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[Music] Hello Blue Jays and welcome to the nest stories about life after Manor College. I am 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 of the show I like to call did you know? So, did you know that this past week we held our 72nd commencement ceremony? We

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celebrated the class of 2025 with over a 100 graduates walking proudly across the stage to receive their diplomas from President Dr. Peri. But Manor's first commencement was held in 1953 where Mother Jerome Roman, who was the president at the time, awarded degrees to six graduating students. That's right. 67 years ago, Manor College held its first commencement indoors in our auditorium. So for all of those years, Manor always had graduation inside in our auditorium. But when COVID hit in March of 2020, we moved our May

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2020 commencement to the parking lot. And this was one of my most favorite graduation ceremonies that we've had. Everyone came in their car. They parked like it was a drive-in movie theater. Graduates would get out of their car wearing a mask when it was time for their name to be called and they received their diploma. And we all on the planning team who, you know, were in charge of planning commencement. We were really disappointed that obviously graduation had to be in a parking lot in your car. We felt like people were going

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to be like sad and like disconnected and I was really concerned that like there wouldn't be enough energy. graduation is all about like big energy and just having that like feeling. But something really cool happened when it was the COVID year during the ceremony whenever somebody would normally clap. So like after a speech or clapping for your graduates, instead of clapping because it was so spread out over this big parking lot, you really couldn't hear the clapping. Cars would honk their horns. And it was such a cool and loud

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feeling to just hear all these cars horns honking crazy. All the different tones of the car horns. Um that was really really special. And I remember being on stage. Um I had to say something I think about our alumni and I remember being on stage and after I got done talking all the car horns are going and I was like wow that is really cool. So graduates got to be with their families. They got to pack as many people into their cars as they could. I remember some graduates came up with like 15 passenger vans. They decorated

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the cars. They really made it special and unique. So for two years we did this outdoor kind of car parking lot ceremony. That was the COVID years. But then that made us realize how special and how grand it is to have an outdoor ceremony. So we changed to having commencement always being outside. So, for the last 5 years, we have been outside, but this past week, last Thursday. Um, we were all set to be outside. It was going to be a beautiful day, but the weather had other plans. So, we um had to pivot. We went back

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inside for graduation, back into the auditorium where we used to be for so many decades. And it definitely felt a little nostalgic going back into the gym for those of us who've been here for a while and have kind of planned both different formats. Um the thing that I didn't realize that was kind of missing when we went outside is that we kind of missed the volume of cheers from the families and the audience. So in the auditorium last Thursday, it got loud. Um, I don't know if it's just because

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I'm now a mother myself and my perspective on life has certainly changed, but the thing that I when I think about last Thursday and and kind of our commencement and reflection, I just can't shake how um loud and how proud the families were of the people in the audience. There was so much cheering, so much clapping and yelling. Um, one of my favorite things that someone yelled was, "She's got four kids." I just love that. Someone was just so proud that like that girl walking across the stage is a mom of

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four kids getting her degree. Someone else yelled out really loud, "That's my sister." Um, I just love the pride from these family members. And it just kept reminding me that, you know, while a college degree is a huge milestone in anyone's life, um, and while it might be a singular thing for that person getting it, like yes, you can put it on your resume, you can frame it in a room, you can change your LinkedIn profile to now say, you know, I have a degree. It's also an entire family um, extension. you

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know, having one person in your family obtain a college degree changes everything for that family's legacy. I think it changes um things for the parents who now like you supported your child getting a college degree for your grandparents and just and it opens up a next chapter for that family. So, it symbolizes growth and progress. So, I was just thinking like anytime you hear like those loud cheers at a graduation and you might laugh because it's funny or you might, you know, think like, "Wow, they're they're really loud." Um,

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it's not just someone cheering and and kind of trying to get attention. It's a deep rooted like pride of a family tree being changed. So, that was kind of my takeaway from a really special commencement last Thursday. Today we've got a fantastic guest who truly embodies the spirit of Philadelphia. He is a Philly native through and through. Originally coming from right around the corner, Fox Chase neighborhood, having attended LaSalle College High School, he went on to Manor, earning his associates in early childhood education. Graduating

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from Manor in 2006, he continued his studies at Arcadia University to get a BA in communications and he is the first in his family to earn a master's degree. Our guest currently works as a certified orientation and mobility specialist at the Overbrook School for the Blind. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Tevis Weir. Tevis, welcome to the show. Thank you for having us. Thanks for having me. I appreciate Um I'm excited to talk to you today. So kind of start us off by why did you choose Manor College? How did you find

