Who is history-making ‘Professor FLOTUS’ Jill Biden?
Long-time educator Jill Biden, the wife of US President-elect Joe Biden, will be the first FLOTUS (first lady of the United States) to have a full-time job in the role’s 231-year history.
After President-elect Biden gave his victory speech in Wilmington, Delaware, Jill (in an Oscar dela Renta dress) went on stage not just as the FLOTUS-to-be, but also as a wife, a mother and grandmother, an active member of her community and a “lifelong educator.”
In an interview with CBS ahead of the elections, Jill said, “If we get to the White House, I’m going to continue to teach.” She added, “I want people to value teachers and know their contributions and to lift up the profession.”
She also said in the interview that if she becomes first lady, she will advocate for free community college tuition, funding for cancer research and support for military families, which she also championed as a second lady.
Jill, who is a university professor with four degrees (one bachelor’s, two master’s and one doctorate) under her belt, made clear, even in the past, the importance of education.
In the book First Ladies by Betty Boyd Caroll, published in 1987, Jill Biden was described “an educator, who had (then) completed two master’s degrees and vowed to continue teaching emotionally disturbed children even if her husband won the presidency.” (Joe Biden, who recently broke the record of former President Barack Obama for most votes ever earned in a presidential election, ran for president three times— first in 1987, second in 2008, and third in 2020.)
For eight years, as she was serving as the second lady under the Obama administration, Jill was teaching full-time at the Northern Virginia Community College. This made her the first second lady to hold a paying non-political, non-legal, outside-the-Beltway job. This year, she took a leave of absence from her teaching job to get in her husband’s campaign trail.
Ohio University professor and first-lady historian Katherine Jellison said in an interview with USA Today that Americans have historically wanted their first ladies to be in the White House and at the president’s side whenever possible. “Maybe the time has come when Americans will be more accepting of the idea that a president’s wife can simultaneously be a first lady and a working professional,” she noted.
The road to being FLOTUS
Jill Tracy Jacobs, born in Hammonton, New Jersey, is the oldest of five siblings. Her father Donald Jacobs was a bank teller and US Navy signalman during World War II, and her mother Bonny Jean Godfrey was a homemaker. She was raised in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
In a 2008 issue of Vogue, Jill admitted that she was rebellious in high school, where she had a good time, enjoyed life and friends, but have always loved her English class, reading and writing.
Jill, who first married—and eventually divorced—college sweetheart Bill Stevenson, initially took up fashion merchandising in Brandywine Junior College in Pennsylvania. She did modeling jobs for local agencies to earn money.
A few years later, she enrolled to the University of Delaware’s College of Arts and Sciences and took up English as her major. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1975. She taught high school English for a year in Wilmington.
"How did you get this number?"
Those were the first words I spoke to Joe when he called me out of the blue on a Saturday in 1975.
I’ll be speaking tonight at the #DemConvention. I hope you’ll tune in! pic.twitter.com/t0amDEM2kT— Dr. Jill Biden (@DrBiden) August 18, 2020
The same year, Jill met University of Delaware alumnus Joe Biden, who was then running for Senate and eventually won as one of the youngest Senators in US history. According to Vogue, Joe saw Jill’s picture in an advertisement posted on a bus shelter and was smitten. He looked for Jill’s number but was unlisted. It was Joe’s brother, Frankie who got Jill’s number through a friend and gave it to Joe.
In the 2008 Vogue interview, Jill confirmed that Joe proposed to her five times before she said yes. Her reason for not saying “yes” until the fifth time? She had hesitations because “I had fallen in love with the boys and I really felt that this marriage had to work. Because they had lost their mom, and I couldn’t have them lose another mother. So I had to be 100-percent sure. It was a big step.”
(Joe lost his first wife Neilia and 13-month-old daughter Naomi in a car accident three years prior to meeting Jill. Beau and Hunter were also in the accident but survived.)
In 1977, Jill, 25, married Joe, who was nine years her senior.
Jill completed her master’s degree in Education from West Chester State College in 1981 while pregnant with their daughter, Ashley. She only stopped working for two years while raising the kids, including Beau and Hunter, whom she considers her own children.
She eventually went back to teaching and taught English at a community college in Delaware, at a public high school and at a psychiatric hospital for adolescents. She also earned her Master of Arts in English from the Villanova University in Pennsylvania, the same time she was working and raising a family. She also earned her doctorate in Education from the University of Delaware in 2007 before Joe was elected Vice President.
I’ve said for years that #CommunityColleges are America’s best kept secret. They meet students where they are and give them the tools to succeed in the workforce. @MyNIACC is doing just that. Thanks for the tour! pic.twitter.com/G8cxmi2PgP
— Dr. Jill Biden (@DrBiden) September 7, 2019
Her role as a second lady for eight years allowed her to highlight the importance of community colleges, bring attention to the sacrifices made by military families, and raise awareness on issues important to women, including breast cancer prevention.
Jill and Joe Biden have advocated for education with the America’s College Promise Act, which would have made two years of community college free for responsible students.
Jill actively campaigned for her husband Joe and urged Americans to vote in perhaps one of the most important elections in the United States’ history.