{"id":121282,"date":"2022-03-25T10:06:20","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T14:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=121282"},"modified":"2024-01-04T14:56:41","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T19:56:41","slug":"ddn-i-love-helping-others-i-want-to-be-their-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2022\/03\/25\/ddn-i-love-helping-others-i-want-to-be-their-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"Dayton Daily News: \u2018I love helping others … I want to be their voice\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Excerpt<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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After more than 20 years, Danita Sani returned to Wright State to pursue a bachelor’s degree in human resource management. (Photo by Erin Pence)<\/p><\/div>\n

She was studying electrical engineering at Wright State University in the mid-1990s when she left to raise a family and start a career.<\/p>\n

Now she\u2019s back.<\/p>\n

Danita Sani, formerly Danita Barnes, is among the first wave of students in the Wright State\u00a0Business Degree Completion Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The novel initiative is aimed at Miami Valley residents between the ages of 25 and 45 who already have completed a minimum of 60 semester credit hours \u2014 with some credit hours in business \u2014 and want to return to college to complete a bachelor\u2019s degree in business.<\/p>\n

Sani was accepted to the\u00a0Raj Soin College of Business<\/a>\u00a0prior to turning 45 and\u00a0majors in human resource management<\/a>, which prepares students for careers that support organizations with employee development programs.<\/p>\n

Shu Schiller, Ph.D., professor of information systems and associate dean of the College of Business, said that Sani is a great example of how students can benefit from the Business Degree Completion Program.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is determined to finish and takes two or three courses each term while working full time,\u201d said Schiller. \u201cAt work, she is involved with HR duties, so her study is relevant and can be applied right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sani grew up in Dayton, the youngest of seven children. Her late father, Curtis Barnes Sr., a Wright State graduate who served in the U.S. Air Force, was a retired art professor at Sinclair Community College and an artist whose paintings have been displayed locally and around the country.<\/p>\n

After graduating in 1991 from Patterson Career Center, during which time she interned with General Motors Corp., Sani enrolled at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University in Greensboro, North Carolina, to study electrical engineering.<\/p>\n

In 1996, she transferred to Wright State to continue her studies but a year later left school to start raising a family. She later procured a position as a customer service representative at Victoria\u2019s Secret\u2019s call center in Kettering, which led to a 25-year career that continues to this day.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Sani\u2019s sister Denise Barnes, a Wright State alumna who had always urged Sani to return to college for her degree, died of cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen she passed, I felt a push,\u201d Sani said.<\/p>\n

So she returned to Wright State, this time to pursue a bachelor\u2019s degree in human resource management.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only doing it for me but for her too,\u201d said Sani, who also hopes to inspire her 24-year-old son, Myles Harbison, to return to college.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to prove to him and others out there it\u2019s never too late to go back to school,\u201d she said. \u201cI may not have done things the conventional way, but I am not ashamed to say I am 48 and proud of everything I have accomplished and look forward to the next stages\/chapters of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sani, who carries a 3.28 grade point average, said she is more focused and determined to get her degree now than she was in her early college days. And she is grateful for the support she receives at Wright State.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the professors. Every professor I\u2019ve had has been awesome \u2014 friendly, helpful, open-door policy. I make sure they get to know me,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd if I need the help, I know it\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funding for the Business Degree Completion Program comes from the AES Ohio Foundation, formerly The Dayton Power and Light Foundation. It supports scholarships, schedule planning, tutoring and public transportation expenses.<\/p>\n

A recent analysis of U.S. Census data shows between 25,000 and 30,000 residents of the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area are between the ages of 25 and 45 and have at least 50% of the credits needed for a bachelor\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n

The gap between the average annual income of individuals with some college experience but no degree and those with a bachelor\u2019s degree in business exceeds $25,000. For an individual who returns to college and earns a bachelor\u2019s degree in business, the expected total income increase over 30 years is nearly $560,000.<\/p>\n

Sani works at Victoria\u2019s Secret as a seasonal human resources specialist, helping recruit new workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love when I offer a job to someone and they are super excited,\u201d she said. \u201cYou really are changing somebody\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sani said the company offers advancement opportunities and influenced her to pursue human resource management as a major. She hopes to stay with the company and that her degree helps advance her career there.<\/p>\n

But she also plans to pursue a Master of Business Administration then later study and complete her career goal in the field of diversity, equity and inclusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love helping others and making sure everyone is accepted and given an equal opportunity in the workforce,\u201d she said. \u201cI want to be their voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

View the original story at daytondailynews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She was studying electrical engineering at Wright State University in the mid-1990s when she left to raise a family and start a career. Now she\u2019s back. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":119947,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[730],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wright-state-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121282"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145424,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121282\/revisions\/145424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}