On May 1, 2026, at 2 p.m., Demetria Coley walked across a stage in Tallahassee and became the youngest graduate in the history of Florida State University’s College of Nursing. She was 18 years old — one of 215 nursing students earning a degree from FSU that spring, and already no stranger to firsts. Three years earlier, she’d become the youngest graduate in the history of Tallahassee Community College (now Tallahassee State College), a record her own older sister had held the year before.
For many young Black women, seeing someone who looks like them achieve something extraordinary can change what feels possible in their own minds. Studies on what researchers call the “role-model effect” have found that Black students with early exposure to same-race professionals — teachers, in the research base that exists so far — report higher long-term aspirations for themselves.
Separately, research from Harvard Health Publishing shows a link between a strong sense of purpose and better stress coping and greater resilience…