A professor's encouraging words made all the difference

Jesse Prather begins his Grand Canyon University online classes by addressing students’ common fear: I’m not sure I have what it takes to get a degree.

So the full-time faculty member tells his story.

“I grew up in poverty. My father was an alcoholic who took his own life when I was 11. My mother then spiraled and became an addict. I saw drug use daily, drug dealers in my house, domestic violence. I grew up with no electricity, no food, no water for several years as young teenager.

“I am the first person in my family to graduate. And I have five degrees. I broke generational curses of my family and the cycles. I have twin daughters who are 16. They never lived a day like I had to.

“It doesn’t matter where you started. Everyone is going to have different obstacles. But if you want to overcome those obstacles, you have the capacity to do it. … Limitations are self-inflicted.”

Listening in on the university success introductory course six years ago was Matt Pomrenke, who then was just six months clean.

Pomrenke started with alcohol as a teen and got into opiates after a car accident, he said. By his 30s, he was using 4 grams of fentanyl a day, had lost 50 pounds and was down to 122. When his dealer got busted, he finally went to treatment, before moving to Oregon to work in a cell phone store. It dawned on him he was working with employees trying to game the system and needed to get out.

“I thought, there has to be an answer, there has to be an off-ramp,” he said. “Why did I choose drugs over other things in my life? I wanted to understand that.”

Pomrenke enrolled at GCU in 2019 to seek a degree in counseling. After he heard Prather the first day of his online courses, he opened up, shared with the class and his professor. He had doubts. He wasn’t sure this would work out.

Then he got this email from Prather.

“I hope this finds you well. As we are ending our course next week, I wanted to reach out to you.  You have been an exceptional student in our class, and I sincerely appreciate your efforts. I have been an instructor for closing in on nine years, and I have developed an incredibly strong ‘sense’ about students that are going to graduate. Over the years I have been right almost 100% of the time. I want you to know I believe you will be one that graduates and does great things after you are done with school. I wish you the best as you move forward, and always remember that I believe in your abilities to succeed.” – Jesse C. Prather, MSL, MAED, MSAC

“I’d never received anything like that before,” Pomrenke said. “Here I am, 38-39, going back to school, thinking, ‘Shoot I can’t do this.’ And this email, as simple as it was, set an expectation of myself and what I can do.

“It started off my collegiate career right, just going from that despair of living an active addiction to, hey, you were just told you did a great job by one of your professors.”

It wasn’t easy, as Prather had warned. Pomrenke had times he felt like quitting, but he kept going, often pulling out that email when he was stuck, and making a promise. If he ever finished, he would send the professor a note to thank him.

In August 2022, he wrote this email to Prather, after graduating with a bachelor’s degree and, he said, a 3.92 grade point average.

“There were times when I thought that this assignment, paper or project is good enough, I should turn it in like it is. I would then think back and find more motivation when I remembered that someone else believed in me. Coming from active addiction and the person I was at the time, having someone believe in me was strange and uncomfortable. I can see now that there was a reason for all that I went through.”

Prather said he often hears from students because he isn’t a faceless entity, has made them feel comfortable, and lets them know that not everyone comes from an “easy background” and may have self-doubts.

“Can I do this? I try help them understand, yes you can,” he said. “It’s not going to be easy always, but you can do it.”

Pomrenke not only did it, he went on to study toward a master’s degree at GCU in addiction counseling, passing forward his own brand of encouragement.

During an internship, he recalls working in a group session with addicts, one young lady a 20-year user only 30 days clean. He told her, “It’s OK to want to use drugs or alcohol, it’s not OK to use drugs or alcohol.”

“She started to cry. ‘You mean I am allowed to want to use drugs and alcohol, even though I know I’m not going to?’ It’s the first time she had been given permission to feel what she is feeling. She is going to get through today without using drugs, even though she wants to. That’s what it’s all about.”

By last December, while working at Molina Healthcare in Jacksonville, Florida, helping those in treatment with housing, food and employment, Pomrenke finished requirements toward his master’s degree.

He didn’t forget where it all started, overcoming the times he lacked motivation or felt like an imposter. “I wondered where I would be if I had not gotten that email,” said Pomrenke, 45.

So before last April’s commencement, he again wrote to Prather, who said he was amazed and humbled that his words stuck with a student for six years.

“I marked this date on my calendar to thank you again for the encouragement in that first class. I looked at that date, and it was June 3, 2019, almost six years ago. There have been more than a couple times I wondered if I made the right decisions, could complete either degree program and if I made the right choices. I would look back at that email, take a break for a day, and then keep at it. 

My close friend and first sponsor has something he does when he sits down to eat a meal; he shares, and asks for others to share, three things they are grateful for. In closing, my three things are:

Robert "Matt" Pomrenke

MS”

Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at [email protected]

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