Rosaly Negron '24 G'27 (MBA)

"My name is Rosaly. I lived in Puerto Rico until I was about 10, when we moved to Springfield, MA. My parents decided to move here to provide us with better opportunities. 

"I didn't understand what low-income poverty was until we moved. 

"When you're 18 years old and on your own, you become aware of how hard it can be when you only have a high school diploma. I learned that sometimes you just had to eat cereal for dinner every night so that you can make that rent.

"I was with my ex-partner since I was 15 years old. He was three years older than me. Unfortunately, when my parents moved away, I ended up moving in with him. I went through a really hard time with him and that went on for a few years. 

"I have a child from that relationship. Six months after our son was born, I learned what it was to experience not being safe with a partner. When your child is part of that risk, it's different. I stopped making excuses. I separated from him, and it was just me and my son, Juan Carlos, my sweet boy, still working hourly jobs, trying to make ends meet.

"I was lucky enough to meet my now husband, Angel. He came into my life at an interesting time because I was transitioning into single mom life and Carlos started to show developmental delays.

"That's the first time I ever heard of autism. As a mom, the first thing you say to yourself is, how do I fix this? You have to accept that it's a lifelong disability. 

"At the time that I got the diagnosis for Carlos, I was pregnant with my second son, Ezekiel. Ezekiel's autism is very different. He was delayed in speaking, but he was a master at numbers and drawing.

"It took a lot of time for me to stop saying my children have autism because of my genetics. It was a period of learning to understand myself. What so many people consider my quirkiness started to make more sense: my ability to process information a little faster than other people.

"Today, my children are my purpose. I stayed home for the first 10 years, but when things started to slow a little bit, I said to my husband, I'm starting to feel like there's time here for me to do something. I want to go back to work.”—Rosaly Negron '24, G'27 (MBA)

Part 2 of Rosaly's Story

“I ended up applying at Wayfinders Housing for homeless prevention. I started to see so many women, so many single mothers, come through that front door. I felt so passionately, and I wanted these women to hear from another woman who has been a single mother that you can do it. 

"I wanted to do so much more, but I kept running into a lack of education, a lack of experience. I only had a high school diploma. I started to realize that a lot of the business acumen had to come from a different place as well. I ended up getting a flyer for the Americans Women's College in the mail that Saturday. I started researching work-life balance while going to school, and I started to think, maybe I can look into this because this is online. 

"I remember I talked to Ramona, and she got me so excited. She said you need a business administration degree. You're meant to bring that experience back to the nonprofit to do what you dream of doing with these programs. 

"I can tell that my Bay Path leadership skills have really had an impact on how I developed in those areas and how the awareness has helped. Within six months of going to school, I was promoted to a higher role. 

"The Bay Path sisterhood starts when you actually realize that we're all so committed in different ways. I was in classes with people with the same commitment to other causes: diversity, inclusion, the fight against addiction, or social reform in general. When you encounter somebody who has gone there, you connect on that level because you know what the experience is. We just want to make the world a better place.

"My dream is to start a foundation that supports caretakers. The type of organization that is able to provide the support that these folks need. Making sure that we're looking at the person and not forgetting about the individual, because that does happen a lot.

"Now I'm going back to get my MBA. July 1st cannot come fast enough. I'm ready to start. I've been reading books and doing whatever I can as I wait for my syllabus. When I met some of the folks that were there to walk for their masters at graduation this year, that gave me the biggest rush."—Rosaly Negron '24, G'27 (MBA)