Outstanding Nursing Graduate Alexandra Vess Built Her Path One Day at a Time
After earning her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, Alexandra Vess was a mental health worker who watched nurses care for struggling adolescents and thought: I want to do more.
Each turn of her journey led somewhere unexpected, from volleyball player and undergrad student to mom and mental health worker. Each one, it turned out, led somewhere necessary.
Vess will graduate in May with her Associate of Applied Science in Registered Nursing from Owens Community College, earning the program’s outstanding graduate honor along the way.
The road to that moment has been anything but straight. Vess, of Sylvania, played varsity volleyball at Southview High School before continuing her athletic career as a Division III player at Heidelberg University. A career-ending concussion changed everything.
“Losing a sport that had been such a significant part of my identity was both physically and emotionally challenging,” she said. “It forced me to re-evaluate my future in ways I never anticipated.”
She transferred back to Toledo and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Toledo, finishing her final semester with a one-year-old at home and a pandemic upending any chance of a graduation ceremony. She went on to work at an adolescent mental health facility, facilitating therapy in both acute and group settings.
It was there that nursing came into focus.
“There was only so much I could do,” Vess said. “Watching the nurses — helping them help these kids — that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to take that extra step.”
She applied to an entry-level master’s of nursing program at a local university and was denied. At the time, it stung. In retrospect, she sees it differently.
Shortly after learning of the denial, she enrolled at Owens and built her path from the ground up.
“I feel like everyone kind of disses on community college,” Vess said. “It seems like nobody wants to go. Now, after being here, I tell everybody to come here.”
Balancing two young children with clinicals, coursework and work required a village. Her parents provided much of it, picking up her children during clinicals, getting them to bed so she could study and waking early to take them to school on exam days.
Inside the classroom, she credited nursing adjunct instructors Madi Huffman and Carla O’Leary, instructor and Student Nurse Association advisor Scarlet D’Amore and nursing retention specialist Gina Youngs for their support. The most meaningful impact came from professor Ceci Tolson and assistant professor Louise Weller.
“There was a moment when I told Louise, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do this,'” Vess said, “and she responded, ‘I will drag you through kicking and screaming if I have to.’ And that is exactly what she did.”
Through all of it, her children remained her reason.
“It took a lot of time away from them, and it took a lot of tears from all of us,” she said. “But at the end of the day, they knew that Mommy was going back to school. We were going have a good life after this.”
The moment she held her composite headshot in her hands, her son put it in perspective.
“He said, ‘Wow, Mommy, I’m so proud of you. You worked so hard,'” Vess recalled. “In that instant, every sacrifice, every tear and every sleepless night finally felt worth it.”
After graduation, she will transition from her current role as a nursing apprentice to a Registered Nurse at ProMedica Toledo Hospital where she will work in a unit specializing in renal, vascular, nephrology, wound care and endocrine patient populations. Vess plans to pursue her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and, long term, become a Nurse Practitioner.
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Published May 2026