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Manor College back in um the 2000s? Um pretty much my options were even though I went to LA, I was not a good student at all. I was pretty bad. I got all right grades, but then one year I did nothing and almost failed out. So my prospects were limited. Um, the one counselor I had at LSL said, "Oh, why don't you apply to Manor and check it out?" And at the time, I didn't realize where Manor was, but a lot of my friends went to St. Basel Academy, which was right across the street. Is it anymore? Um, so I checked it out. I thought it

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was neat. Thought it'd be a good step for me and yeah, I uh signed up and enrolled and started my career there. Education. Oh, that's great. Yeah. I I mean I obviously, you know, we want students who are performing well in high school, but also I think it speaks to like if you're not doing so hot in high school and you find yourself with not a lot of options, um Manor is a great stepping stone for for that, you know. Um so tell me what was your Manor experience like? What were classes like? And why did you choose to study um early

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childhood education? Um well I chose education because my mother was a teacher um and a principal and I was not sure what to do but I worked summer camps at her school. I worked I volunteered at other schools and a lot of people said want to become a teacher. So I was like okay I'll go into education. Um my time at Manor was great. Um I made a lot of friends most who I still talk to. I'm best friends with two or three of them still. We hang out a couple times a year and we talk all the time because everybody's busy with life

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and stuff. Um, and yeah, I mean the education classes at Manor were great. I uh met Dr. Crosby there as well. Um, yeah. Oh, that's cool. I love I love that you're still in touch with some of your um fellow classmates. That's so special when you can meet people who become like a lifelong friends and you can go through, you know, getting married and growing families together and that's really really cool and that's kind of like a a perk to college, you know what I mean? You don't always you hope for that. You don't always get

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that, but you kind of hope for that. Um, I also find it really ironic how you open up by saying, "I admittedly didn't do too well in high school, but I wanted to be a teacher." Usually those two things don't go hand in hand. No, I mean it's it's it's different. I mean, I wasn't I was I was a poor student because I didn't apply myself. I didn't try. That's the main thing, right? You were unmotivated. Yeah. I got motivated and I did really well. Um, and Manor helped me get to where I'm at now because at I'm not sure

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if they still do, but at the time they had a uh an agreement with some some other university so we can do two years there and transfer over and what I ended up doing um to go from Manor to Arcadia. But then at Arcadia things went sideways a little bit. So I switched majors because I wanted to be done school. Yeah. So yeah, we um those are called articulation agreements. We still have a a wide number of those and lots of different programs even though we still offer we have associate and bachelor's

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degrees. So some students stay for all four years here and some you know they do two years here and they do two years at Arcadia, Chestnut Hill, Holy Family, lots of different schools we have them. So like your credits transfer seamlessly. You're not going to like lose time to like retake classes. They kind of work hand in hand which I'm glad you're able to take advantage of that. So you went to Arcadia, you switched over to communications, which that's what my um undergrad and masters are in. So I I certainly see value in that.

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And then you went and got a master's in what? Uh orientation mobility therapy. So Okay. So how did we jump from those things? Yeah. When I finished at Arcadia, I was interning at Channel 10, NBC 10, and they offered me a job as a production assistant, which I applied for. Um my internship I think ended that fall and I was pretty much done at Arcadia and then the '08 bank bailouts happened. So that job disappeared. The entire uh career field for communication just dropped out. So then

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I had no job prospects. Um so then I went back uh to working with at the time I was working at a daycare center and I was working as a one-on-one for behavior kids. Um, and then one of my students who was uh, you know, had behavior issues, he had low vision as well. And so I met a fellow orientation mobility therapist there and I beca became friends and I said, "I don't know what to do with my life anymore. I don't know what to do." Like I went to school, nothing's working out. What should I do?

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And she said, "Why don't just do what I do?" And I was like, "What is it exactly you do?" So then I actually came here to Overbrook because she worked here at the time. Oh, how funny. Yeah. Yeah. And I fell in love with the job and the school and everything. And um so then she talked me into applying for my master's degree program at Salus and that's how it came full circle. Oh, that's so cool. I mean I I love it how sometimes people like come into your life who just like kind of give you that like next step to

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that next ch you know what I mean? That's so cool. Like she entered your life and then kind of led you to this path. Um which happens to be where you are today. But also, you know, like if the door didn't close at NBCT10, it wouldn't have opened for other opportunities. So, you know, it's cliche, but you know, when a door closes, a window opens. Like, it's really cool to see um how that happened. And yeah, I mean, 2008 when the you know, financial crisis recession hit, yeah, communications jobs were were not

