Jennifer Hammack

A mother’s wish, struggling to work and complete an education, fighting for a disabled child’s rights and raising a family make for an interesting life story. That life story belongs to GC&SU’s Professor Jennifer Hammack.

All through college Hammack, a criminal justice professor, said she ignored her mother’s arguments that she would make an excellent lawyer. Hammack wanted to be an English professor; she wanted to focus on Renaissance literature and Chaucer. But Hammack decided that the popularity of a degree in English would render it difficult to achieve a well-paying job, so she included criminal justice in her studies. Upon her graduation from the University of Alabama in 1996, she was offered a scholarship to the master’s program at the University of Chicago, the opportunity of a lifetime for Hammack. She denied the scholarship. She was needed at home.

At the same time that Hammack’s life was beginning to fall into place, her mother’s health was beginning to fail. Her mother was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a highly malignant, rapidly infiltrating brain tumor. Hammack made the life-changing decision of staying in Georgia to remain near her mother.

With her future plans on hold indefinitely, Hammack decided that creating another career path was a necessity. She enrolled in the criminal justice graduate program at the University of Alabama. Hammack had taught criminal justice classes while working toward her undergraduate degree years before and decided that was her calling.

At the relentless urging of her mother, Hammack finally took the LSAT, the exam required for admittance to law school. Hammack passed with flying colors, and with no other direction before her, she began applying to law school.

“I always teased my mother that she would do anything to get her way – that she got sick just to make sure that I’d go to law school,” Hammack said, with a smile.

Hammack’s educational path was soon blocked by potential disaster. Hammack wished to attend law school at her alma mater, but her admittance paperwork was lost, and she was put on the waiting list for that semester.

Not being much of a “wait and see” type of person, Hammack scrambled to find a sympathetic ear. Finally, her story fell upon a compassionate person in the university’s registrar’s office and Hammack received admission for the year. Unfortunately, she would have received scholarship money due to the high scores her mother knew she would earn on her tests.

Hammack paid her own way through school, which meant a full-time job on top of a full course load. She went to school during the days and waited tables or worked as a disk jockey during the evenings. Despite Hammack’s lack of time, love found its way onto her daily repertoire early in her law studies. Hammack met and married her husband Eric Luca during law school and with that came an instant family. Luca had one son from a previous marriage, Tyler, now 14 years old, and one on the way, Jesse, now 8 years old.

Right after graduation from law school with her Juris Doctorate in May 2001, Hammack was faced with a situation that called for strong maternal instincts as well as her expertise in law. Hammack’s second son, Jesse, has Ataxic Cerebral Palsy, a condition that affects his gait and his speech. And with Jesse beginning his education in a public school, Hammack said she fought to ensure that her child would receive all the assistance his condition warranted.

Hammack was able to enhance the quality of her son’s daily life through the two aspects of her own life that she most enjoys, motherhood and criminal justice studies.

Hammack began to understand that sometimes mothers do always know best. Hammack always knew she wanted to teach. Despite the limitless life she had created for herself through her law degree, Hammack found her experience teaching classes during college to be more rewarding and sought a career in teaching. Hammack was first offered a teaching position at the University of Alabama, which she denied.

“A big school tends to put too much emphasis on research and not enough on the students.” Hammack said. “I didn’t want a grad student teaching my classes while I researched all day. I wanted to be in the classroom interacting with the students; that’s the best part for me, the students.”

She then applied for a three more jobs, one at GC&SU and one each in North Carolina and South Carolina.

“I just loved it here immediately, there’s something about small towns that big college towns just don’t have,” Hammack said.

Hammack said she began teaching at GC&SU five years ago and has enjoyed every second of it.

“I regard Professor Hammack as a very good colleague,” explains Dr. Charles Ubah, a fellow criminal justice professor. “She gets along well with everyone and is very popular with the students.”

Hammack said that she will eventually take the bar and once again practice law. She plans on practicing business law, such as writing wills and contracts, due to the ease of that field and how financially lucrative it can be. But for now, Hammack plans to keep enjoying teaching in her ideal small school atmosphere.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 11 2005. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry