Student, teacher share USF Sarasota-Manatee spotlight

Bradenton’s Jennifer Caba says teachers and mentors have the power to change lives.

They changed hers, she said just before receiving the Outstanding Graduate Award and Golden Bull Service and Leadership Award during The University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee’s fall 2016 graduation exercise at the Bradenton Area Convention Center on Sunday.

Caba credits Southeast High School teacher Cynthia J. Rees and Take Stock in Children mentor Elaine Graham as huge contributors to her college awards.

Caba, an accounting major, was one of 195 students who received degrees Sunday, including 25 master’s degrees.

Of those graduating, about 100 attended the commencement before a crowd of about 350.

Aside from Rees and Graham, a third teacher or mentor in the spotlight at the graduation was USF Sarasota-Manatee’s own Jean Kabongo, who teaches strategic management on entrepreneurship in the College of Business.

Kabongo made history Sunday as the first USF Sarasota-Manatee professor to win the Outstanding Professor Award three semesters in a row, confirmed Fawn Ngo, faculty senate president.

The Outstanding Professor Award is presented by the Student Government Association on behalf of graduating seniors.

A Future Business Leader

Six years ago, when Caba was a freshman at Southeast, she balked at joining Future Business Leaders, she said.

But Rees, the club’s adviser and an accounting and marketing teacher, convinced her otherwise.

“She said I should get involved,” Caba said. “She said it will be good for me and that it would help when I apply for college, looking good on my resume. She said I would be able to gain leadership skills.”

Not only did Caba get involved at Southeast, she didn’t stop getting involved. At USF she founded the Latin American Student Association and was a founding member of the USF student chapter of Habitat for Humanity.

For more than two years, Caba represented USF at functions on and off campus as a student ambassador.

“Ms. Rees, thank you for pushing me back at the end of my freshman year to get involved in your organization,” Caba, 21, said Sunday. “That truly changed my life. That was the reason that today I am here where I am, winning these awards, graduating college. If it wasn’t for you pushing me to do better, I truly wouldn’t be the leader I am today, so thank you.”

Caba, who is from a low-income family that moved to Manatee County from New York when she was 10, applied for a Take Stock in Children scholarship at the beginning of her junior year at Southeast.

“I was accepted and assigned a mentor, Elaine Graham,” Caba said. “She has been great. She was only supposed to be my mentor through high school, but to this day she is still my mentor. I see her once a month. We meet at Panera Bread. She is still giving me advice on school and life.

“Without Take Stock I wouldn’t have had that friendship with her,” Caba added. “I also wouldn’t be here today in all honesty because Take Stock gave me that scholarship and that is what really pushed me to get into college. Take Stock has been amazing.”

Caba is applying for officer school in the United States Marine Corps. If everything goes through, she will leave for basic training in May, Caba said.

“I will get a job in accounting eventually, but military is something I have always wanted to do.”

Students seem to treasure Kabongo

Actually being selected as most outstanding professor by the students themselves three semesters in a row, as Kabongo has done, is rather unbelievable, especially considering there are about 150 faculty at the school, Ngo said.

“He is an excellent teacher,” Ngo added of her colleague, Kabongo. “He cares about his students. He motivates them. He makes them feel like they can achieve anything. I am so happy for him and proud of him.”

Kabongo’s wife, Rosa Chavez, and daughter, Nathalie Kabongo-Chavez, 19, a University of Florida freshman, were on hand for his teaching honor.

“He is very professional,” Rosa Chavez said of her husband. “He loves to teach. He is always very prepared. He teaches values to help students in their professional life.”

“He clearly cares about his students,” Nathalie Kabongo-Chavez said. “He is very fair when he teaches. He goes to the office for extra hours to meet with students.”

“I am humbled,” Kabongo said. “To be selected for a third time among such talented colleagues as I have, I was very surprised.”

This story was originally published December 11, 2016 at 7:39 PM with the headline "Student, teacher share USF Sarasota-Manatee spotlight."