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um were not easy to find. So, I think certainly Yeah. So, so how do you feel that um you know getting going from an associates to a bachelor's to a master's and thinking that you were going to be um on like an a teacher you know did you think you were going to be a certified teacher at some point or were you kind of not sure when I was at Manor I thought I would but I was also not sure because I went to classroom like I had student teach and things like that and I didn't really care for it that much

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being a room with 30 some kids and me trying to be excited about a subject like math which I hated or you know some other English class which I hated at the time. It made it hard and I was like maybe this isn't really for me but I still did it because I didn't know what else to do. Um so it was great that I found my friend and she introduced me to this field because I love what I do. Like not everybody can say that I love my job. Oh that's great. So tell us what do you do? Um you know and and how

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does it you know why do you love it so much? Um well I get to be outside pretty much all the time. That's the one thing. So, what's nice up like today, it's great. Um, I get to teach kids from, well, Edbrook, it's about three years old till up to 22 years old. So, I got a wide range of ages that I work with. And I teach the students how to use the long cane, how to travel independently on campus, how to travel apparently on SEPTA, in the city, in their home environment, at their work sites. Um, a

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lot of times we'll take trips to restaurants, museums, um, things like that. Mhm. And so I get to experience a lot of things I usually don't get to do. Uh now CO kind of messed up a lot of that. But before CO I would do a lot more trips like we went to the art museum institute. U if you call and say that you have a special trip planned whether you're low vision students for blind students. They put all these special tactile things out for you to try. You get access to areas that are closed off to everybody else. Uh so

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we went to Franklin one time. We got all this private um what I want to call them like just fossils and things like that that nobody that they don't they only put out for like when they have their big events. They brought those out for us to try out. We went to the uh what's it called? The Masonic Temple off Broad Street. We had private access to that the one time. That was very cool. So it's neat. I get to do a lot of different things that people don't get to do. My job is challenging at times.

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It is dangerous because I'd teach someone blind across the street by themselves and hope they don't get hurt. Um, yeah. Oh my goodness. Um, but how I mean h what a great way to serve others. Like that's what I'm thinking. Like it's such a cool, neat, unique way to truly give people like independence and freedom and like confidence, you know? That's so neat that you get to do that. And also, but what a what a huge age range. You said age 3 to 22. Yeah. at Overbrook. That's what it is. But I've worked other

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places from six months or nine months old up to I've had clients who are like in their 70s and 80s that needed cane training because their vision just disappeared because they got glaucoma or retinal detachment or diabetic retinopathy which the diabetes affects your eyes. Um so I've had a wide age range. I've worked at a prison with some clients before at great prison years ago. That was interesting and stressful at the same time. Sure. But it was a very unique and cool experience. Oh wow. Well, that that is so cool. I I mean I

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love talking to alumni, but I I really love talking to alumni who are like giving back in a way and like through their jobs. And I feel like so many particularly of our uh ECE degree alumni like they're all serving somehow some way whether they're teachers or they're working in um you know like administrators. But this is something I I've never really heard about frankly and I've never really thought about thought about it, but it's a great resource. Um, so do you feel like thinking back to your Manor

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education, like how do you see how your Manor education kind of set you up or impacted kind of what you're doing today? It showed me different ways to teach. So like Mike and Maddie, they the way they ran their classes, laidback, relaxed, talk to you as you know, personal not from a hierarchy thing. Um that's why I try to do all my lessons with most of my students. You know, just try to be more empathetic, calm voices, things like that. Um and at Manor, it taught me to, you know, embrace different people,

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different ideals because I work with, you know, all these age ranges, people from all different countries, all different cultures. So Manor was good at developing that because there was, when I went there was a wide range of people from everywhere. um at Manor. So, it really opened my eyes to that. Oh, that's great. Yeah, we still we still today um you know, you graduated almost 20 years ago and today we still have um you know, definitely diversity is huge and and it's so cool to like walk it through the cafeteria and you just see

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different cultures, different ethnicities, different backgrounds all over. I think we have students representing over 48 different countries um around the world. So it's really really cool that Manor you can say like it played a part in you understanding diversity and cultures and how you can have that today. That that's really special. What's like a common misconception about um working with people who are um blind and that that you want to like you know a mythbuster um they'll never ask to touch your face.

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I know that's been in movies where they want to feel your face or that's not a thing. Okay. They don't they barely want they don't I mean they want it tactile. Most kids want to touch things but they don't want to do that and you don't want them touching you anyway. The thing is they're blind or low vision but they hear very well. So, a lot of times when we're around public, people just stand there and be all quiet and I'm like, "They can still hear you. Please say hello. Say good morning. Say something."

