Our people: Higher education stole Jennifer Duke's heart

Who is Jennifer Duke?

"Jennifer Duke is a work in progress," she said as she sat in her office at Clovis Community College.

The college academic advisor shared what she does know about herself with The News on Monday afternoon.

Q: Where were you born?

A: Concord, Calif. I was born at the base of Devil's Mountain at dawn when the sun and the moon were both on the horizon during a solar eclipse.

Q: Where have you been?

A: I grew up in Farmington and Clovis; Des Moines, Iowa and Ithaca, N.Y.

I did my adulting in San Antonio, Texas.

Q: Where would you like to go?

A: I'd love to see Ireland.

Another place I'd like to see is Pakistan.

Ireland because I am mostly Irish.

Pakistan because it was my focus of my study in college.

It's a beautiful country.

Q: What brought you to Clovis?

A: I grew up here and returned at my mom's request.

She asked me to return and help her around the homestead, so I did.

Q: Tell us about your family.

A: My father's family is from Farmington.

My mom's family is from Clovis.

They met in the late 1960s when my dad was a broadcasting student at Eastern New Mexico University.

After graduating, they decided Dad was going to be a "world famous DJ" so they moved to San Francisco, which is why I was born in Concord.

By the time I was 18 months old they had given up the ghost and returned to New Mexico.

Which is how my family is entirely New Mexican, but I was born in California.

Q: What did you want to be when you grew up?

A: I wanted to be an ecologist.

After my first semester at college, I realized I wasn't good at lab sciences.

Then I discovered geography.

What I wanted to do with that was work with the U. S. State Department.

Q: What is your career field?

A: My soul belongs to higher education.

I worked my way through college at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

And as so often happens with higher education professionals, it stole my heart, I never left.

Q: What exactly do you do at CCC?

A: I am an academic advisor.

On paper that means I help students complete their degree plans.

But I like to think I do more.

I help students connect to their dreams and their goals.

I help them believe in themselves.

Q: What is your philosophy in dealing with students?

A: College is for everybody.

There is no, quote, "right way" to do college.

Maybe you start when you're 18, maybe you start when you're 30.

Maybe you take one class, maybe you take five.

Maybe your goal is a degree, maybe it's job training or maybe you always wanted to learn how to paint.

Q: Who inspires you?

A: My parents.

My parents were creative, artistic, intelligent, brave, kind, open-minded and extremely funny.

I miss them every day, but I see them in my daughter and my son.

They both exemplify the qualities of their grandparents.

Q: What is your favorite book?

A: Currently it's "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern.

I love books that have magic just around the corner in everyday life.

In my 20s my favorite book was Doris Lessing's "Shikasta."

Q: What's your "go to" snack?

A: Coffee is my "go to."

I'm Generation X.

Coffee and Gen X go together like bread and butter, like peanut butter and jelly.

Q: What is something about you that most folks don't know?

A: In 1987 I lost the Highland Elementary School talent show to Josefita Griego.

I juggled in the middle of the gym while Jason Dudley rode a unicycle around me and intermittently used a basketball to make baskets.

Josefita sang the theme song from "An American Tail."

Q: What do you do on your off hours?

A: I work a second higher ed job.

I also play video games and listen to horror movie podcasts.

Q: Window or aisle airplane seat?

A: Window, because I don't want to deal with people jostling in the aisle, passing things back and forth.

I just want to sit down, put my headphones on and relax.

Q: What's your first memory?

A: Standing between the seats in my parents' car, driving down the highway, listening to "A Horse with No Name" on the radio.

I was 18 months old and we were on our way to New Mexico.

Q: What's your favorite dish?

A: I love tacos.

You can do anything with them. You can even have a chocolate taco.

I don't have a favorite.

With such perfection, how could you?

Q: What's your favorite saying?

A: "There are many paths to the same summit."