Give Now

Civil Engineering Student Loves Everything about Nebraska, Even the Weather

By Connie White

Jennifer Davis feels at home in Nebraska.

“It’s not too crowded. It’s not too big,” she said.

She likes driving into the city to attend classes at the University of Nebraska at Omaha then taking the half-hour drive home through the countryside to Louisville. She even appreciates Nebraska’s unpredictable, if-you-don’t-like-it-just-wait-five-minutes weather.

“I like the weather,” she said. “I like how you go from winter to spring, and you really get to enjoy the different seasons.”

That’s why Davis plans to stay in Nebraska after she graduates in May with a civil engineering degree.

Though Davis attends classes on the UNO campus, her degree will be from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. As the state’s only engineering college, UNL’s College of Engineering offers classes on the City Campus and East Campus in Lincoln and on the Scott Campus in Omaha.

Davis, 22, has lived all over the world. Born in Landstuhl, Germany, near Ramstein Air Base, Davis moved nine times as a child with her family, including stays in Spain and in five U.S. states, as her father, Air Force Col. Randy Davis, received new assignments. Davis said she considered following in her parents’ footsteps (mom Marjorie was in the Air Force for six years) and serving in the military.

But Davis wanted to build her career in Nebraska, where her father grew up and her family relocated after he retired from the Air Force in 2012.

Davis attends UNO on a full-tuition Regents Scholarship. She also received an honors scholarship her freshman year that came with a laptop. The scholarships “took a lot of stress off of us,” Davis said, noting the financial assistance has allowed her to complete her degree without student loans.

After graduation, she hopes to use her engineering degree to safeguard one of Nebraska’s greatest natural assets.

While in high school, she read several books about clean water and its importance to community health. Those books lit a spark — one that put purpose behind her interest in biology and math and led her to study civil engineering.

She sees water as a blessing and wants to ensure that the water coming out of the kitchen faucet is safe to drink and that the wastewater going down the drain is properly treated before flowing into rivers and streams.

“It’s invaluable that we have access to water in the U.S.,” she said. “Look at other areas in the world —you can see that they don’t have that access to water.”

Davis said she feels at home on UNO’s Scott Campus, where she spends most of her time in the Peter Kiewit Institute. Her classes are small, with typically 20 to 30 people, so she knows her classmates. She has participated in research relevant to her field, including a project to monitor COVID-19 in wastewater. In addition, she completed an internship with the Missouri Department of Transportation and is currently working an internship with Olsson, an engineering and design firm.

Davis spends one day a week at a wastewater treatment plant in Lincoln that is being updated to run more efficiently. She said she likes the combination of outside experiences and engineering coursework.

“It’s good, experience-wise, to do an internship, go back to class, and see ‘oh, that’s why they’re teaching this,’” Davis said.

Next summer, she plans to marry fiance Nate Andres, a cyber security major at UNO, and start her civil engineering career in Omaha or Lincoln, ideally in the field of wastewater treatment.

“I want to make sure our water is being cleaned as well as possible to help protect the environment and just to be good stewards of what we have been given,” she said.

First-generation UNL Student Overcomes Fear To Build Better Life

Dywan Williams poses for photo in front of pool table.

By Connie White

Dywan Williams learned early on to work hard for what he wanted.

That ambition was evident in the sixth grade when Williams got the idea to mow lawns in his North Omaha neighborhood to earn cash to pay for extras like a Lunchable to take on his school field trip, so he didn’t have to eat school lunch. His ambition to succeed continued in junior high when he played football, wrestled and ran track in hopes of earning a college athletic scholarship.

At Omaha North High School, Williams switched gears. Although he played football, he decided he lacked the passion to compete at the next level. Instead, he set his sights on a new goal: to get to college through the Nebraska College Preparatory Academy (NCPA) at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

NCPA prepares academically talented first-generation, income-eligible students from four Nebraska high schools — Omaha North, Omaha South High School, Grand Island Senior High School and Winnebago High School — for college and their future careers. Through the academy, students receive mentoring and support beginning in their freshman year in high school and continuing through their time at UNL. NCPA covers students’ full cost of college attendance.

Williams, who was raised by a single mother, said the NCPA staff were there for him as he dealt with adversity and believed in him when he didn’t believe in himself. During his freshman year at North, he said he was at risk of being disqualified from the program because his GPA didn’t meet the required threshold.

“They said, ‘Dywan, you can do this. You got this.’ And I did it,” Williams said.

He studied hard and graduated from North with a 3.5 grade point average.

When he arrived on the UNL campus for his freshmen year, Williams said he was scared and intimidated — no one else in his family has graduated from college.

But as he spent time with the program’s staff and students, who come from similar backgrounds, his confidence increased. “If they did it, I can do it, too,” Williams told himself.

He was right.

