Nikita McCoy keeps going.
When giving up would be easy, maybe even reasonable, she continues to move forward. She feels too much support, too many people behind her, not to keep charging ahead.
It comes from her four children, her husband and his two children, and the faculty and staff at SUNY Jamestown Community College.
And especially her late father.
It was their dream. Together. The one that is about to come true.
Jeff Warner was a laboratory assistant at JCC’s Cattaraugus County Campus Allied Health Sciences building when his daughter started in the Nursing program down the hall.
Warner died in fall 2024 as McCoy was just getting started and struggling with her first classes. Two days before his death from pancreatic cancer, Warner looked up at his daughter and said, “This is our dream, and you're going to accomplish it.”
McCoy is set to graduate with that dream Nursing degree from JCC’s Cattaraugus County Campus on May 15 and has a “dream” job lined up as an operating room nurse at Jones Memorial Hospital in Wellsville.
She will also receive the Benjamin Lockwood Persevering Student Award, named for a JCC freshman who died of a brain tumor in 1999.
“The school has been amazing to me,” McCoy said. “When my dad died, I came to class the next day, and his office was right there. The community here, it's like when you're on a lifeboat and they're just pulling water out. They kept saying, ‘You're going to keep going. There's no stopping you.’”
McCoy has overcome a series of obstacles on her way to earning a degree.
The first came at age 20, about 14 years ago, when she started in the Nursing program on the Jamestown Campus. McCoy “got into a lot of drinking” and “a couple fights,” she said, “and my dad picked me up and drove me to the recruiter’s office.”
McCoy served as an intelligence officer in the military for two years, during which she endured an assault. After that, she experienced a difficult marriage that her father helped her leave.
Only in the past year has McCoy shared her military experience publicly and identified as a veteran.
“I went through a lot and didn’t come forward until I was in school at JCC,” she said. “So the support of the school is really what pushed me to go forward.”
If she is not in a Nursing program lab or classroom, McCoy can often be found in the campus veterans lounge on the second floor of the College Center. It is a quiet place with comfortable furniture, snacks, and a sense of solidarity that helps her unwind and focus on studying.
“This,” she said while sitting on a couch in the lounge eating lunch, “is my sanctuary space.”
The people at JCC have been just as important.
They include Don Pool, Accessibility Services coordinator and student military veteran advocate, who nominated McCoy for the perseverance award; Beth Lisi, Learning Center coordinator, who helped McCoy secure scholarships and grants while she worked three jobs and supported her widowed mother; Tammy Skroback, senior Student Services assistant, who alerted McCoy to veterans benefits; Ginna Hensel, Learning Commons assistant, who is helping McCoy obtain a veteran’s patch and special robe for commencement; and Dianna Shaw, a Success Center counselor whom McCoy often visits to talk.
McCoy has also received unwavering support and encouragement from Nursing program faculty.
“There are a lot of times, even today, where I’m like, ‘I want to quit and I want to be gone,’ and they’re like, ‘No, you’re not doing that,’” McCoy said. “The Nursing program is one of the best programs I’ve ever been a part of. It’s hard. I compare it to the military. It seems almost harder at times, but they have such good support for everybody, and they’ve been really supportive of me.”
McCoy is likewise driven by the six children, ages 4 to 11, she and her husband are raising together. Her husband is also a military veteran attending college.
“They’re really awesome kids, and they have learned and grown a lot watching mom go to school,” McCoy said. “My son, especially my oldest, it’s changed who he is as a person. He’s watching me go through this, and it’s changed how he handles things.”
As she ventures beyond JCC, McCoy wants to give back and help others in the same way she has been helped.
“The community here may be small, but I probably would have quit four times over by now if I didn’t have them pushing me and being my dad’s voice of reason,” she said. “When he was sick, he couldn’t come to work, and they covered for him. They did his job so he could keep his insurance and get some treatment.
“They did such wonderful things that I can’t ever repay, except by giving back,” she continued. “I’ve already thought about next year. I’d love to bring something here that helps others the way I was helped. It’s something I will carry with me for the rest of my life.”