Dr. Kendra Sharp has worn so many hats in higher ed — she’s worked in fundraising, residence life, student affairs, student success and advising. “It’s been a long road,” she says.
Dr. Kendra Sharp
The adage may also apply to her own educational journey. A prior honors student and student-athlete, Sharp says she was “hanging out with the wrong people, doing the wrong things” in high school. She went on to obtain her GED at the local community college and matriculated to St. Augustine’s University, a private historically Black university in Raleigh, N.C., with an enrollment of just under 1,000 students.
Sharp recently completed her doctorate in urban higher education leadership through Jackson State University’s executive Ph.D. program and dedicated her dissertation to her younger self.
“This is who you always were anyway. Welcome back. I knew that you could do this the whole time,” all-grown-up Kenya tells her 18-year-old “delinquent” self.
Now she has found a niche, encouraging other scholars — especially graduate students of color — to persist through an Instagram page she founded to overcome her own self-doubt.
“Scholar Stuff was a page on Instagram that I started about a year and a half ago just as a way to share my experience as a grad school student at Jackson State,” she says. “I was going through a lot of emotions: imposter syndrome, [questioning] ‘can I do it?’ … still working full-time.”
Sharp figures that, if she was going to be on social media anyway, she might as well share her story about graduate school, as possible inspiration to others.
