Alumni Spotlight: Rebekah, Cohort 11

When Rebekah joined High Jump as a 7th grader back in 1999, she was already a precocious, confident student who loved nothing more than reading a good book and bugging her dad to do math for fun. In the last two decades since her time at High Jump, Rebekah has soared academically – she was a Daniel Murphy Scholar, attended The Thacher School (a college prep boarding school), graduated from the University of Chicago, and is now in her final year of her Ph.D. program in Library and Information Sciences at Dominican University.

She has also created a personally and professionally meaningful path for her life pursuing her many hobbies while also working as an archivist for many organizations including the Chicago History Museum and The Sisters of the Living Word, and, just last fall, started a tenure track position as an Assistant Professor & Special Collections Archivist at the University of Illinois Chicago.

For Rebekah, all of these successes, her love of learning, and her endless curiosity and passion for exploring life were first truly cultivated by the trust and care she felt during her time in High Jump. 

“It was nice to be listened to and have someone just trust our ability to learn and trust our ability to grow. To have adults assume that I meant well, that was super rare for someone like me, coming from the economic class I came from and looking how I looked and sounding like how I sounded. In the same way that it was nice to be academically held and trusted and challenged, it was really nice to just be trusted, period.”

One of the most life-changing moments of trust for Rebekah was at High Jump’s overnight field trip to the Cook County Forest Preserves:

“It was like a mini sleep-away camp. They just took a whole bunch of us Chicago city kids into the wilderness and taught us about the woods and how to pull the socks up over your pants so you don’t get ticks. I remember just being like “What’s a tick?” But they trained us through the fear we had and it became just fun. There was a big element of learning, but they just trusted us and let us play too. I remember staying up late and seeing the stars in a way I had never seen them before. It was incredible.”

It was on this overnight field trip where Rebekah forged one of her best High Jump friendships with her classmate Brittany, a friendship they both carry on to this day. This formative trip into the woods also sparked Rebekah’s deep love of adventure which led her to apply to and get into the prestigious Thacher School, a boarding school that strongly emphasizes a connection to nature. Beyond her exposure to the outdoors on this trip, Rebekah felt ready for the challenge of a rigorous boarding school surrounded by kids with very different backgrounds from her own because of her time in High Jump: “I really felt like I belonged at Thacher because High Jump showed me that I’m smart. I did High Jump, I know how to excel in school. Oh, I took this class before. I know how to do that. I’ve got this.”

After her High Jump experience, Rebekah developed a deep trust in herself to follow her passions and cultivate a deep love of learning that knows no bounds. Whether it’s majoring in East Asian Languages and Civilization with a focus on Korea at UChicago or pursuing her multitudinous hobbies including knitting, playing video games, practicing violin, reading and writing fan fiction, and bouldering, Rebekah is always approaching life with curiosity and excitement. This is especially true in her work as an archivist where she focuses on how people keep and tell their own histories especially from cultures outside of mainstream Western history.

Now, in her first year as an assistant professor at UIC, Rebekah is bringing what she learned from High Jump and using that in her approach to teaching the next generation of excited learners. “I remember what that trust at High Jump meant to me. And so even if a kid’s being loud or acting out, I don’t look at them as just a receptacle for me to just drop some knowledge in or scold if they’re not acting right. This is a person who has emotions and reasons for what they’re doing, and they’re a child and they’re still growing and that trust needs to be there.” 

With those lessons and all that Rebekah has accomplished in her life, she is also thrilled to be able to give back in the same way:

“I keep thinking about when I volunteered at High Jump’s Career Day, looking out at that group of middle school kids and feeling that they are who I want to be able to have the loudest voices in the world. Now that my place is more secure, I want to do what I can to make space for them to grow their self-identity and hold their place in the world. I want to reach out and lift people up like people helped me lift up.”

Hear from Rebekah Why She Thinks High Jump is Essential