Guest– Melissa Connelly
Look for the Glimmers, a Special Encore Presentation
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Blue Sky
02:22 Melissa’s Early Life and Adversity
08:31 Navigating Higher Education Barriers
13:21 The Mission of One Goal
21:02 Scaling and Systemic Change
26:01 Ensuring Momentum After High School
33:17 Humanizing the Educational Experience
36:47 Parenting and Educational Policy
46:25 Finding Glimmers and Looking Forward
In this Blue Sky conversation, host Bill Burke sits down with Melissa Connelly, CEO of One Goal, a national organization working to ensure every young person can pursue education beyond high school. Melissa's path to this work started long before her career in education. Raised by a single mother on the south and southwest sides of Chicago, she missed more than 60 days of school in eighth grade and landed in her high school's truancy program, a labeling experience that nearly derailed her future.
That changed when a school social worker, Ms. Jeter, taught her how to advocate for herself and get back on track. Melissa shares the highs and lows that followed, including a heartbreaking moment arriving in New York for her freshman year at NYU without enough cash for a cab, and the winding five year, five school path she eventually took to earn her degree.
Today, Melissa channels that experience into One Goal, which partners with more than 300 schools to support around 14,000 students a year, and now trains school districts directly to build advising into their core curriculum rather than treating it as an afterthought. She and Bill discuss:
Why the average student receives just 38 minutes of college advising in high school
One Goal's "momentum theory" and why getting a student enrolled isn't enough, they need support through their first year of college too
The idea of "occupational identity" and helping students connect who they are to what they want to contribute to the world
Parenting her own two teenagers through the college process, and what her son's experience taught her about how rarely students are truly seen in school
Why she believes nonprofits should be working to put themselves out of business
The concept of "triggers and glimmers," and why she chooses to look for the brightspots even on hard days
Melissa's story is a powerful reminder that one caring adult can change the entire trajectory of a young person's life, and that optimism, even when it's called "hokey," is a discipline worth practicing.
Resources:
OneGoal
Instagram
LinkedIn
Listen to full episode :
