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Chain reaction

Gonzales family finds opportunity through Maricopa Colleges’ ACE program

From left: Vivian Gonzales, Marylyn Wilson, Lucy Gonzales

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Vivian’s journey

In 1988 Vivian Gonzales was a student at Camelback High School in Phoenix, but she believed her future looked bleak.

“I didn’t think college was for me,” says Vivian, now in her mid-30s and a successful career woman. “I thought it was just for smart kids that got perfect grades and for rich people. It seemed impossible for me to imagine that college was an option because I didn’t know one person who went to college.”

She still recalls the day she received an application for the Maricopa Achieving a College Education (ACE) program at South Mountain Community College. “I was unsure about applying, but my mother encouraged me to give it a try,” Gonzales says.  “I was very surprised to be accepted into a college program. After starting ACE, my high school grades improved. I believed that if I was smart enough to go to college, I should be doing well in high school.”

Like Vivian, many other students have benefited from the boost in self-esteem that often comes with academic success. The Gonzales family knows; three women from the family have graduated from ACE and pursued higher education.

Vivian had accumulated 22 college credits by the time she graduated from high school. She transferred to SMCC and graduated with an Associate of Arts degree in geography. She was valedictorian of her class. During her time at SMCC, the ACE program afforded her another opportunity that would lead to her eventual career.

Her advisor encouraged her to apply for a student job with the Bureau of Reclamation. There, she worked as a clerk in the photogrammetric division, working with people making topographic maps.

Vivian went on to graduate from Arizona State University with a B.A. in geography and was then hired as a cartographer by the Bureau of Reclamation. Today, she is a water resources planner in the Program Development Division. She has been with the bureau for 20 years.

Now a confident professional, Vivian says things were different when she first joined ACE. “I didn’t have much self-esteem, especially in regards to my education. I developed confidence in myself because there was somebody who believed in me.

“For the first time, I thought I was somebody and I could do whatever I put my mind to.”

Marylyn goes to college, too

Vivian’s sister, Marylyn Wilson, was a struggling high school student at Camelback High.

“My freshman year of high school, I was a poor student, frequently ditching class and making poor grades,” Marylyn explains. “My priorities were outside of education, and I lacked the self-confidence to see myself as an important and successful person well into the future.”

After Vivian joined ACE, Marylyn took notice of her sister’s sudden blossoming. “I admired the esteem of her being a full-blown, successful college student with job offers and career options. For the first time, I saw there was a future out there that I could shape, and that college would allow me the choices to shape it in a positive way.”

Marylyn applied and was accepted into the ACE program. “After Vivian showed that it could be done, I began to find success in college through the ACE program,” Marylyn recalls.

Like her sister, Marylyn graduated with an associate degree from SMCC. She transferred to Grand Canyon University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in chemistry. She continued her education and attended Midwestern University’s pharmacy school.

“As I stood on the stage at Jobing.com Arena in 2005 receiving my Doctor of Pharmacy degree, I was very proud of my success and grateful that I was able to share it with the members of my family who had inspired me those many years before,” she says. “I felt overwhelmed at the start of college, having just become a mother. But fresh from two years of the ACE program, I had received guidance and support on how to be successful in college.”

Marylyn credits ACE counselors Stella Torres, Buddy Cheeks and Debbie Bies. “[They] believed in me and gave me the self-confidence to keep going. They taught me the essential nonacademic skills, such as how to apply for financial aid, look for scholarships, and schedule classes. They taught me good study skills and habits that helped me to balance education with the demands of life. Because of that help, I had made it, and I’m sure I couldn’t have without ACE.”

Marylyn also credits her instructors, who prodded her to fulfill her potential. “Those professors showed me that my strengths were in math and science, which I’ve since made my life out of,” she says. “I’ve faced many barriers and challenges to education, including the most challenging of all: the feeling I had that I was not smart enough to be successful in college. From humble beginnings to single motherhood to poor self-esteem, the ACE program has helped me to overcome the challenges of my young adulthood and allowed me the freedom to use education to take control of my own life.”