Today@Sam Article

Commencement Spotlight: Anne Weathersby

Dec. 15, 2021
SHSU Media Contact: Hannah Crandall

“Commencement Spotlight” highlights SHSU's upcoming graduates with stories from Bearkats that demonstrate a “can-do” spirit through challenges and service. Visit today@sam/commencementspotlight to read more.

Anne and Daughter Anne Weathersby
Huntsville, TX
Master of Arts in Counseling

Mother to a second-grader, graduate student and full-time staff member are all titles that describe Sam Houston State University’s Anne Weathersby. Weathersby will graduate with a master’s in clinical mental health counseling, and she plans to continue working as assistant to the chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Upon moving from Long Branch, New Jersey to pursue her education at SHSU, Weathersby found out she was pregnant in 2012. At the time, she was an interdisciplinary studies major and a student employee at the Kat Klub in the Lowman Student Center.

“I was able to keep my job and was able to graduate when my daughter was about nine months old (in 2015),” said Weathersby. “I think it is a personal accomplishment that I overcame the adversity of being a pregnant student at a young age and becoming a single mother.”

Weathersby chose to attend Sam Houston State because of the inspiration she found in her father who graduated from the university in his late thirties.

“Seeing him come back as a nontraditional student really made me believe that I could do something like that, and that’s why I chose Sam Houston,” she said. “It ultimately worked out for me too, because I ended up being a nontraditional student.”

Weathersby attributes much of her continued success and her life now to SHSU. She is a committee member for Elevate and a member of the Society of Physics Students.

“I met my husband, who is a detective on campus, and we got married two years ago,” Weathersby said. “Sam Houston has provided all these opportunities as far as education, networking and friendships; it’s provided a sense of family for me.”

Both the Department of Counselor Education and the Department of Physics and Astronomy supported Weathersby in her education and career, and she is excited to continue in one with what she learned in the other.

“I really enjoy my position now, and part of that position is serving in the role of an advisor,” Weathersby said. “I help provide current physics majors with resources and advise them on their degree plan, and that falls within my degree of counseling.”

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