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Right? Weird standing there looking at them, right? Um, which I'm going to tell you right now, it makes my older students very upset. People just stand there and they can tell they can tell when someone's staring at them, right? You can feel that presence. Yeah. Like, hello, I'm here. You know, if I'm in your way, please say something. I'll move over. Right. Um, and also the other thing is don't just approach them and, you know, try to help without talking to them first. Most people they're visually impaired. If

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they're standing still, they could be processing, you know, trying to figure out where they are in the store or on the sidewalk like because they're trying to locate either a business or an aisle. Yeah. If they want help, they'll call out for help. I've seen people go up to some of my students who are in stores and just grab their hands, start taking them somewhere to like a counter or something and they're like, "What are you, you know, why why are you touching me for one?" Right. Right. And two, I'm an

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individual. Ask me if I need your help. Don't just grow up and force yourself on me. Right. Right. Seek permission first. That that's that's good because maybe people just think, oh, like they must need help, but yeah, actually they're they're learning to not need help in some ways or to ask for it. Yeah, those are good. Those are good. um things that maybe people aren't thinking about. So, it's a good like PSA right there. Um so, so Tevis, what would be some advice that you have for current

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Manor students who are kind of, you know, in their studying in their degrees and, you know, it's it's hard. It's it feels like long days, long hours and sometimes it feels like h the goal is never going to come. But as someone who's on the other side of things, what's what would be some advice you give? Don't give up. Keep trying. Um, it might seem like it's far away, but you will eventually reach your goal if you just work at it. Now, you might not always get where you want to be, which is where I was. I didn't get to where I

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wanted to be, but then that means, as you said, one door closes, a window opens, whatever. Um, but keep trying. If you need help, ask for help. That's one big issue I think a lot of people don't understand. It's okay to need help. It's okay to ask for assistance. There's nothing wrong with that. Um, and just keep trying, you know. Um, goal, if you have a goal, try to reach it. you know, set a plan of some kind, right? Have a plan, have a goal, but ask for help to get there, you know? I think that's

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great. And I think at Manor especially, we want to be really, really helpful for our students. Like, we want to give them resources. We want to help them. And not just in the classroom, but like for a holistic experience. So, if you need help with food, if you need help with a job, if you need help with paying a bill, if you need help with something else going on in your life, we offer counseling, um you know, you need help with your health, like we try to really embrace the whole student because we

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realize like students are are busy, they work, they have families, um college is not the only thing on their on their plate right now. So, um I think I think you said that you did work when you were a student, right? Yeah, I worked non-stop. I never had I always had a job from the time I left high school till now. Even in grad school, I was working all the time, too. Yeah. Not the best idea at the time. It made it very hard. Yeah, I know. And it's hard to do. It's hard to juggle. Did you feel like any

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things particularly really helped you manage and balance working and being a college student? Um, not really. Just caffeine and the drive to get it done. When when I was in grad school for my internship, I probably drank like five or six cups of coffee every day just because I was so exhausted between good driving places because I my internship wasn't center-based. We went everywhere over Montgomery County. So I had to go everywhere. Then I had to do my courses, then I had to go to work and I had to

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file stuff in by deadlines every night. And yeah, so I was I was I didn't get a break till I was done and then I slept like three days straight. Oh my goodness. Well, uh, Tevis, it's been awesome hearing your story. I think it's one that talks about how like you can have maybe a rocky start and and not really not really be clear on what you want to do, but then like come to Manor and like people will support you and give you help and show you empathy and then you can go on to other things. And you know, you went from not being a

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great high school student to having now three college degrees. I mean, that's pretty impressive when you kind of just like take a step back and look at it. So, major kudos to you. Um, you know, trying to follow in like your mom's footsteps with education and um and doing it in such a cool and meaningful way. And I always love trying to find alumni who are really living out our mission. You know, our the last statement in our mission says that we want to prepare students and graduates to serve society effectively and

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compassionately. And it feels like you are you are doing that. So thank you so much for No, you are. I mean definitely have to be celebrated for that. And I know that you you've given back to the college in some ways by dedicating your time and talents um talking to uh Dr. Crosby week's class. So thank you so much for doing that. That's really important. Um we love it when alumni come back and visit and can kind of share their wisdom with the next generation. So thank you for doing that. And who knows, maybe we'll find

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another um orientation and mobility specialist at Manor in the future. Um but thank you so much for spending time with us today and I wish you nothing but the best. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you for tuning in today. If you like what you heard, listen and subscribe on Spotify or YouTube and stay up-to-date with all new episodes by following Manor College on Instagram at Manor College. And that's a wrap on another episode of The Nest. Stories about life after Manor College. Remember, Blue Jays, you belong here

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always. [Music]