake and it has rumored that Manny has found pieces of thread that Betsy Ross who used to live on mayor's campus for a short while I'll have to do it did you know about that later used in her sewing of the flag that he keeps with him I love Manny I have a really soft spot for

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him as I think he is lovable and fun and charismatic and exactly what a mascot should be and I hope you do too now I'm honored to welcome today's alumni guest her journey started right here in Philadelphia at Saul High School Our Guest path and education is truly inspiring a testament to dedication and a passion for helping Young Learners she pursued her degree in early childhood education earning an associates degree from Manor college in 2014 following her time here she transferred to Chestnut Hill College

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continuing to build on her Educational Foundation while at Manor she was an active member of the campus community and she credits much of her foundation time to at Manor specifically to the impact of faculty member Dr Cherie Crosby weeks she making a real difference education teacher for students in kindergarten through sixth grade with autism at Master Charter please join me in welcoming Bridget gray Moss welcome Bridget hi thanks for having me you're welcome I'm so happy to to have you and to hear your hear your

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story so can you start us off by sharing why how did you hear about Manor College and why did you choose to attend um I think I heard about Manor um I was at Community College of Philadelphia and it was just too busy for me and I was looking for another 2-year education program and Manor probably was on the back of a septa bus or maybe I found it online um but once I found out about it it was just a better fit for me being in the suburbs versus being in the middle of the city that's great I love I love that and I

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mean obviously um everyone's different in their Journeys but it's cool that a suburb campus kind of fit fit you better obviously um that's really neat and obviously you know I I I'm our VP of marketing so I love hearing that you found us either through our septa bus or our website those are both channels that we spend a lot of time and effort to make sure that people can find us in those ways so it's great that you were able to to do that um so take us back what was being a college student at Manor like for you it was amazing

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especially from coming from the um City The Busy the city to go on the suburbs it was amazing and it was real really tight in it so all of the friends I made at Manor in the education program I'm pretty much still with friends with today um every day was fun it was never a boring day at Manor and I felt like I wasn't just the number um if I needed something I was it was always somebody I can talk talk to um I knew all my professors I could talk to them anytime it wasn't like I was just a number and

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it was like the education program wasn't just textbook textbook it was more Hands-On so oh that's great that's great to hear that you're still friends with some of the this you know classmates that you had I always love to hear that that's kind of what college is all about you know yeah it's pretty cool because when we started we all just wanted to be teachers and now it's like we've been to each other wens we didn't had kids people didn't like worked in different schools we'll keep each other posted

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like you know in the education world but it's like all of us kind of grew up and we came in Manor at different ages so people came straight out of high school some people were like already adults so yeah yeah and now you got to you know go through life together um and all that I absolutely love that I have the same experience with my own college and my own friends and they they're your best friends you know get to be moms together and and that kind of thing is really powerful um so what I mean how do you

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feel that Manor prepared you to then transfer to Hill um and kind of what was that transition like it was at the P um after I left Manor I opened up at home daycare um so I was really I was really ready because I took all the skills I learned and everything I I never learned anything at Manor that I didn't need when I was at different schools I felt like I'm just taking classes and I'm just taking out loans I'm just paying I'm just another number but everything I took at man or I actually needed and I used and I applied

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so after Manor I opened up my home daycare for a couple years and then at the start of the pandemic I went to chest the hill and it was a good fit for me because Manor was so laidback and you know your professors um and you're going to use that work in Chestnut Hill was the same way but I always still had like a more special place for Manor right because like that's where I started and it was just like my favorite school I learned so much but um both schools are great for education I feel like mhm so

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it was a good like combination like get your Foundations at Manor and then move on to Chestnut Hill um so you ran an at home daycare how was how how was that it was great especially coming straight coming straight out of college it was great how many how many kids would you have at one time I had six to eight six to eight okay and what like what ages Early Childhood so it was like I just had got my degree from early childhood education um and then that's when I opened up the daycare so I didn't go

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straight into my bachelor's program and at the time Manor didn't have the four-year program right great okay well that's cool and I think a lot of students are attracted to I mean obviously at Manor we have two two-year degrees and four year degrees but I think a lot of students um they do like the two-year because they can like get something that's like tangible and in a short amount of time and then apply it so it's really cool to hear that like you got a two-year degree you applied it right away started a home daycare kind

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of reassessed and saw yourself okay and then so what made you want to go into get a a bachelor's um at that time I was closing the um home daycare and I was working and I was like you know right now everything is going online so it's the best time to go back to school right so it was like the pandemic a lot of people made a lot of changes so it was the best time to go for sure for sure so did you get certified um what's your certifications um in special education nice nice but because I want the Manor

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first um I was so used to it being a small classroom everybody talking and being so comfortable that when I went to Chester Hill I was able to participate and talk so much in class and share and if anybody else was sharing a lot it was like you kind of knew they were from Manor too and you were connected out like hey did you go there because we came from Manor with so much hands on experience and like we had the opportunity to to always share so we were never quiet in class in Justus that's funny that's funny you can

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like pinpoint like oh you must be for Manor because you know you're kind of acting similar that that's pretty cool like a signature trademark kind of thing yeah um so so tell me how did you start then in teaching in in a in a school setting with special ed and kind of what what's that like um it's great I I started because right when I left Chestnut Hill um when I was in Chestnut Hill I did student teaching kindergarten gen er and then the rest of the year I did special ed but I knew I wanted to be a

