
The circumstances of Caroline Jamesâs childhood made a college education look like a fantasy. Until she was placed in foster care as a 10âyearâold, her home was filled with drug addiction, schizophrenia, and physical and emotional abuse.
She recalls being burnt with irons, punched in the face by her father, and told almost daily that she was ugly, a disappointment, talentless, and stupid. In grade school, she didnât apply herself and often received bad grades because she thought that by trying, she might prove her father right.
However, despite the disadvantages of her youth, James eventually graduated from The University of Alabama magna cum laude, working with the Blackburn Institute, Alabama REACH, and the McNair Scholars program along the way. She went on to teach fifth grade in low-income areas in Louisiana and received a national teaching award in 2014.
But her most recent achievement has been competing against 9,000 other hopefuls for a place as a Master of Philosophy student at the No. 2 university in the worldâthe University of Cambridgeâand receiving the prestigious international Gates-Cambridge Scholarship to fund the entirety of her education and travel costs.
âItâs the greatest honor to even make it to the interview process,â James said of the scholarship, which is awarded to only 40 of the 800 qualified U.S. applicants each year. âThey are trying to create a network of leaders who are some of the best in their fields, which is why I think they have so many different levels of vetting. They are trying to find the crem de la cremâthose who are specifically interested in applying their unique talents and skill sets to changing and improving the socio-political climate of the world.â

James was accepted to all of the graduate programs she applied to, but she accepted the offer at Cambridge because it is the premiere institution for studying the democratization of education.
Certainly, Jamesâs path has been paved through her hard work, tenacity, and grit, but she is also the first to point out that without luck and a lot of support, her hard work alone would not have gotten her where she is today.
âThere is a problem with propagating the idea that folks who grew up on the wrong end of the tracks, so to speak, just need to work harder,â James said. âIf we tell students that they need to work harder to pay for books, schooling, and housing, then the students have to sacrifice their academic opportunities. They have to sacrifice internships, leadership opportunities, and community service opportunitiesâand these are the kinds of things that make them incredibly competitive for scholarships, jobs, and graduate school.
âItâs not just about hard work; itâs about communities supporting students throughout their education.â
When James came to campus in 2008, she was determined to leave her life of abuse, foster care, and disadvantage behind her. She felt the need to prove herselfâto prove that she deserved the opportunities of a university education, and she didnât want to be branded for her past; she wanted to be seen for her intelligence and her talents.
But for at-risk youth like James, determination is rarely enough to overcome the cards they are dealt in childhood. James wanted to study, but she didnât have money for books. She wanted to learn, but she didnât have money for food. She wanted to thrive, but she didnât even have a place to live.

