Having education-oriented family played key role in her career choice
By Tra’von Johns, Student Reporter
Aleysa Rose, who is now the Academic Success Center coordinator, thought teaching was going to be her career after she graduated from Northwestern, and it was for a while.
Then teaching didn’t feel right any more.
“I started to fall out of love with teaching public education,” said Rose, who at the time was teaching seventh and eighth grade English in Enid. “I ran into the difficulty of trying to figure out what it was I really needed to do — if it was to stop public ed teaching or if it was to go into something completely different or maybe I just needed to stick it out.”
She said she prayed and turned to God to help her find the path she needed to follow. That path led her back to Northwestern. She became the coordinator of the Academic Success Center and also teaches habitudes classes.
She said she gets to “work with students and help them grow every day.”
Rose lived in La Junta, Colorado, until second grade when she moved to Alva with her family. She graduated from Alva High and earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northwestern. Besides living a few others places to teach, she has stayed in Alva most of her life. She married Dalton Rose, who is also from Alva, and is expecting her first child in November.
Her first job teaching was in Kansas in a third-grade class. She also worked in Ponca City for two years teaching fifth grade and then one year in Enid in seventh and eighth grade English.
She said she has always really enjoyed working with students and helping them figure out what they are capable of, what their strengths are and how much they can grow.
Rose said the person who has influenced her the most would probably be her father, Brad Franz, who is the NWOSU athletic director. She said he is student oriented and always puts students first by helping them be successful in any way possible.
And he always follows through with them.
“He never lets them slip through the cracks,” Rose said, “and his hard work and his determination and seeing how many students really look up to him and how he’s made an impact really just showed me that’s what I wanted to go into.”
She said she grew up with many teachers in her family and many who had education-based jobs. That family influence helped her decide that going into education was where she needed to be as well. But then the feeling came she needed to make a change.
Rose said she decided that if you’re questioning something and you still have a love for it, then you’re meant to do it.
Going into higher education then became a defining moment: She didn’t have to leave education completely; she could just shift. She said that’s exactly what she needed.
Another defining moment she said she had was moving away from home and leaving Alva to teach after she graduated college. Rose said the transition was tough because she was away from her family. She said it helped her see how much Alva meant to her.
Rose said the craziest thing she ever did was move 2 1/2 hours away into Kansas where she’d never been before to take her first teaching job.
“I had no idea,” she said, “so I kind of just took a leap.”
One of her greatest fears is losing the people she loves the most, she said. Her grandmother died of cancer in 2024.
“She was the person closest to me,” Rose said. “It’s helped me realize how much I cherish my family. Losing them just really takes a piece out of me, and it really did a huge number on me.”
She said she goes through life really hoping she never disappointed her grandmother in any way.
Rose said she wouldn’t change anything in her life. The challenges, the accomplishments, the losses she’s had, the moving, the job changes — they have all made a difference in helping her figuring out what she really loves, she said.
She is passionate about helping people figure out who they are, she said, whether that means changing a major, getting a different job, finding the things they’re passionate about, letting go of things.
Rose also said she really hopes to travel the world more and get to see more of what she hasn’t gotten to see out there because it feels like that really makes a difference.
Her mother Lisa Cline, who is the director of the LASSO Center, said she is proud of Rose and all the accomplishments she’s had.
“I think the thing that I admire the most is that she just has a lot of resilience,” Cline said. “She’s gone through a lot of things in her life. She just has the ability to bounce back and pull herself up and continue to persevere. When sometimes I look at some of the things she’s done … she should have been down for the count. Alyesa just really is a very resilient young lady. She was teaching and she enjoyed that, but you know, that wasn’t really for her.”
Instead of saying she was going to just stay in her teaching job, Rose was determined and courageous to go find that thing that was missing, Cline said.
She said she and Rose have a special relationship and considers Rose a good friend. She said Rose’s greatest qualities are being organized and resilient.
Cline said Rose has a positive outlook on life, and she’s just able to keep things going.
Kaylen Hansen, the director of assessment and institutional effectiveness, has known Rose for a long time, and said Rose has always been a really hard worker and cares a lot about other people.
“When she was going to look at the job at the Academic Success Center, I knew she would do a very good job there because in her teaching career, she has been all about helping students,” Franz said.