Our ongoing story starts with people from around the world, converging here at UMKC. Get to know our people and you’ll know what UMKC is all about.
Matthew Ramsey
Anticipated graduation: Spring 2021
Academic program: Bachelor of Liberal Arts, School of Education and College of Arts and Sciences
Hometown: Kansas City, Missouri
Matthew Ramsey is married with two young children. He has a job, coaches youth basketball and is pursuing his teaching certificate. With his quiet and easy-going nature, he makes it look easy – even when it’s not.
Ramsey has had to take breaks from his education, but he has always been determined to finish. He enjoys working with kids, so teaching and coaching seem like a perfect fit.
“I’ve always worked with younger students,” Ramsey says. “I helped take care of my younger family members and this is my fourteenth season coaching high school basketball.”
Ramsey attended programs at other schools, and there were times when he didn’t know if he would be able to graduate.
“With a family of my own to provide for and work obligations, I had almost given up hope of completing my degree,” Ramsay says.
When Ramsey visited UMKC he realized it was a good fit.
"With a family of my own to provide for and work obligations, I had almost given up hope of completing my degree."
“The campus is beautiful and they have a wide variety of class schedules which favored me as a non-traditional student,” he says. “It works for me because it is centrally located in the Kansas City area and is easily accessible and the proximity to my home made it an easy commute.”
Ramsey enrolled in UMKC determined to graduate.
“I’ve found the program to be great in preparing future teachers. I have always felt welcome and accepted, which is something I cannot say for other institutions I attended.
All of the staff are kind and helpful. And the advisors’ office is one of my favorite spots on campus. They have been great.”
“Raising a family, working and going to school – it’s a lot. But this program inspired me to go after my dreams.”
Ramsey is a Hazel Browne Williams Scholarship recipient. Williams earned her master’s degree in 1929 and became an associate professor of the UMKC School of Education in 1958. She was the first full-time Black professor at UMKC and the first Black professor given emeritus status at the university in 1976.
While Ramsey’s tenaciousness matches Williams’s, he says getting closer to graduation would have been much harder without the scholarship.
Ramsey says he has learned a lot about himself while he’s been in the program.
“Raising a family, working and going to school – it’s a lot. But this program inspired me to go after my dreams.”
“It’s forced me to reexamine my perspectives and reflect on my own background and bias,” he says. “But I’ve learned that no matter how many setbacks I have suffered – or no matter how many challenges are placed in my path – as long as I work hard and believe, anything is possible.”