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special ed teacher and right when I graduated um I worked at Philly school district for a little bit but then um my friend told me about Mastery Charter School and then that's when I came into Mastery Charter School and this I've been here ever since for second grade for second grade wow yeah at first last year I had fifth graders but now I'm second graders okay so where does your where does your passion for special ed come from and kind of what's what's the story behind that um somebody asked

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me that this morning I would say when I I used to babysit my younger cousins and I was a kid myself so I was between ages of 10 to 16 starting so young babysitting and one of my cousins had autism and he was the only person in our family with autism at the time he was the only person I knew but my aunt was working on getting her Nursing degree so I was her babysitter but she never took it easy on him so she would leave work on Saturdays and be like he has to do multiplication he has to do um all of

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his English homework don't do it for him so I didn't grow up with this mindset of like you know you have to like scale back just because you have a disability so working with him and pushing him to like do all the work he did it just like set me up for the rest of my life so by the time I got older I just sped came normal you know came very normal to me and I never I just continue to model how I teach that same way like you know not just seeing a student as a disability right right they're they're

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able to do things just in maybe in a different way um and that that's so cool I'm sure that you have such a you sound like you have such a big heart for for that and you kind of grew up with it so it comes really natural to you yeah it was pretty normal yeah that's that's awesome I'm so well thank you so much for doing doing what you do I know it's not hard and I I know it's not easy and um you know I really appreciate kind of just the love that you give to those students I'm sure I'm sure that they

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that you're well- loved um especially with second grade what a sweet what a sweet age you know that is so so talk to us a little bit about um when you reflect back and think about like where you are now like you've been graduated for almost 10 years now from Manor for a little bit more than 10 years um any Reflections that come to mind or any things that come to mind that you're like wow I'm really glad I did this because I can see where it LED or any just kind of Reflections um I'm extremely glad that I want the Manor um

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because I feel like the way I teach is still lessons I learned from Dr Crosby and just being in that atmosphere and then it was like when I was at Manor I never wanted to slack off I didn't even have room to slack off because you get to know everybody and your professors went the best for you so every every um semester I was getting like straight a and great grades so when I look back I'm like pretty and if I drive by the school I'm pretty still proud of myself oh that's great that's great to see to

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think back like where you were and where you are and kind of make that connection I think that's pretty special and I think that's something that a lot of our students today still resonate with and and are going through you know um and and they don't quite they don't they don't know where they're going to go in the end but they are hoping to obviously kind of get there and be able to say that Manor was their Foundation um are you a first generation college student I am yeah what do what does that mean to

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you and and kind of explain kind of what that because that's a whole another thing too and we have a lot of our students are it's pretty cool because my um grandparents they worked really really hard and my parents worked really hard and I didn't really reflect on how hard they worked until I just recently became a parent like in a year but um it's great because they they really push me and they always want me to continue to go to school so it's good and then it's like I have a niece she's at um

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Chestnut Hill so it's kind of like I can like tell her like you I can't tell her but I can encourage her to do stuff and I can say well I did it and I did it this way and you know I believe in you and if it gets hard just let me see your grades let me see where you at what's your your study schedule so I feel like being you know a first generation it can trigger down to different generations to come to like help out and stuff so it makes my parents pretty happy right you're like the Catalyst like okay now because I did

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it like your niece can do it she's seen someone do it um and she has an example you know I think I think that's so powerful to see in your own family you know it might sound cheesy but like you really are changing your family tree and and it's really cool that you were the first one to do it and what a what a great example you're setting for um you know your your children and your family and and also so it's it's incredible for your parents to see and rewarding for them to know that like my my daughter

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did that and as a parent you want the best for your kids so that's totally reflection on them as well so Bridget as we are kind of closing up here what um what advice would you give to current Manor students who are kind of in the thick of their semester maybe not feeling um you know high energy and they're kind of it's it's hard being a college student what advice would you give them I would say don't take take your school work serious but don't take take life as serious meaning don't be hard on

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yourself and think that you have to have it all figured out because it will come just focus on getting good grades and self-care and also don't be scared to meet people network with people go out in the field so when you have to get your hours in don't just think I have to get my hours in because my major says I have to get my hours and no make sure you meet the principal or you know managers supervisors other people that work there get you some little cards made up if you have to make you a vision board

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make you a study schedule but don't beat yourself up thinking that you have to have life figured out actually enjoy yourself while you're at Manor um and network and understand that you know you're working towards something really like special that you're going to apply in life yeah so kind of like be in the moment you know enjoy card but um don't take it it too seriously don't take it too serious it goes fast right it does and and build relationships with people because those that those relationships

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are going to get you you know through some tough times to come you might think oh college is so hard right now Finance is so hard right now but knowing you get out in the work field you're going to need people that you met at Manor teachers professors um classmates peers to get you through the tough days and or also help network like you know help with jobs and help grow as um educator or whatever your major is yeah that that's great I love that so much and I think I think it's so true like don't take yourself too seriously

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but also don't slack off like you know um take self care yeah that's really important well Bridget thank you so much for being with us today I've really enjoyed our conversation and I hope our listeners have as well a special thank you to Bridget for joining me today in our episode thank you to all of you for tuning in if you like what you heard listen And subscribe on Spotify or YouTube stay up to dat with all new episodes by following mayor College on Instagram at Manor College and that's a wrap on another episode of The Nest

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stories about life after Manor College remember Blue Jays you belong here always [Music]