When Anthony Phillips was a young man, he was skeptical of things like caps and gowns and college class rings.
“When you don’t graduate high school and you walk around with negative bravado, right? You’re like ah, that doesn’t mean anything,” Phillips said.
But over the course of a life filled with missteps, challenges, and setbacks — including twenty years in prison — his attitude changed.
He proudly wears a Lehman College class ring, and last month, thirteen years after he first enrolled at Lehman, he donned a cap and gown to earn his bachelor’s degree at sixty years old.
“It makes me feel like a boy again,” he said. “And I’m like, wow, man, this is my high school, like this is my journey all over again. You know, like my graduation ring, my honors here, my president’s badge, my two dean’s list badges, finishing great, you know, with a 3.766 this semester. I just feel like a kid. It’s just fulfilling. You can be born again and be a child.”
Phillips wants to use his education to help young people avoid the serious mistakes he made as a young man.
“I’m formerly incarcerated. I had six attempted murders on some New York City law enforcement officers when I was very young, about 23-years-old,” he said.
State prison records show he was convicted of attempted murder and attempted assault in the second degree. He was sent upstate in 1988 and was paroled into a different world in 2007.
“I went in at 23 and came home at 43 — two decades. So, I really came home anonymous to anyone, lost to just society. And it was just my, maybe, education that kept me focused. If I didn’t have anything, I had that,” he said.
A year after he enrolled at Lehman, his home in New Jersey was hit by Hurricane Sandy. He left school, but was inspired to return after racial justice protests surrounding the 2020 death of George Floyd.
“I saw that [incident]. I saw that maybe I could, you know, continue my education. I was halfway there, and I said, maybe it’s the time like, to go back to school,” he said.
Phillips says the staff at Lehman College welcomed him back with open arms. Richard Finger, vice president for enrollment management at Lehman, has known him since he first enrolled in 2011.
“Anthony’s a good guy. And I mean that because anybody I’ve encountered on campus has met him. He left a positive impression on them. Our faculty members, our administrators, our counselors. Anthony is going to make a big mark on the world as he graduates,” Finger said.
He’s not done learning: Phillips says he’d like to earn his master’s in social work. But first, he’s going to take some time to enjoy his accomplishment.
“It’s a long time coming. This wasn’t a journey that was straight through,” he said.