‘Last Lecture’ speaker relishes opportunity to share experiences with grads, inspiring them to follow their own path

Tuwana Evans emphasizes the importance of learning and growing from one’s own experiences

IRVING, Texas — Like many college graduates, Tuwana Evans found her own journey was not a straight path — an emphasis of her “Last Lecture” given during Purdue Global’s commencement week.

Graduating students nominated Evans to deliver the Feb. 13 talk, an online event for an audience of nearly 50 people.

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“Your journey is your own journey, and I encouraged them to just stay steady and follow the winding curves and turns and curveballs that are thrown your way because every experience you have is an opportunity for growth,” Evans said.

The long and winding road

Evans shared examples from her own experience of growing up in Gary, Indiana, and then applying to Purdue University. While attending Gary’s Emerson School of Visual and Performing Arts, she was encouraged by a Purdue University recruiter to submit an application for the university’s early admissions program. After being accepted, Evans was on her way, enrolling in Purdue’s pre-pharmacy program.

“There was an opportunity for me to come down to Purdue during the summer and go through a program to help better prepare us for what I was about to get myself into,” Evans said.

Evans, however, elected to go on a family vacation to Colorado. “I didn’t go to the program. I should have gone,” she said. “I wasn’t prepared, and my eyes were opened wide.”

Evans often shares that her lack of preparation at the time led to her being placed on academic probation after just three semesters on campus.

“It was a transition from high school to college. I was not as prepared as I thought I should have been,” she said.

A new path

Evans was determined not to quit and not to let this be the end of her academic journey. She met with her advisor and took a self-assessment, leading her to make a transition to sociology. Determined to succeed, Evans set some new goals and got involved with summer research opportunity programs, setting her feet back on the right path to success and ultimately becoming inspired to pursue a master’s degree in social work.

Her mentor, Gilman Whiting, played a pivotal role in helping Evans not only while she was at Purdue but also to this day.

“He took me under his wing when I was an undergraduate when I was on academic probation,” Evans said. “He said, ‘You’re already here, but it’s my job to make sure that you stay here.’ That just stuck with me.”

Evans credits people like Whiting and others, like her advisor, Jackie Jimerson, with ensuring she was set up for success along life’s journey.

She furthered her studies at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and earned her PhD at Illinois State University.

Evans became a licensed clinical social worker in Illinois and has more than 20 years of experience in social services and teaching in higher education. She began working part time with Purdue Global — Purdue’s online university for working adults — in 2021 in the Department of Human Services, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses and contributing to the diversity, equity and inclusion curriculum. She was promoted to a full-time faculty position in January 2022, leading and teaching graduate courses.

“I’m building courses with the mindset of bringing in more diverse voices, more lived experiences, more access to different mediums of knowledge,” Evans said.

She emphasized the support she receives from department leaders like Maggie Morgan and Jessie Budzinski in prioritizing diverse knowledge sources and historical context over traditional textbooks.

“Knowledge construction comes from the professor; it comes from the students; it comes from blog posts, social media, editorials, empirical research,” Evans said. “There are so many mediums that we get knowledge from, and the fact that I’m able to bring all those different forms of knowledge into a classroom is like a breath of fresh air.”

Coming full circle

And now Evans said she is honored and privileged to be nominated as the “Last Lecture” speaker by those students she is helping prepare for their path after graduation.

“This opportunity just felt like coming full circle because I got to share with the graduates what my journey has been, and it has not been a straight and linear path,” Evans said. “So many people before me poured into me, mentored and encouraged me to stay on my path, and now I was able to do the same for those finding their own path.”

Evans encouraged the graduates to take all the challenges faced in life as learning experiences and opportunities to grow.

“In those moments where things are challenging, that’s when you really need to take a step back, do some self-reflections and think about the lessons that you want to take away from that experience,” she said.

About Purdue Global

Purdue Global is Purdue’s online university for working adults who have life experience and often some college credits. It offers flexible paths for students to earn an associate, bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree, based on their work experience, military service and previous college credits, no matter where they are in their life journey. Purdue Global is a nonprofit, public university accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and backed by Purdue University. For more information, visit https://stories.purdue.edu/purdue-global/.

Writer/Media contact: Adam Bartels, adam.bartels@purdueglobal.edu

Source: Tuwana Evans