Education runs in many families of those who attend Sinclair Community College. While it’s common for siblings to attend the same college as students, siblings within the school’s faculty are a rare find. Here are two grand examples of siblings who work for Sinclair:
Amy Gibson and Julie Trice
One of Sinclair’s iconic sibling duos is Julie Trice and Amy Gibson. The two work as African American Sign Language professors for Sinclair, Gibson for ten years and Trice for six.
Gibson recalls how the spark for their passion in ASL came from a newspaper she received while caring for both of their children as a stay-at-home mom.
“There was an advertisement in the newspaper that a local deaf organization was going to be providing classes every Monday night from six to eight o’clock. I was like, ‘I can be out of this house for two hours every Monday?’ Julie came to pick up her son and I told her, ‘I’m signing up for these classes. She’s like, ‘Well, I’m signing up for these classes too,’” Gibson said.
Gibson mentions that their mom worked with people with developmental disabilities when they were younger. That combined with their memory of ASL on Sesame Street and owning “The Joy of Signing”, an ASL guidebook, resulted in the sisters having an idea of what ASL was but no reason to use it since no one in their family was deaf.
After taking the courses, the sisters learned that two more 8-week sessions were being offered and decided to take them, as well as some general education courses at Clark State, before fully transferring to Sinclair and enrolling in the interpreting program.
Upon graduating, Phyllis Adams, chair of the ASL Interpreter Education Program, reached out to Gibson in Spring 2015 and offered her a teaching position at Sinclair. As for Trice, she was offered a position in Fall 2019 after teaching classes at the Huber Heights and Englewood YMCAs.
“We got our Associates and Bachelors together,” Trice said. “She got her Master’s in 2017. I got my Master’s in 2024. There are very few things that we do differently.”
The two weren’t always as close, however. Their age gap made it so that the two didn’t bond as much until later in life.
“It wasn’t until she graduated from high school that I even wanted to hang out with her,” Gibson said jokingly. “With a six-year gap, I was the one who took care of her, especially after our parents divorced. I was 11, she was five, so I’d have to come home from school and watch her until mom got home from work. I wasn’t trying to spend my free time with a six-year-old growing up. Once I was out in the world and she graduated, I never looked back.”
“That’s a different maturity,” Trice said. “Me being 19 and her being 25, having a newborn and she was a young mom also, so she could help me. It was a different level.”
Now, the sisters are inseparable. Gibson and Trice both state that they have no intention of furthering their education or obtaining any new positions. Gibson is working on making their interpreter education program nationally certified, making it the only one of its kind in the state of Ohio.
She would also like for Sinclair to become a testing site for interpreters, both inside and outside of Ohio, to receive their certificates. As for Trice, she would like to see more high school College Credit Plus students come on campus. Her goal is to organize one or two field trips for their CCP students next school year so they can see the classes and meet their mentors.
Jennifer and Kathleen Sooy
Both professors of political science, Jennifer and Kathleen Sooy, have been professors at Sinclair for the past 33 years. From Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Virginia to the University of Reading in England to the University of Dayton here in the Gem City, these sisters have pursued an education that has taken them across the country and overseas together.
While political science is their current focus, the Sooy sisters have a proper education in both pre-med and law. They attribute their prior knowledge of these subjects to their upbringing.
“We came from a medical background, our father was a physician and our mother was a nurse. He also loved foreign affairs, so we got it from him. We talked politics and foreign affairs… Whether it was aunts or uncles, we were all on different sides of the political spectrum. The idea is we all talked. We could talk about anything there because nobody was offended. That’s what’s so different from today,” Jennifer said.
After obtaining a Master of Arts and Education and a Master’s degree in Social Studies, the Sooy sisters began to substitute teach at a number of schools within the Miamisburg and Centerville area. During this time, their cousin graduated from Sinclair and transferred to Wright State.
Between that and the good things they had heard about the college, the sisters thought it would be a good idea to apply. The two were accepted immediately and their journey with Sinclair began.
To the Sooy sisters, teaching is more than educating students; It’s about giving back to the community and all the students within it.
“We came back so we could teach and really share with the community how much individuals do have a role to play,” Kathleen said. “They can influence our government leaders. They can be participants themselves. They can help in coming up with solutions to public problems. That’s why congressmen or US senators are elected. They’re there to solve these problems, but they need to hear from us. They need our help. There’s so much opportunity out there that we just don’t learn about in high school or college.”
To call the Sooy sisters a dynamic duo would be an understatement. The two have been by each other’s side for years, always aiding each other not just outside of work but in the classroom as well. They both refer to it as more than just working with a sister, but rather a “best friend.”
“You can talk about issues,” Jennifer said. “You can talk about substance. You can talk about problems in the classroom, how to do things, what to do differently, we can talk about anything. The only negative thing is we never really stop.”
“We bring our different levels of expertise to certain areas where we’ve had time to develop them. We share with each other and we share with our students, so we bring different things at the same time. We can team teach, too. Very few people can effectively do that,” Kathleen said.
While both sisters intend to stay at Sinclair for the time being, both also note that they would like to write a book about their experience team-teaching law in Eastern Europe. They also would like to travel more.
They point out how there’s a shorter window of opportunity to travel when you’re older, so it’s important to travel while you’re young and free. Finally, the sisters said they want to do more for the community. They emphasized that it’s important for any and everyone to do what makes them happy.
“I always tell my students, ‘If you’re happy in what you do, you will have a very happy family life and you’ll make them happy and it just goes on,” Jennifer said.
Dion Johnson, Multimedia Specialist/Intern