To kick off the 2024-2025 school year some new faces have emerged in the Theology Department, one of them being Ms. Jefferies, teaching both juniors and seniors.
Ms. Jeffries is a returning member to Bishop Gorman staff. Instead of working in the campus ministry department as she did before, she is now a key figure in the classrooms teaching Catholic Morality to juniors and World Religions to seniors.
Ms. Jeffries’ journey to becoming a teacher was not on her bingo card, but God had a different plan for her. “God knew that I wanted to be a teacher. I was able to explain things to where other people could understand,” she stated.
With that being said, Ms. Jefferies’s path to her new career began at Notre Dame where she went to college, majoring in political science. She got her masters degree in education at both the UNLV and the University of Idaho. After graduating college she realized she might want to pursue teaching. “Teaching more found me than I ever thought of being a teacher,” she said. She went on to teach at CSN and then became a youth minister for religion classes at St. Andrew Catholic Community in Boulder City for fifteen years.
One of the most powerful things Ms. Jefferies mentioned was how she found her true passion for teaching in a college tutoring program where she and other students would travel to a Catholic elementary school in an older part of town. For two years she had the same boy named Michael, who at the beginning had learning difficulties she was able to help him overcome his learning hurdles and gain the confidence to strive in academics. “The confidence he felt from our time together learning and the extra help and attention made me think I would like to make more people experience the joy of learning,” she said.
Additionally, Ms. Jefferies likes to teach theology specifically because she wants people to feel invited to learn about God, “I love making it accessible to more people.”
Ms. Jeffries firm faith in God gives her comfort and joy in life. As she shared, “We are all going to meet God someway and sometime because that’s the one guarantee in life.”
