The joy of graduation season will be felt times four this spring for a family with ties up and down the Arkansas River Valley.
Steven Watts is earning his Master of Education degree in teaching, learning and leadership from Arkansas Tech University. His wife, Kecia Watts, is completing her Bachelor of Arts degree in organizational leadership from ATU.
“Steven is my best friend, my husband and my life coach,” said Kecia. “Going through college together has been a fun experience and on hard days we are there to motivate each other to get through each semester…sometimes just reminding each other to focus on one assignment at a time, one week at a time. It helps to have someone who understands the stressors of what college can bring at times and to have each other to just say ‘you can do it, I have faith in you.’ Steven and I have worked as a team, and that’s what it took to raise six kids and accomplish our education goals. ATU has been so supportive and accommodating to both of us. It’s fair to say we love Arkansas Tech University.”
Their graduations from ATU would be plenty to celebrate, but the Watts’ blended family also includes 2024 high school graduates Kennedy Watts, who is graduating from Fort Smith Northside High School, and Maddox Watts, who is graduating from Paris High School.
“We try to lead from the front,” said Steven. “That’s what I tell all my kids. Plan ahead and lead from the front. I’ve made y’all a better life, now make your kids a better life.”
Steven retired from active duty in the U.S. Army in 2017 at the rank of captain. One of his responsibilities in the military was teaching, so it was only natural for him to invest some of his new-found free time in serving the Paris School District as a substitute teacher.
“I was liking it,” said Steven.
His path forward to pursue a teaching career was the ATU Master of Education degree in teaching, learning and leadership, which includes a non-traditional teacher licensure option. He started the program in January 2021.
With his master’s degree in hand, Steven is beginning his K-12 education career teaching and leading the Dardanelle High School U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (JROTC) program.
“I get to teach the things I’ve done for 20 years,” said Steven, who also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in emergency administration and management with a minor in criminal justice from ATU. “I had all that leadership experience, but I didn’t know about the education part of it. Teaching someone in the Army and teaching a student that’s under 18 is a little bit different. All my students now…if you give them discipline they seem upset about it, but they actually respect you back.
“This is a golden opportunity for a retired military person,” continued Steven. “We’re not teaching people to go into the military here. We want to make better citizens and better leaders. We do a lot of student-led activities. We’re trying to teach a leader how to lead themselves and figure out life as they get older.”
Steven said the opportunity to go through his ATU master’s degree program with individuals who were already active classroom teachers was beneficial in preparing him to take on the roles and responsibilities of a high school teacher.
“In our discussions, I got to see how stressed they were and how they fixed it,” said Steven. “That’s what helped me. In the Army we had people to lean on and ask questions. The teachers have that, too. It’s tight knit. The (ATU) professors are the same way. They talk first-year teachers off the ledge when they are stressed because they are young and haven’t had as many life experiences. If it’s a rough day, we’re going to go home to our families, have dinner, get some good rest and try it again.”
The achievement of graduating from Arkansas Tech has additional meaning for Kecia as a first-generation college graduate.
“This means the world to me to get to say I am the first person in my family to graduate college,” said Kecia. “As a wife and a mom of six kids, I have been working on my bachelor’s degree throughout raising a family, keeping up with their school and extracurricular activities and at times working a job…all while keeping an honor status as I worked through my degree curriculum. My hope through doing this is for my children to see that through the struggles of life their parents have pushed through and accomplished educational goals we set for ourselves and they will complete their goals as well.”
Now that they have reached graduation day, the Watts can look back with satisfaction and an understanding of what it took to get there.
“Me and my wife are a perfect team,” said Steven. “She was stressed about it too, but we knew we could do this together. My advice is don’t be scared of the schoolwork. Don’t be scared of how it was in high school or with your bachelor’s degree. It’s not that. I didn’t know if I could write a report and do all that, but it came easy to me this time. It was a great learning experience. I’m glad I picked Tech.”
