Human Services Program Changes the Life of Alumnus

QCC alumnus Gordon Dupuis, of Southbridge, has a lot of experience in higher education. He has earned multiple college degrees, yet throughout his higher education what has resonated with him most was his experience as a human services student at Quinsigamond Community College.  

Despite having been enrolled in multiple colleges, he said QCC was the first college he attended that made him feel he could realize his full potential.

"Both Southbridge and Worcester faculty and staff, particularly Dr. Doe West and Professor Brenda Safford, took their time to personally support every student to help them achieve their best,” he said.

For Mr. Dupuis, his journey to QCC came by a circuitous route. In 2003, he graduated from Clark University with a BA in ancient civilization and decided to take a year off before looking into graduate schools to become a professor of comparative religion. After a year at Anna Maria College in Paxton, he settled on Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, where he graduated with a Master's Degree in Religious Studies in 2010, earning the highest GPA in the program.

"Once I graduated I was offered to teach one course there, but the funding for the position dried up,” he said.

For the next few years, he looked for an adjunct teaching position and dabbled in creative writing. In 2012, he met his wife who had recently returned to the area after living for a time in Texas and Florida. 

“My wife was the first one to discover and attend QCC,” he said, noting that she already had a BA in English with a minor in sociology.  “She decided to enroll in the Human Services program.”

A year later, Mr. Dupuis also enrolled in QCC’s human services program. It was to be a turning point in his life.

“After I received my associate degree (in 2016), both of us enrolled in the Master of Social Work program at Wheelock College (now Boston University), he said. "Both of us were also fortunate to have our clinical internships together at New Beginnings of Southbridge, an outpatient therapy clinic near the center of town,”

After graduating in 2019, his wife began work as a social worker at Harrington Hospital, in Webster and he became a clinician at the Open Sky Adult Community Clinical Services program, working to help those in his hometown of Southbridge.

“I have lived in Southbridge my entire life and know that it is an economically and emotionally depressed town,” he said. “I feel that QCC can uniquely provide the opportunity and community required for my town to heal from generations of poverty, apathy, and disenfranchisement.”

Visit QCC’s Human Services to learn more about the program.