Hadley Jenner, Grad. Cert. ’97
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Long-time work with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) seems to leave people with rich experiences and much wisdom, but not necessarily with credentials that translate into comparably responsible work in the US. Or so Hadley and Jan Jenner found after leaving their shared 7-year-long roles as MCC country representatives in Kenya.
Hadley had been trained as a land planner and had worked in planning for nine years in Alaska prior to heading to Kenya. So, in Kenya, he had a particular interest in land-use and environmental matters.
In 1997 when he enrolled in CTP – to “retool,” like Jim Hershberger and other returning MCC volunteers were doing, with MCC tuition assistance – Hadley became interested in conflicts arising from environmental issues.
Two professors in particular, Vernon Jantzi and John Paul Lederach, encouraged Hadley to take CTP into the public policy arena by marketing CTP’s services “to help address conflict in ways that nurture healthy communities, clean environments, and robust participation in a sustainable future,” as explained in a brochure published at the time.
For several years Hadley tried to realize this laudable vision, but sufficient funding never materialized. His wife was hired to write grants for CTP, which weighed in favor of the family remaining in Harrisonburg. Hadley, who had completed a master’s degree in environmental planning at the University of Pennsylvania in 1974, went to work as a planner for Rockingham County.
As the three Jenner children approached college age, Hadley felt he needed to find a new career path that would both challenge him and offer the family solid, stable income. So he returned to EMU and completed a BS in nursing in 2005. (He was fast-tracked through EMU’s nursing program, having previously earned a BS in biology at Earlham College in 1972.)
How does Hadley use his CTP training in the hospital? “I am able to connect with all of the different kinds of people who come in, to establish relationships of trust.” Yet he confesses: “I miss thinking strategically [about burning social issues], gathered with other thinkers around a table.”