Williams, 19, is a sophomore accounting major in the College of Business. He has a 3.82 GPA at UNL and has lined up an internship for next summer at Ernst & Young (EY) in Minneapolis, where he will shadow accountants at the firm and learn about public accounting work. If that goes well, he will move on to a second internship the following summer, when he will have the opportunity to engage with clients and gain real-life experience. He said he hopes to receive a job offer after he graduates.

His dream job is in auditing, where he would work with companies on their financial reporting and internal controls and learn how companies operate their businesses. “Accounting is the language of business,” Williams said.

Kurtis Krentz of Minneapolis, a senior partner at EY, connected Williams to EY’s internship program. Krentz said he first met Williams through his involvement with NCPA providing support to students. He and his wife, Jill, are donors to the program through the University of Nebraska Foundation and view NCPA as serving a critical role in addressing inequalities in society by supporting students who may not otherwise have been able to pursue a college degree.

“When I met Dywan, it didn’t take long for me to see Dywan’s potential. He is doing terrific in school and is so driven to better himself and his future,” said Krentz, who graduated from UNL with an accounting degree in 1989. “Understanding his story, you can’t help but be impressed by how he’s changing the course of his life.”

Williams said he feels grateful to be at UNL. Asked what he likes about the university, he answered: “Everything.”

“I like the food,” he said, with a smile. “I like the fact that I’m around people who also want to be successful. I like the fact that I get to create a better life for me and my family.”

Williams said the scholarship assistance has taken a burden off him.

“My mom didn’t have to worry about paying for college,” he said. “I don’t have to worry about taking out loans and being in debt for a long, long time.”

Williams expressed gratitude to the donors who are “making an impact on my life, making an impact on my community and the next generation that’s coming up.”

“Thank you, thank you so much,” he said. “It helps me realize there’s people who want to help people like me have a better life. We’re not alone.”

UNMC Physical Therapy Student says Studying at UNK was a ‘No Brainer’

By Ed Rider

Two continents. Three countries. Five states.

Luis Reyes Mendieta’s road to the physical therapy program at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine in Kearney, Nebraska, has been anything but a direct path. Born in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Reyes Mendieta moved to Tennessee with his family when he was 6 years old so his father could train as an aircraft mechanic. They moved again to Nairobi, Kenya, to work as missionaries for 10 years before relocating to Alaska.

After a year at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, Reyes Mendieta transferred to Kansas State University where he earned his bachelor’s degree in kinesiology. After graduation, he moved to Alaska, but came to believe that returning back to the “lower 48” would enhance his opportunities to be accepted into PT school. Reyes Mendieta moved to Wichita, Kansas, where he accepted a position at an inpatient physical therapy hospital.

With several physical therapy schools to choose from, the UNMC College of Allied Health Professions (CAHP) was Reyes-Mendieta’s first choice.

So how did Reyes Mendieta end up working toward his Doctor in Physical Therapy (DPT) degree in a town that he initially described as “the middle of nowhere?”

“I was very interested in UNMC. I really liked the program and was very impressed with the faculty,” Reyes Mendieta said. “Once I visited Kearney — I noted that they were a tight-knit group with smaller class sizes — it was a no brainer. Kearney was definitely the place to be.”

CAHP is located in the new Health Science Education Complex on the campus of the University of Nebraska at Kearney. It includes state-of-the-art classrooms, clinical teaching laboratories, clinical simulation facilities and a gross anatomy laboratory. Most importantly for Reyes Mendieta, CAHP offers a DPT degree.

He also saw Kearney as a great fit for his wife Carmen, daughter Flora, 2, and son Pascal, 4 months. “It’s an amazing place to raise a family,” Reyes Mendieta said. “It’s been a good experience. Kearney is a really neat town; it has everything you’d really need. It’s got a Target, so that makes my wife happy.”

Inspired by his role model, Reyes Mendieta said he wanted to pursue physical therapy from a very young age. He has been committed to service to others throughout his life and foresees his career as an extension of that service.

“My dad was always my biggest role model. But instead of fixing planes, I wanted to help fix people,” Reyes Mendieta said. “Having lived in Kenya, I saw the need to increase access to health care. Wherever I practice after graduation, I hope I can bring that to the people in need of quality care.”

Another factor that lured Reyes Mendieta to the physical therapy field was the ability to provide care without having to rely on pharmacological interventions.

“As a DPT, I won’t be dependent on being able to prescribe medications or provide other medical/surgical interventions,” Reyes Mendieta said. “All the tools I need are the information and knowledge provided through my doctoral-level education. With my education. I hope to make an impact, not just in the U.S., but also around the world.”

He is thankful for the financial support that he has received along the way. Reyes Mendieta has received academic financial support from the Charles O’Malley Trust, the Adams Fund, the Erwin W. Neuharth Scholarship and the Ray and Amy Frohn Fund.

“It’s been a good transition and a great experience,” Reyes Mendieta said. “We’ve really enjoyed rural Nebraska.”