Phillip Gatling
CAGS '04 • Principal, Riverview Elementary School • Murfreesboro, North Carolina

Phillip Gatling, Sr. received his Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies from Cambridge College in 2004. He was then an assistant principal. After passing the national licensure exam, Gatling became principal of Riverview Elementary School. He recently earned licensure as a superintendent.

Beating poverty with education Phillip Gatling, Sr. traveled 1,200 miles to share his feelings about Cambridge College. His life has taken him from poor rural origins to an important leadership position in education. “My father and mother didn't have a formal education,” Gatling recalls. “I was the first person in my family to obtain a college degree. My mother always said, ‘I want you to go to college and make something better of yourself.'”

After graduating from high school, Gatling received a degree in elementary education. He worked as an insurance salesman and a store manager, but wasn't satisfied. A friend suggested he apply for a position as a teacher's assistant, and Gatling was hired for the job. He worked his way up to assistant principal. "Even after achieving that goal, I needed additional qualifications to become a principal. Since I didn't have an administration degree, I enrolled in a program at a traditional college,” he says.

But Gatling quickly became dismayed. There was a great deal of paperwork, and it was very expensive. “Shortly after enrolling in the program, I met someone who said, ‘Why are you wasting time when you could be at Cambridge College?' So I decided to check it out.”

Gatling's greatest fear was that transferring would cause him to lose credits and momentum. But the director of Cambridge College's Chesapeake, Virginia campus, put him at ease. “As it turned out,” says Gatling, “I was one of the first people to graduate from the CAGS program in Chesapeake. When I walked in to take that principal's exam, there was no question that I'd pass.”