Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 7, 1995 TAG: 9505080031
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As Cheryl Hopson waited to receive her degree, she felt tears welling up.
Her wave of emotion wasn't caused by the fact that she hadn't been accepted to graduate school yet or that she was leaving old friends. Instead it was the moving words of Roanoke College's commencement speaker, Carol Swain.
"She was inspiring. She made me feel like I could go out and make it," said Hopson, who was one of about 300 Roanoke College graduates Saturday.
Even Roanoke Symphony Conductor Victoria Bond took time out to tell Swain how touched she was by her speech. Bond was honored with an honorary doctorate of fine arts at the ceremony.
Over the years, Swain has become used to the outpouring of emotion. Now words like 'inspiring' and 'role model' have become commonplace to her.
"I get that a lot," she said in an interview after the ceremony. "I hope to be an inspiration because I don't believe that I'm the exception."
But the 1983 Roanoke College graduate's tale is exceptional.
Here's a woman who dropped out of Monroe Junior High School, got married, had three children - one died of SIDS - and became a door-to-door evangelist all before she was 21 years old.
So who would have thought that 20 years later this woman would be a published author and associate professor at Princeton University?
No one would have. Not even Swain.
Being a political scholar was never a dream for the Bedford County native. All she was looking for was a way out of what she calls a "dysfunctional family."
Marriage, she thought, would be her escape route. So she dropped out of school and got a job. By age 16, she "said yes to the first person who asked."
But by 1975, Swain, who had always been a good student, wanted something more. "I knew I was a lot smarter than those other people who graduated" from high school, Swain said.
Swiftly, she got her GED and filed for divorce. Her associate's degree from Virginia Western Community College came next.
Still, she couldn't get a good job.
"They told me I needed a four-year degree," the 41-year-old said.
So she got one.
She worked nights and weekends at Virginia Western, while raising two sons. She graduated magna cum laude from Roanoke College, but not before she got a minority scholarship started.
By then she was on a roll.
Professors started seeking her out, telling her she could be a leader, a mentor, and pushing her to strive for more, she said.
"One degree led to another," she said, describing her journey from Virginia Tech to the University of North Carolina to Duke.
Along the way, there were problems. The time between her master's from Tech and her doctorate from UNC was the hardest. It was then that she wanted to close her books and give up.
She said she doesn't know how she stayed on track, just that somehow she did.
But ever since childhood, Swain has been determined.
"If I got knocked down, I just would get back up and keep trying," she said.
That perseverance landed her at Princeton, where she is an associate professor of politics and public affairs.
"I knew that I would end up at Harvard or Princeton. I knew that I was good. I also knew I'd get tenure in three years."
And she did.
It just worked out that way, she said, as things often do for her.
Take her book "Black Faces, Black Interests: Representation of African-Americans in Congress." Although the book was overlooked for the award she thought it would receive, it wound up getting "a more prestigious award that I didn't even know it was being considered for."
Her book, however, didn't only bring prizes, it also drew fire.
That doesn't bother Swain.
"There needs to be people who say what they believe and take the heat," she said, and she's one of those people. "People who know me either love me or hate me. There's no in-between.
"I always felt that I had to prove something. I've spent all my life proving people wrong. I look at my friends with comfortable lives, and I wonder when I'll be able to stop proving."
She isn't sure what obstacle she'll be hurdling or barrier she'll be breaking down next, but she knows that there will be others.
"I have a book, and I have tenure, and I'm not satisfied. I won't be until I'm a full professor and publish another book. But even then I'll be worrying that it won't win as many prizes as the first one," she said.
But whatever the goal is, she knows she'll accomplish it.
"I have accomplished every major goal I've set for myself," Swain said.
by CNB