Before her son Romeo entered the world, weighing eight pounds and just under 15 ounces, Thereasa Gordon made a plan: become the first in her family to attend and graduate from university \u2013 all while raising her child as a single parent.<\/p>\n
She says she wanted to set an example for her son by demonstrating that it\u2019s possible to attain goals that are seemingly beyond reach. And when people doubted her plan to one day don a black gown \u2013 and many did \u2013 she looked within herself for strength.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just have my baby and my dreams,\u201d she would say.<\/p>\n
Now, Gordon is set to graduate with distinction from the University of Toronto Mississauga on June 7 with an honours bachelor of arts in criminology and sociology. Her son and mother will be there to cheer her on.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, where I am right now, I\u2019m not surprised because I made a plan and I really said: I\u2019m going to stick to it and work hard,\u201d Gordon says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could see it before anyone else saw it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gordon was a business administration student at Humber College when she first learned she was pregnant. In order to get a job earlier and support her family, she transferred to the college\u2019s personal support worker certificate program. After graduating six months into her pregnancy, she took care of elderly clients and later worked in retail.<\/p>\n
In the fall of 2012, Romeo arrived and Gordon\u2019s priorities suddenly changed. She wanted to be a strong role model for her son. While she wasn\u2019t necessarily the best student in her youth, she vowed to go to every class, submit all her assignments on time, pursue top marks and improve her resume with extracurriculars. As well, she planned to keep working to pay the bills.<\/p>\n
She says it\u2019s as though a switch went off in her head.<\/p>\n
Gordon created a long-term plan. The first step was enrolling in a college diploma program by the time Romeo reached kindergarten. The first day he was at school after Christmas break, she began general arts courses at Sheridan College while relying on the support of her family. Her older brothers, Michael and Nicholas, built Romeo\u2019s bassinet, changed his diapers, taught him to ride a bike, customized his car-shaped bed with LED lights and took him to movies.<\/p>\n
Gordon\u2019s mom Genevieve, meanwhile, babysat to give her daughter a few more hours of study time and encouraged her pursuit of a post-secondary education. \u201cI know you can do it \u2013 and you will do it,\u201d Genevieve recalls telling her daughter.<\/p>\n
![\"Thereasa](\"https:\/\/www.utoronto.ca\/sites\/default\/files\/0531ThereasaGordon002-crop.jpg\"\/)
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In her classes at U of T Mississauga, Gordon drew on her personal experience to contribute to discussions on critical race theory, gender equality and food insecurity, among other issues (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)<\/p>\n
Gordon applied to five universities and was accepted to all of them. She chose U of T Mississauga and pursued a double major in criminology, law and society and sociology. Her educational goal was no longer limited to landing a good job \u2013 she wanted to be an advocate for people who have been denied opportunities in life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know what it\u2019s like to be a marginalized person in society and to be in a vulnerable state,\u201d Gordon says. \u201cI want to encourage and inspire people, so that when they think about their dreams, they go for them \u2013 even if only they can see them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arriving at the U of T Mississauga campus, Gordon says she sometimes felt out-of-place among students who often didn\u2019t look like her, came from different socio-economic backgrounds or were much younger. But she was right at home in class, where she drew on her experience to contribute to discussions on critical race theory, gender equality and food insecurity, among other issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like, in the lectures, the topics that we discussed and the level of detail, and how open we were \u2026 I really for the first time felt like I was in a room where I could learn a lot from others, and my thoughts were valued,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
She also made friends who were drawn to her maturity and sense of purpose.<\/p>\n
Neena Hayer, an art and art history major at U of T Mississauga, recalls meeting Gordon in a first-year political science course at a time when Hayer was having trouble adjusting to the pace and competing responsibilities of university life. \u201cShe made university much easier for me because our paths crossed when I was kind of struggling with balancing everything,\u201d Hayer says.<\/p>\n
Gordon, not surprisingly, had become an expert in managing multiple priorities.<\/p>\n
Her days typically started around 6:30 a.m. She dropped Romeo off at school in her car and then hopped on a bus to campus in order to save money on gas and parking. At the end of the day, she left class 10 minutes early to catch the bus home and pick up her son. After Romeo went to bed, Gordon stayed up into the wee hours writing essays and poring over textbooks.<\/p>\n
She took advantage of student loans, worked in the summers and landed a work-study position at U of T Mississauga\u2019s Career Centre, a job that helped her build confidence and grow a professional network.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis role allowed me to share my story and shed that imposter syndrome I had when I first entered U of T Mississauga,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Then COVID-19 hit. As the first wave of the pandemic swept across Canada, Gordon found herself grappling with a new set of challenges. Romeo, who has asthma and had been hospitalized in the past with milder respiratory viruses, was kept home from school and could no longer play sports.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, Gordon was no longer just a student and mother. She was a teacher, too. The two sat at adjacent desks so Gordon could help Romeo stay on top of his online classes while she attended her own.<\/p>\n
To keep Romeo company, Gordon got him a shih-poo puppy they named \u201cRocco.\u201d And whenever the going got tough, Gordon thought back to the reason she enrolled in university in the first place: her son and his future.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started and I\u2019m going to finish it because he\u2019s watching me,\u201d she recalls saying to herself.<\/p>\n
Gordon also managed to find time to volunteer for organizations whose missions and values coincided with her own goals. She was a co-facilitator of youth justice circles at Associated Youth Services of Peel, an alternative to the criminal justice system that helps youth accused of criminal offences make amends for alleged harm to the community and avoid a criminal record. She was also part of a team at the social innovation project, Let\u2019s Get Together!<\/a> that created a mentorship program and curriculum for BIPOC youth, successfully advocating for a module about Black biochemist, Emmett Chappelle, who discovered the specific combination of chemicals behind bioluminescence.<\/p>\n