2008 Woodie Awards
Majoring in making a difference
A young boy inspires one student to study social work
Michael Stone
Issue date: 7/9/08 Section: Features
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It's rare to find a major where people studying say, "I'm doing it because I care about people and I really want to help out those in need."
A social work major by the name Taylor Kaitlin Winters said that's why she's studying her major.
Growing up in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, Taylor would read the "horror stories" of children in the foster care system in the town's paper, The Asbury Park Press.
"At first, I wanted to major in psychology because I wanted to help adolescent girls," Taylor remembers. "I went through a lot of stuff they go through, so I figured I could really relate."
Taylor continued to lean towards psychology until the age of 13 when she met a charming young baby named Jacob McDonald.
Jacob's birth mother had had a child before, but she and her husband were deemed unfit to care for her.
"She wanted to prove everyone wrong and show that she could have a child and raise him properly, so she had Jacob," Taylor says.
But three days after Jacob's birth, he was taken away from his birth mother. He was put into the foster home of Susan and Jim McDonald.
Susan and Jim lived next door to Taylor, and had been providing a foster home for children for two years before they took Jacob under their wing.
"Originally, the plan was just to provide a foster home for Jacob," Susan recalls. "We took him to visit his birth mother once a week. On one visit, out of the blue, when Jacob was three, she said, 'If I agree to sign the parental rights over to you, would you adopt him?'"
The McDonalds had discussed adopting Jacob since they brought him home.
"Everyone in the family loved him so much, so it was an easy decision," Susan says.
The process was lengthy and long for the McDonalds. The birth father didn't want to relinquish his rights and the paperwork never seemed to end.
But finally, the McDonalds had their last court date on June 25, 2003. The proceedings would officially adopt Jacob into their home by signing over all parental rights to them.
"I was the only non-family member in the court room that day," Taylor recalls. "Being in the court room made me want to major in social work because there aren't enough stories like Jacob's out there."
A couple months after Jacob's adoption, Taylor began college in N.J., taking classes towards her bachelor's degree in social work. Still living in New Jersey, Taylor saw Jacob growing to be a young man.
"Taylor has been such a great inspiration to Jacob," Susan says. "He loves her so much, and she loves him. Every morning when he wakes up, he asks if it's a 'Tay-Tay' day."
But after three years of college in N.J., and living her whole life in the Garden State, Taylor says she couldn't take it anymore.
"When you grow up in New Jersey, you go to high school in New Jersey," Taylor says. "And when you graduate, you go to college in New Jersey. Then you go on to work in retail in New Jersey and end up spending your whole life in New Jersey. People there just don't have any real ambitions."
She wanted to break free from the Jersey cycle.
Taylor had visited the South on vacations and loved everything about it. She made up her mind that she was going to give herself a fresh start and get away from it all. The hardest part of making the decision, though, was leaving Jacob.
"Leaving him was one of the most difficult things I had ever done, but I knew I had to do it," Taylor says.
Taylor started to look into social work programs in the region and began visiting schools.
"When I visited MTSU, I met some quality people," Taylor remembers. "Unlike in New Jersey, where people go to school just because it's what you do, people at Middle Tennessee went to school because they truly wanted to be there."
The ambitions of MTSU students attracted Taylor, as well as the beauty of the campus. But the prestige of the social work program sealed the deal.
"The social work program is accredited by the Council of Social Work Education," says John McDaniel, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. "It is very difficult to achieve this accreditation and the council is very strict on the schools they accredit."
So Taylor applied, and was accepted to a school that was 867 miles away from her neighborhood on Woodwild Street and 867 miles away from her love, Jacob.
But after two semesters at MTSU, Taylor says it has been the best decision of her life.
"It has been a real growing experience living so far away from home," Taylor says. "It's the first time I've done everything by myself and not gone running home to mommy and daddy."
Upon graduation, Taylor wants to continue to live in Middle Tennessee and work for the Tennessee Department of Human Services.
A few times a semester, though, she makes the trip back to Point Pleasant to see her family; Susan and Jim; and, of course, Jacob.
"When I see him, he looks up at me with that cute face and says 'Tay-Tay, thank God you're home from school.'"
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