Dr. Jill Biden is the First Lady of the United States. Dr. Biden, a community college educator, is the first First Lady to have a paying job during her time in office. Here is a timeline of highlights of Dr. Biden’s life.
Jill Tracy Jacobs is the first child of Donald Carl Jacobs and Bonny Jean Jacobs. She was born on June 3, 1951, in Hammonton, New Jersey, but she grew up in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
(Left: Jill Biden)
In 1969, Biden graduated from Upper Moreland High School in Pennsylvania. She also modeled in Wilmington for a local agency.
In 1975, Biden graduated from the University of Delaware with a bachelor’s degree in English, and she met then-senator, Joe Biden, on a blind date!
Post-college, Biden was a full-time English teacher at St. Mark’s High School in Wilmington, Delaware for a year. Biden was also involved in Joe Biden’s Senate office.
On June 17, 1977, Jill Jacobs and Joe Biden married in New York City at the United Nations Chapel. Joe Biden had proposed to her 5 times!
In 1981, Jill Biden received a Master of Education from West Chester State College with a specialty in reading.
Shortly after the completion of her graduate degree, Biden gave birth to a daughter in 1981, the first child of Joe and Jill together. Then, Jill Biden paused working to raise three of her children: Beau, Hunter, and Ashley.
During the 1980s, Jill Biden taught English to adolescents at Delaware’s Rockford Center psychiatric hospital.
Jill Biden earned her second master’s degree in English from Villanova University in 1987.
Biden also taught English at Brandywine High School in Delaware during the early 1990s. Jill Biden contributed a total of thirteen years teaching in public high schools. Biden gave her DNC speech in 2020 at Brandywine High School.
In 1993, Jill Biden began teaching at Delaware Technical Community College, where she taught for fifteen years.
In January 2007, Biden, 55, received a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Delaware. Dr. Biden’s dissertation was titled Student Retention at the Community College: Meeting Students' Needs.
Following the 2008 presidential election, Dr. Jill Biden became the Second Lady of the United States. Dr. Biden is the first second lady to hold a paying job during her term as a second lady. Dr. Biden taught at Northern Virginia Community College.
Along with former first lady Michelle Obama, Dr. Biden founded Joining Forces in April 2011 to support the families of the U.S. military. As a second lady, Dr. Biden devoted her time to spread advocacy about the importance of community college, the education of women and girls, and the needs of military families.
In June 2012. Dr. Biden published Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops, a children’s book. The book is centered around President Biden’s eldest son, Beau Biden, who was deployed to Iraq. Dr. Biden also likes to introduce herself as a “military mom.”
In January 2013, Dr. Biden continued her second term as a second lady. She also gave continuity to her teaching job at Northern Virginia Community College.
Dr. Jill Biden pursued her career after the Obama-Biden administration, teaching at NOVA in a full-time capacity.
After the end of then-Vice President Joe Biden’s tenure in office, Dr. Biden was also involved in the Biden Foundation and the Biden Cancer Initiative.
In 2019, Dr. Biden released Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself, the NYTimes bestselling memoir.
Dr. Biden supported her husband’s 2020 presidential campaign like she supported President Biden’s two previous presidential runs.
In June 2020, Dr. Jill Biden published another children’s book, JOEY: The Story of Joe Biden.
On January 20, 2021, Dr. Jill Biden became the First Lady of the United States. She has reiterated to continue teaching at Northern Virginia Community College along with her responsibilities as a FLOTUS.
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