Embracing a career that’s never going away: San Antonio College opens a funeral home
It opened the first mortuary science program in Texas in 1961. Now it is the only college in the country with a funeral home on campus. San Antonio College (SAC) has opened a funeral home on campus, becoming the only mortuary science program in the country with a facility on campus. The American Board of Funeral Service Education has stated that SAC is the only college currently operating out of a funerary home. The facility will be a learning lab for students to practice their skills immediately, allowing them to observe real-world interactions with grieving families. Jonnica Fuller recently graduated from SAC and said she loves her new role as funeral director, where she serves anyone unable to pay and serves anyone from the bottom to the top. Mena emphasized the importance of having the best programs possible to prepare future morticians as many funeral directors are nearing retirement.
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According to the American Board of Funeral Service Education, SAC is the only mortuary science program in the country with a funeral home on campus right now. A college in San Francisco used to operate out of a funeral home before it closed. Another in Sacramento is trying to open one.
“It’s a great learning opportunity for our students so that when they get out into the real funeral world, they’ve at least got some background on how to how to start, how to begin,” Mena said.
A practicum at a funeral home is already part of SAC’s two-year mortuary science degree. But Mena said the mortuary on campus will be a learning lab where students can practice their skills more immediately.
“Sometimes, not always, but sometimes at the funeral home, it gets fast-paced that they may not have time to explain everything,” Mena said.
Jonnica Fuller recently graduated from the mortuary science program at SAC. She said she wishes she could have used that on-campus learning lab.
“It was a big adjustment to take myself out of a school setting and just realize that every day that I walk into work, it’s going to be different. Every day. It’s not going to be black and white like it is on our test,” Fuller said.
She thought future students will have an easier time transitioning to the real world because they can witness real interactions with grieving families sooner.
But even though it was an adjustment, Fuller said she loves her new job because she makes a difference.
“My funeral home is kind of special. We do the county program, so we get anybody who is unable to pay,” Fuller said. “The clientele is from the top to the bottom. So, people that I would have never encountered. It’s people I would’ve never met in my life. It makes me feel good that I can serve them all equally, and I can all make them feel the same way.”
Fuller’s first experience with the funeral home industry was as a young mom 14 years ago.
“I had a daughter pass away when she was three,” Fuller said, “And one thing that caught me [was that] I did have a female funeral director during my daughter’s process of her ceremony.”
Now she feels like she can pay it forward. “It takes a certain type of person to deal with that every day. And the compassion that I had from that woman 14 years ago really solidified my decision on being there because I feel like I’m capable,” Fuller said.
Mena said having the best programs possible to prepare future morticians like Fuller is especially important right now because many funeral directors are close to retirement.
Fuller saw that as an opportunity for women like her. “I feel like there’s going to be a shift in the industry in the next … decade because women are the future,” she added.
Fuller first started thinking of becoming a funeral director at the start of the pandemic when she lost her job as a manager of a Barnes & Noble. Just before she was let go because of the lockdown, Fuller read a memoir titled Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory, written by a woman who worked at a crematorium.
“Reading that book kind of gave me hope that there’s something like that that I can do,” Fuller said. “And I knew that that the death industry is never going to go away. It’s just like food — food’s never going to go away. And death is 100%.”
话题: Academia