Beth Gaskin’s Passion and Promise

Vero Beach resident Beth Gaskin is in the business of opening educational doors. As Indian River State College’s vice president for student success, she oversees the Promise Program, which gives graduates of local public, public charter, or home schools in Indian River, Martin, Okeechobee, and St. Lucie Counties the opportunity to pursue an associate degree tuition free. To say she’s excited about the program funded by the IRSC Foundation is an understatement.

Gaskin knows well the impact education can have on directing one’s future path. As a work-study premed student at the University of Kentucky, she ran into organic chemistry. Ouch. She quickly changed her major to English and set her sights on becoming a professor.

After graduation, she held high-level positions at colleges elsewhere and then arrived at IRSC 11 years ago as president of the Chastain Campus in Martin County. Three years ago she was promoted to her current position at the main (Massey) campus.

Concern about the steady decline in enrollment numbers prompted Gaskin and other members of the leadership team to discuss ways to turn things around. The Promise Program, which had shown positive results in other regions, became the plan of choice.

Gaskin offers a young man named Pedro as an exemplar of the type of student the program is geared toward. He came along before the inception of the Promise Program, which is now helping to ensure that many others, who may not have the opportunity without the program, will follow in his footsteps.

“Pedro lives on a farm in Okeechobee, where he enrolled at our small branch campus and found he liked science,” Gaskin explains. “After finishing his A.A. degree in biology, he came to our Fort Pierce campus to pursue advanced medical classes. In the beginning, he was closed off, then he got involved in student activities and became class president.

“Now here’s a kid from rural America who aspires to be a doctor; he could have had a very different life. You open that door and it’s like they’re ready to walk through it. They just blossom. I’m like a proud mom when I see kids like Pedro go across the stage at commencement.”

IRSC formed a partnership with the St. Lucie County School District, and a presentation detailing the program was made at Fort Pierce Central High School.

“Students filled the auditorium,” Gaskin says. “We told them, ‘We promise you a free associate degree, but you have to promise to be in school full-time.’ By our pledge deadline in May, over 3,000 had pledged; by the time fall classes started, 2,200 came. Our outcomes in the entering class were outstanding: 80 percent were minorities, and most were first-generation [college] students.”

Gaskin notes that because of COVID there is still work to be done. “The last two years have been challenging. We’re finding that students’ coping skills are so low, their anxiety so high, that we’ve had to rethink our strategy.

“We’re telling our incoming students, ‘Generation P’ for pandemic, ‘We don’t want you to take classes online. Get yourself back to campus—we’re going to engage you.’ Research tells us that a student’s sense of belonging on campus is crucial for student success and mental health.”

It’s no secret that Gaskin thrives on what she does. “I’ve always loved the energy of college campuses. There’s so much promise and potential in the exchange of ideas and dreams,” she enthuses. “You could say I went to college at the age of 18 and never left!”