VanBennekom is graduating summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in communication and certificates in public relations and health communication, as well as a certificate from the Pierre Laclede Honors College. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

Hope VanBennekom has spent a lot of time thinking about Saturday afternoon’s walk across the commencement stage at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.

“It’s been almost 20 years in the making,” she said recently.

VanBennekom, who is taking part in a commencement ceremony for graduates of the College of Arts and Sciences, will earn her bachelor’s degree in communication while graduating summa cum laude with certificates in public relations and health communication as well as a certificate from the Pierre Laclede Honors College. That’s all coming nearly two decades after she received her associate degree in early childhood education.

She’d known for a while that she wanted to return to school, but she kept putting it off while raising her two kids and helping support her husband Kurt’s budding military and legal career.

His time in the U.S. Army and the Judge Advocate General’s Corps took them from Indiana to Michigan to Virginia, then to Kentucky, Alaska and South Carolina, with multiple overseas deployments along the way.

That left VanBennekom to take on the bulk of the parenting responsibilities, and she also homeschooled their kids, in part to spare them starting and stopping at so many new schools.

The family was facing another move – this one overseas – in 2021, near the time her 16-year-old daughter was preparing to begin college at Michigan State University.

“After years of deployments, we were just kind of at a breaking point,” she said. “I wanted to go back to school. He was facing three more deployments and three one-year back-to-back-to-back moves. I was like, ‘We really need to reevaluate.’”

Kurt was ready to make a change, too, so he transitioned out of the military and landed a job as an attorney connected with the U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois. It gave them a chance, for the first time, to set down some roots.

One of the first things VanBennekom did as they settled in Cedar Hill, Missouri, was Google local universities.

“That’s how I ended up at UMSL,” she said. “I would like to say that it was this long, detailed search, but it was the first one on the Google search, and I applied.”

At the time, VanBennekom wasn’t certain what she wanted to study – or to what end – but she believed her strong writing skills made communication a logical choice. Teaching Professor Jill Alexander remembers meeting her at an informational event in the fall of 2022 when she stopped by to inquire about the PR certificate program.

VanBennekom enrolled at the university and was admitted into the Honors College in January 2023. A few weeks later, she’d discover her calling.

On Feb. 13, 2023, a 43-year-old man opened fire at Michigan State, killing three students and injuring five others. VanBennekom’s daughter, Lillian, was in her freshman year at the school and majoring in microbiology with a minor in epidemiology.

“My daughter called me from a closet, and I talked to her for four hours as I was Googling all these safety procedures,” she said. “I’m a homeschool mom, so school shootings are not something I taught my children. I never want to feel that vulnerable ever again.”

Lillian wound up being photographed with other mourning students near a popular gathering space on the Michigan State campus in the aftermath, and the image got picked up by Getty Images and shared around the globe.

VanBennekom, meanwhile, found herself consuming every piece of information the university sent out to parents about the shooting and its plans to restore safety and students’ sense of comfort.

“I read every single word, all of these intricate plans,” she said. “I thought, ‘I want to be the person that writes these strategic plans.’ While it was horrific and students died, it really catapulted me into emergency management and crisis communications.”

VanBennekom decided to pursue a certificate in health communication in addition to a certificate in public relations, believing the combination would be useful in her intended career.

She completed internships with St. Louis Public Radio and St. Louis Giving Machine. Along the way, she also received several scholarships, including the Mark McDonough Memorial Scholarship, the Red Scholarship and the Rise Up STL Scholarship.

It wasn’t always easy being back in school after so much time away. She sometimes felt out of place alongside her often younger peers.

“When I got my first degree, I turned in my assignments on floppy disks, so my classmates taught me how to use things like Canva, Canvas, VoiceThread – all of these new programs that exist,” VanBennekom said. “I really needed what they had to teach me, and I’m so grateful for all of those classmates who did take the time.”

But the discussion-based courses offered in the Honors College also showed her how much she had to offer her classmates by sharing her life experience. She also felt empowered being in that environment.

“The faith that they put in me to be an honors student changed something in me, and I did everything I could to make the Honors College feel like I was a worthy candidate,” she said. “I did everything I could to be the best student possible.”

She’s built strong relationships with faculty members – and mentors – such as Alexander, Stephanie Van Stee and Shannon Ahrndt in the Department of Communication and Media, and she’s also made an imprint on them.

“Hope is highly motivated to achieve her goals and takes every opportunity to learn and grow,” Van Stee said.

VanBennekom’s walk across the commencement stage will have extra meaning because she had a serious fall near the start of the semester that left her wheelchair-bound for six weeks. She had to use a walker to get around for nearly two more months and has only recently gotten back to walking without assistance, though she’s still recovering from torn ligaments in her knee.

After completing her degree, VanBennekom will focus on another move – but only for the next two years. She has been accepted to the Master of Security and Disaster Management program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and will relocate to the Last Frontier while pursuing her degree. She hopes to find a job working in emergency management after she’s finished.

VanBennekom is making sure to appreciate what she’s already accomplished as part of this weekend’s festivities, with her husband and two children in attendance.

“I have put my family first for all of these years,” she said. “This time it’s me – it hasn’t been me yet. We’re a family that supports each other. I think it’s going to be really beautiful, and I’m really excited that we’ll all be together.”