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I've been a student trustee for about two years now, representing UMass Dartmouth students up at the Board. It's been a great experience being one of the five student trustees for the system. It makes me extremely excited and extremely proud of our system and proud of this campus to see all the accomplishments and all the things that we've been doing to give back.
I'm Jacob Miller, senior at UMass Dartmouth. I think a public university is really the catalyst for opportunity. I grew up here on the SouthCoast. I'm a first generation college student. This institution has really transformed me into a public service leader.
I've worked on different initiatives. I've been able to work on legislation for health care with a state senator. I've been receiving calls from constituents about students who are on MassHealth being forced to choose between health care and staying in school. And sometimes, they would just either withdraw from college or go down to part time.
There is a bill that came through. And I said, we really need to put some language into this bill and write an amendment to fix this issue. So it was really democracy in action. People would come up to me and say, that really changed my life. I was able to do much more with myself, because I didn't have to worry about this extra burden of cost.
The Truman Scholarship is a public service leadership scholarship that's given to about 50 students, usually one per state. It's just been an honor to have received it. It was a validation and a reaffirming of the value of the things that I'm doing.
UMass produces so many great things for the Commonwealth. It's basically where the American dream comes alive. I'm really excited to see UMass grow and continue to thrive.