She did something no First Lady had done before: kept a regular teaching job while living in the White House. For Jill Biden, the classroom was never a prop. It was a refuge. Between motorcades and state dinners, she returned to fluorescent-lit rooms, plastic chairs, and students juggling night shifts and childcare. There, she wasn’t “Madam First Lady.” She was simply “Dr. B.”
Leaving NOVA closes a chapter written over 15 years of essays, office hours, and quiet encouragement. Her departure is less about retreat than recognition that seasons end, even for those who seem tireless. For former students, her legacy isn’t the historic title she held, but the email she answered at midnight, the margin note that said “Don’t give up,” the belief that community colleges—and the people in them—are worthy of a First Lady’s full heart.