âMy friends were allowing me to eat off their meal plansâand then even that fell through,â James recalled. âIt was an amazingly stressful environment for me to be in school, and I remember thinking after that first semester, âThis is not going to work for me. Perhaps college is just not for me. Perhaps this isnât my lot in life.ââ
In her first semester, James failed every course sheâd signed up for as a result of her emotional and physical duress. Still, she wasnât ready to give in. As a last-ditch effort to avoid joining the 96 percent of foster youth who donât graduate from college, James walked into Clark Hall to meet with then-associate dean of student affairs Dr. Ann Webb.
âI remember Ann Webb coming out, and she was busy at that point, but she made the time to speak to me,â James recalled. âShe very simply said to me, âWhatâs going on? Tell me about your semester,â and I broke down crying.â
Through her tears, James explained the gravity of her circumstance and tried to make it absolutely clear that her grades were not a reflection of her intelligence or her investment.
âI knew and still know nothing whatsoever about her family circumstances,â Webb recalled of the conversation. âI remember having to really probe her as to whether or not she ate breakfast that morningâand whether or not she had had anything to eat the day before. But I did sense that this was a very, very bright young woman who was pretty much going hungry because she didnât have people to turn to.â
Using discretionary funds and appropriate scholarships at her disposal, Webb immediately bought James a meal card and then helped to purchase her books, secure her housing, and erase the failing grades from her academic record so that she could repeat the semester with a clean slate.
âWhen I walked out of that office, I felt as though I had been given an opportunity to participate in an education system that was not a part of my birthright,â James said. âIt was that powerful for me. It was absolutely earth shattering.â
And it wasnât a one-time intervention on Jamesâs behalf either.
âDr. Webb was able to recognize, after resolving the immediate emergency, that my situation needed to change in order to keep me from going through this every semester,â James said. âShe found donors who would show up for me every semesterâand they didâevery single semester until I graduated.â
Over her four years at The University of Alabama, James received eight scholarships, awarding her more than $11,000.
âAll of the things that I was able to doâworking with the mayor on diversity day, working on Alabama REACH, doing research as a McNair Scholar, and working with the Blackburn Instituteâwould not have been possible had someone just said to me âYou need two jobs.â
âDr. Webb looked at me and she said, âI want you to bring your best self. How can I support that?ââ
The help James received, not only from Webb but also multiple faculty mentors, became part of the impetus for her participation in Alabama REACH, a UA program that helps foster youth, wards of the state, homeless youth, and others receive the resources and support they need to succeed while in school.
âI didnât want another student to go through what I had to go through to get help,â James said. âI didnât want them to feel the shame that I felt when I came with my arms open asking, and I knew that the help couldnât be done in one-off silos. It needed to be built into the systemâcatching students before they drop out.â
In the early years of the REACH program, James served as a student voiceâhelping the founding leaders to understand what being a foster student is really like. She also helped to organize activities for foster youth and tried to help build their on-campus community. In the process, James said that she realized how important it was to speak about her past and be a voice for the upcoming generation of at-risk youth.
âBefore REACH, I had been so focused on redeeming myself and showing people that I deserved to be at UAâbecause I was a leader and an intellectualâthat I actually separated myself from my own narrative,â James said. âBut I came to understand that if folks like me went to school and became successful but werenât willing to talk about their gritty narratives, then they couldnât build a system that would actually help other students to make it through school.â
After she graduated with a degree in New Collegeâin the top 10 percent of her classâJames moved to Louisiana to teach fifth graders in low-income areas where educational opportunities are often limited.
Her focus there was to give the students the opportunity and resources to critically evaluate their worldâas they might in a top-tier school elsewhere in the country. In part, James achieved this by helping her students to see themselves as leaders, whose life circumstances, though challenging and hard, had given them unique characteristics like grit that could propel them to success.

âOne popular misconception about at-risk youth is that their life of hardship gives them nothingâand only depletes their spirit,â James said. âThat is entirely untrue.
âIn fact, a number of studies have shown that one of the most important characteristics for any leader in any industry is gritâand I think that the greatest way to develop grit is to have gone through some strife. The reality is, kids who live through the kinds of circumstances I lived through are going to be gritty people. Theyâre going to show up. Theyâre going to fight. Theyâre going to get done what they need to get done.â
The other part of Jamesâs success was in situating each academic subject within the context of her studentsâ lives. Instead of just teaching percentages, she had her students analyze the ways that news outlets present incarceration rates. Instead of just reading books, she related the stories to things like domestic violence and womenâs rights.
âI built my units to address things that get at the core of who my students are,â James said. âIt stirs up conversations they would likely never have in a classroom otherwise.â
For her work with her students, James received the Sue Lehmann Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2014, and soon afterward she realized that she wanted to do more.
âI recognized that when my students would go to a new teacher the next year, they likely would not have a curriculum that would allow them to explore their world,â James said. âThey would return to thinking of math only in terms of numbers and reading only in terms of facts. I wanted give them this transformational education throughout their entire educational experience because thatâs what was going to change their lives.â
As a result, James shifted from teaching youth to teaching teachers. She worked in teacher development for a year and a halfâhelping two of her students receive nominations for their own national teaching awardsâand then realized that she still had more to learn.
âIt was time for me to be developed, so I began looking for programs around the world that were redefining education,â James said. âThe top one was Cambridge.â
In preparation for her studies at Cambridge, James spent her summer in Chicago working as a non-profit GED instructor so that she could see the ways that education, or the lack thereof, impacts peopleâs lives. She also participated in and spoke at the Ten for Ten Kids Conference, which chose 100 leaders from around the United States to serve as a think tank for redesigning child welfare.
âMost of the folks who are improving our systems in the United States have already come in with an answerâeven when research and ground-level interactions prove otherwise,â James said. âBut I am trying to be as open as I can. Iâm immersing myself in as much information as I can so that I will ask the right questions, do the right research, and come to the right conclusions about where our education system needs to go.
âIâm no longer just a first-generation college student,â James added. âI am well beyond that at this pointâheading off to one of the most prestigious schools in the world with one of the most prestigious scholarships in the worldâand that would not have happened without the support of people like Dr. Webb, Dr. Hawk, Dr. Black, Dr. Roach, Karen Baynes-Dunning, and other UA faculty.â â