Grace A. Telesco, Ph.D., BCETS, adjunct professor in the Criminal Justice Institute, always keeps in mind that she went from a GED to a Ph.D., a fact she uses to inspire her students.
“I think teaching is about inspiring,” Telesco said. “You can probably think of two or three teachers in your life who really made a difference for you. There are those who stand out, and it’s really, really cool when [I’m] one of those teachers who stands out.”
Telesco tries to put herself in her students’ shoes and to have compassion for them, remembering that she was a non-traditional student. She was forced to drop out of high school because of family issues, and an employer inspired her to get her GED.
“I had an employer who said, ‘I’ll give you this job on one condition, and that’s that you get your GED,’” she said. “I always loved school. I didn’t leave because I didn’t like school. I just had to. Education has always been something that I love, just love, and is a passion of mine.”
She doesn’t like lecturing, but when she has to, she makes it as engaging as possible.
“My PowerPoints have a lot of funny graphics in them and fun pictures,” she said. “I try to keep it as funny and as entertaining and as exciting and as memorable as possible.”
Telesco was a lieutenant in the New York City police department for 20 years, and then she became an adjunct for Barry University, NSU and Miami Dade College. Telesco said she balances teaching at Barry and NSU by staying in the moment.
“I have to think, ‘What am I doing right now? What’s in front of me right now?’ whether it be preparing for a class or reading a paper or posting a discussion or conducting a live chat,” she said.
Telesco taught at the police academy in New York and was promoted from cop to sergeant and then to lieutenant. She found that she liked teaching, which spurred her to complete her master’s in criminal justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice within City University of New York.
Her last year and a half at the NYPD was spent helping the 9/11 families, which she said was the best work of her life.
Because of her doctorate in social work, her chief put her in charge of the crisis intervention response, and she became the Interagency Coordinator of Mental Health Services at the Family Assistance Center. She and other officers went to the morgue to help the victims’ families fill out missing persons reports. They then started helping families at a Family Assistance Center where thousands of families would look at hospital lists and deceased lists and give DNA sampling to identify more bodies. She also assisted the officers who worked under her with stress management.
After retiring, she received a call from the Department of Health and Human Services to become a part of the Disaster Technical Assistance and Consultation Team to emotionally assist New Orleans police officers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“We got five to 10 cops at a time in a circle and asked them to tell us the story of where they were when it happened, what they were involved with, how they were feeling now, and where they saw themselves in the future,” she said.
Telesco said that although it is exciting that she can share her experience with her students, she believes students learn the most when they’re immersed in something.
“We learn by doing, and we learn by being entertained,” she said. “I like to have them play or act out stuff — get their hands dirty.”
To do this, she gives her students practical application exercises for them to grasp concepts. For example, she has created a game where students break into groups to create different kinds of “families” and are presented with a crisis they must overcome.
“It’s one example of what I do for practical application exercises to bring the theory and the practice together,” she said. “And then, as I’m asking them what they got out of the exercise, I can talk about real life situations whether it be my work with NYPD, my work with 9/11, or my work with Katrina.”
Telesco is the co-founder and director of operations with her partner Kris Drumm at the Wolfbear Institute, an organization that trains groups, individuals and organizations to raise their consciousness and awareness about crisis intervention, grief and racism.
When Telesco is not teaching, she likes to lounge by the pool and be with her dogs, a Jack Russell terrier and a rat terrier. She also travels twice a month to New York to study at the New Seminary for Interfaith Studies to become an interfaith minister. Her goal is to become a chaplain and work in hospitals and hospices. Telesco said she feels there is a need for interfaith ministry.
“Sometimes, we get really stuck in our beliefs and in our faiths, and that’s a good thing, but it becomes destructive when we start attacking other faiths,” she said. “I think it’s really important for us to work together and see that we’re all in this together. Interfaith is respecting each other’s faith practices and working together with other faiths.”
