Growing up, Christian Bello Escobar watched his parents, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico for a better life, work two jobs each to provide for their family.
"My parents worked first shift in the mornings at factories, and they cleaned offices in the evening," said the director of migrant programs and services who leads the High School Equivalency Program (HEP) and College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) at the University of North Georgia (UNG).
When he grew older, Bello Escobar joined his parents as they cleaned professional office buildings, which is where he saw the benefits of higher education.
"I would walk into these offices and see enough degrees to cover the wall. I thought, 'That's what I want for myself,'" he said. "I knew cleaning people's offices was an honorable job, but I didn't want to do it for the rest of my life. That pushed me to do well in high school and to succeed in higher education."
Now, Bello Escobar is living his dream. Two degrees adorn his office wall at UNG's Gainesville Campus. One is a bachelor's degree from Georgia State University. The second is a master's degree from University of West Georgia. He also has a post-graduate certificate in diversity from UNG.
In 2021, Bello Escobar will earn a third degree for his wall. The UNG instructor of University College is working on his doctorate in leadership with a concentration in higher education leadership from Valdosta State University.
"I started in the fall 2017, and I'm working on my last coursework and will soon start my dissertation," Bello Escobar said.
During his higher education journey, the Lawrenceville, Georgia, resident found a job he loves. As a director of HEP and CAMP, he helps students whose parents were migrants and seasonal farm workers earn a GED or transition and succeed in college.
"It allows me to be a servant leader," Bello Escobar said. "The programs also focus on students who are under-represented in higher education, and that's my passion."
The native of Acapulco, Mexico, discovered his passion when he was a member of Lambda Theta Phi Latin Fraternity at Georgia State University. With his fraternity brothers, Bello Escobar volunteered to work with high school students and other college students, becoming a role model for them.
"I was doing things I liked to do and enjoyed it," he said. "My fraternity adviser noticed and said, 'You know you can do that for a living.'"
The revelation changed Bello Escobar's trajectory. Instead of pursuing a terminal degree in psychology, he switched to an education post-graduate degree.
"I wanted to help people like myself obtain their degrees and find their dream career and realize that their dream is possible through education," he said.
Since then, Bello Escobar has pursued his goal and passion. While earning his bachelor's and master's degrees, he worked in undergraduate admissions at Georgia State and in housing and residence life at the University of West Georgia, which led him to work in residence life at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Then he came to UNG in early 2014 to serve as coordinator of Multicultural Student Affairs & Latino Success.
About a year and a half later, he learned the university was establishing a CAMP program. Currently 50 CAMP programs are on campuses across the nation, and UNG is one of three institutions in Georgia with a CAMP program. Bello Escobar applied to lead the program and has been its director for the past four years.
"We provide these students a chance to break the cycle of poverty through education," he said. "I do believe that by changing one individual's world, they can change their world in the manner they see fit."
