When Alicia James reads the words “NextGen Public Health Scholar,” she still sometimes has to pause and say them out loud, as if affirming they belong to her. But the road to that title — the struggles, the yearning, the quiet resolve — has been years in the making.
James grew up in Nassau County, Long Island, steeped in a sense of family duty and tenacity. Years later, life would call her to provide caregiving for her father. In 2012, she moved to New York City to support him, navigating the intricacies of city life, unspoken burdens, and invisible systems. When he passed in 2020, James’s world shifted. She left the Upper East Side, where he was living, and found refuge in the Bronx.
It was during the pandemic, amid loss and uncertainty, that James felt the full weight of what family care demands: the emotional toll, the hidden gaps in services for aging individuals, and the exhaustion of trying to navigate the healthcare system without a clear roadmap. “I was learning as I went,” she recalls. “Every caregiver does — and you carry the stress of wanting to do right by your loved one while knowing the resources just aren’t there.”
One cold winter in 2023, she saw an ad in the paper for a Community Health Worker certificate program at Hostos. She called the division in charge of the initiative, Continuing Education and Workforce Development (CEWD), and learned it was free and that upon completion, she would earn nine college credits. “Deep in my bones I knew I had to do it,” James said. That decision — small, courageous, quiet — was the first key turning point. It reopened the world of academic possibility for her, which had been long deferred.
That certificate became her portal back to school. She applied to matriculate at Hostos, fueled by the vision of Dr. Sam Byrd, who leads the non-credit to credit initiatives at CEWD, and became one of James’s first supporters at the College.
Back then, she held a background in marketing after attending the Fashion Institute of Technology, but years of caregiving had reoriented her passion. She no longer saw herself in trends and market research — she saw unmet needs, vulnerable elders, caregivers like herself, communities without a voice. “I leaned into what I had lived, the gaps I had seen, and the questions I couldn’t unsee,” James explained.
In Fall 2024, she enrolled at Hostos in a Liberal Arts program with a focus on Community Health. Two classes changed the axis of her destiny: Dr. Flores’ Black Studies course and Professor Méndez’s class on the aging population and caregiving. The former rekindled in James a sense of history, community, and activism; the latter showed her that the work she had lived could become more than a personal struggle — it could become policy, programming, and compassion in a structured framework.
James’ selection as a NextGen Public Health Scholar marks both a culmination and a commencement. The NextGen program is a 2+2+2 pipeline: students begin at Hostos (Associate degree), move into Columbia University’s School of General Studies (to complete a BA), and then continue into Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health for a master’s in Public Health.
As a NextGen Scholar, James now has full tuition coverage, a stipend, a personal laptop, mentoring and academic support, internships, and a cohort of peers. She steps into Columbia not as an outsider, but as part of a deliberate pipeline built to nurture leaders from communities underrepresented in public health.
“Receiving this scholarship feels like a prayer answered,” James said. “It honors my father’s memory and fuels my passion to advocate for caregivers and the aging population in communities of color.” She dreams not merely of a diploma, but of designing programs that support caregivers, honoring elders, and closing health access gaps.
(L-R) Dr. Sofía Oviedo, Research Programs Director, and James.
What made all this possible was not just the NextGen program, but the ecosystem James found at Hostos — the professors, the staff, the advisors, the mentors. She still recalls saying to President Daisy Cocco De Filippis early on, “I don’t want to leave Hostos.” For James, the place was more than a campus; it was a community of care.
She is immensely grateful to Dr. Byrd for opening that certification pathway, to Dr. Flores and Professor Méndez for reshaping her vision, and to her mentor, Dr. Sofía Oviedo, Research Programs Director, who has been the gentle, persistent voice urging her to apply, to speak publicly, and to trust herself. “Sofia believed in me before I fully believed in myself,” James said.
In the spring, she helped launch a cohort model for the Mentor/Mentee Jobs on Campus Initiative, providing students with a space to connect, support one another, and share the burden of navigating campus life. “Connection is what undergirds resilience,” James reflected. “That’s what Hostos taught me, and that’s what I want to carry forward.”
Alicia James (front row, fifth from left) during her CHW certificate completion ceremony.
James does not see her future as a single, narrow job, but as a web of interlocking missions: creating programs that support caregivers, advocating for systems that view elders as vibrant participants in community life, and integrating mental health awareness into aging and caregiving, especially in marginalized communities.
Her story is not only her own, but also an archetype of what many women, caregivers, and people in communities of color endure and imagine. She carries their voices with her.
James’ story is one of persistence, bravery, and transformation. It is also a call: to invest in those who have been invisibilized, to build pipelines of support, to center lived experience in public health leadership. When people learn of her path — from caregiving to Hostos to Columbia — they should see beyond inspiration, but possibility.
And in her own words: “The NextGen Public Health scholarship is not simply an award — it is my platform to remake systems, amplify caregivers, and reimagine aging in dignity.”
Her drive proves what is possible when resilience meets opportunity: that from the quiet strength of caregiving can raise a scholar ready to change the world.
We can’t wait to see you shine and fiercely advocate for caregivers and elders, Alicia!