OC student gets boost from scholarship

When you meet David Jenkins, the thing that strikes you right away is his positive attitude.

That could be one reason he was awarded one of 10 Positively OC Presidential Scholarship recipients.

Under the program, 10 Positively OC Scholars will receive a two-year scholarship for tuition and fees. The OC website said “these scholars will be the trailblazers for future scholars – establishing benchmarks for campus and community engagement. These scholars will play an important role in leveraging social media to share positive messages and content with college stakeholders. Their tweets, posts, snaps and videos will blaze the trail for spreading positivity from a student’s lens while promoting the college, our programs and our services. Their involvement in #positivelyOC will impact student success and increase the college going and college completing culture in our region.”

Jenkins said he will graduate in 2023 with two associate degrees — one in biology and one in chemistry.

“And from there I will transfer to Texas A&M on our pathway program that we have with them and I’ll complete my bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences. If I maintain a high enough GPA, and pass the MCAT I’ll have early (admission) into and to the Texas A&M Medical School,” Jenkins said.

He has two daughters. His 13-year-old has decided she wants to be a doctor, too. Jenkins said, like him, she is unsure what part of medicine she wants to pursue.

Going after a college education and medical degree, Jenkins said he’s raising the bar for his family.

Being a first-time college student and aiming for a medical degree has put pressure on him, but Jenkins said he wants to inspire his family and give them something to aim for.

Director of Media Relations Cheri Dalton said OC has a partnership with A&M where if students successfully complete the curriculum, they are assured a place in the biomedical sciences program.

Tim Clark, communications instructor, said it is a 2 plus 2 articulation agreement. Biology Instructor Clovis Stacey has been the Odessa College representative for the program for many years, Clark said.

Clark said the scholarship came about through OC President Gregory Williams taking to Twitter to spread as much “positivity” around as possible.

“… As part of that, we started thinking how can we get our students involved?” Clark said.

Clark said he was tasked with leading a committee to get students to apply and walk them through the process.

“We had an application process and students were asked to answer three questions and then we looked at things … such as GPA. They needed to be full-time students, as well,” Clark said. “… Based on the responses, we did a blind selection where we had everybody that applied. The committee went through and evaluated their applications and each individual committee member scored on a one through five basis, and we got our top 20 students and we repeated the process and ended up with our top 10. It was done completely blind. …,” Clark said.

Jenkins is a 2007 graduate of Permian High School, joined the U.S. Army for two years and was stationed in Fort Benning, Ga. He received a medical discharge after suffering appendicitis and had an allergic reaction to the medication he was given.

He is president of Phi Theta Kappa at OC.

When he started at OC, Jenkins said he had $300 to his name, which was enough to pay for one class. The class was coupled with another class that he couldn’t afford to pay for, so he went to financial aid and found out he could get aid through the OC Foundation. He was still waiting for his FAFSA to be approved.

The Positively OC Scholarship can be $1,500 per long semester and students can be awarded it four times total, Clark said.

For every 1,000 followers that Williams gets on Twitter, 10 additional students will receive the scholarship.

“So our hope is by next fall, we’ll be giving out at least 20,” Clark said.

One of the things students are challenged to do is participate in the college’s weekly Twitter chats.

“And then the next step is to continue to challenge their classmates to do so,” Clark said.

Clark said there are so many students out there doing great things.

“… Hopefully helps him not have to worry about paying for some of the classes and rewards his hard work,” Clark said. “But we know that there are amazing students that have amazing stories here on campus, so we want to try to get them into the limelight as much as possible and really put a magnifying glass on some of the things that our students are doing. We’ll continue to challenge him to get other students to both apply for this and also follow him on Twitter and participate in the thing is because that’s the way we think we get better as a school and as a community,” he added.