Student started her nursing journey just before turning 60
Photos by Ralph Freso / Thursday morning photos/ Thursday afternoon photos/ Livestream
Renee Caggiano didn’t hesitate.
“I just jumped,” she said about nursing school, the hardest thing she’s ever had to do.
Caggiano spent most of her professional life in the travel industry, working for many years for Alaska Airlines and then becoming an executive travel counselor at American Express Global Business Travel.
But with nursing, “I had no medical experience,” she said. “I could tell you airline codes, but jumping in (and becoming a nurse), it was pretty scary. You have to have a lot of support.”
What made it even more terrifying was that Caggiano, who took part in Grand Canyon University fall commencement ceremonies for cohort and online students on Thursday, decided to go back to school and switch careers just before turning 60, after her daughter gave her some sage advice.
Six years ago, her son-in-law died from a heart attack, leaving her daughter and seven children behind. That’s when her daughter told her, “Mom, life’s too short. Go live your dream.”
So after her job with American Express became remote, Caggiano packed her bags and moved to Maui. Her ex-sister-in-law lived there, and she had always thought it was where she wanted to be.
“I was going to stay with her until I found a place,” said Caggiano, but then her ex-sister-in-law was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and “for a year and a half, I lived there, worked from home and I was kind of a caretaker, not physically, but she couldn’t drive, couldn’t cook. I did all that for her.”
Her niece in Maui was a nurse, and living there opened her eyes to the medical field, Caggiano said.
After her ex-sister-in-law moved into an assisted living facility, “I didn’t know what to do, because of the cost of living in Hawaii. I was in a parking lot just crying because I had just looked at this place. It was so expensive,” she said, and that’s when her son told her to just come home.
He had moved back to Arizona and his wife was having pregnancy complications.
“So I got rid of everything, packed two suitcases and came back to Arizona,” she said.
It was her son, this time, who gave her some advice: “Mom, you help everybody, why don’t you become a nurse?
“I said, ‘I’ve been thinking about it,'" Caggiano told him.
But she didn’t think about it long.
She went to Carrigan College so she could become a registered nurse and start working, but she knew she wanted to get her bachelor’s degree in nursing and there was only really one university she wanted to attend.
Years ago, she and her husband were students at Grand Canyon, but life started happening, and neither of them finished their degree.
To return to GCU to do that, “That was always my dream,” Caggiano said. “When I was 18 and I graduated from high school, I was getting married, and me and my husband at the time, we were both enrolled at GCU. Then after I got married, I got pregnant too soon. We both dropped out and it has always been, I’ve got to get back, I’ve got to get back.”
It isn't Caggiano’s only tie to the university.
Growing up, her family attended North Phoenix Baptist Church, which once served as a temporary home for students when GCU first moved to Phoenix from Prescott. Students in 1951 attended classes at First Southern Phoenix and North Phoenix Baptist churches until construction on the university’s first nine buildings were completed in a whirlwind construction blitz.
“My family was really involved with Grand Canyon at that time,” she said, especially her father, Gary, who was an ironworker and artist at the time.
When ironwork became too much, her dad got a job in security at the university, and one of the legacies he left behind is a sculpture of GCU's first president, Willis Ray. The bronze bust still sits in the Academic Administration building, right at the entrance to campus.
“I was a kid when we went up to Prescott to have it bronzed,” Caggiano said.
There are other ties to GCU, too.
Her sister, who is now a doctor, was among the first nurses to graduate from Grand Canyon when it was still Grand Canyon College. Her aunt graduated from the business program, and a niece got her nursing degree from GCU.
Caggiano is now part of that tradition and GCU history, crossing the commencement stage as the university celebrates its 75th anniversary this year.
Allison Griffeth, her students services counselor in the College of Nursing and Health Care Professions, said of Caggiano, "Renee has been a wonderful and hard-working student during her time with us at GCU. It’s been a pleasure to help her on this journey and so wonderful to see her accomplish her goals."
“It’s just so sad that my dad’s not here,” Caggiano said, though she’s received a lot of support from her family – from her children, especially, who nudged her to live her dream, and from her 11 grandchildren and one great-grandchild, too.
Caggiano is working in the clinical research division for the American Red Cross, where she’s part of the therapeutic apheresis process to help patients with prostate cancer. It’s a process in which in which abnormal cells or substances that are associated with or cause certain diseases are removed from blood that has been extracted. The blood then is infused to boost white blood cells in their attack of cancer cells.
“It’s amazing research what they’ve come up with,” she said. “I did my first stick yesterday (on Monday).”
It will be the first of many firsts for Caggiano, who might just be the biggest cheerleader for anyone who wants to write a new chapter in their life.
“Just do it,” she said. “Don’t look back, just go for it.”
Manager of Internal Communications Lana Sweeten-Shults can be reached at [email protected] or at 602-639-7901.
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Also from fall commencement:
GCU News: Student’s reunion with teacher enriches her doctoral journey
GCU News: Her world grew bigger meeting these women online, then at commencement
