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Alumni Spotlight: Monica Earle

Maybe your 2024 didn’t go as planned, but it’s time to start setting goals for 2025. For some people, this is the perfect time to start learning a new language. This month’s #AlumniSpotlight trades in one beloved bird mascot for another as Monica Earle (’11) serves as the Senior Public Relations Manager for Duolingo.

The Bird is the Word

For over 100 million active users, Duolingo is an educational app that provides language certification. They offer courses on commonly spoken languages like English, Spanish and Chinese to less common ones like Welsh and Navajo. They even incorporate fictional languages like Star Trek’s Klingon and Game of Thrones’ High Valyrian. Recently, they’ve branched out into universal languages, including Math and Music. This is where an expert like Earle comes in.

Earle is part of a two-person team for communications. She is responsible for consumer communications, product launches and storytelling, while her boss, the head of global communications, oversees the corporate side, such as CEO interviews and earnings reports. She also puts together brand safety guidelines for any employees in an external facing role, including the social media team.

Her day starts with reading all the news and meeting with internal department colleagues to discover stories she can tell that align with their long-term business goals. In this recent case, mathematics and music are both ways to offer another form of education that ranges from beginner to challenging. Her job requires equal parts creative thinking and execution to inform the public about these tools that continue Duolingo’s mission to develop the best education in the world made universally available. Another challenge is that as a publicly traded company, she must be cautious about what she shares as the business reports their metrics on a quarterly basis.

The PR Path

A bright futures scholarship recipient, Earle loved that UNF provided a smaller campus enclosed within a nature preserve. She lived at home during college but wanted to get a true “collegiate” experience, so she threw herself into on campus activities. She was a sister of Kappa Alpha Theta, a committee chair for Osprey Productions, and the president of PRSSA. As president, she and her VP received funding from student government to attend the PRSSA National Convention in D.C., making connections that remain to this day. Earle was also gaining plenty of experience in the communication program, learning AP style in Paula Horvath’s writing class, building real PR campaigns in her capstone course and taking on a couple of internships. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree in communication specialized in public relations along with a psychology minor.

Even with all her knowledge and experience, it was tough for her to break into the industry. Her former internship supervisor told her to apply for a news producer role to get some post-graduate experience. She got a job as the morning show producer for Action News Jax, and after getting really good at broadcast writing, held onto that role for three years. She then found a digital marketing job that was more in line with her degree, but her goal was to return to the public relations realm and do work at a national level.

She used her connections to land a job with Archetype, a PR agency in New York focused on technology. She started at a lower level but quickly rose up the company. She led consumer tech teams, coordinating PR for Waze, Slack, GoDaddy, Coursera, Vodafone, DoorDash and Grubhub. She also led media training for executives before their live-broadcast interviews on CNBS, Fox Business and NPT. She spent six years at the agency, but she wouldn’t be truly satisfied until she got to work in-house for a company focused on mission-driven work. Then, the Duolingo position opened, and Earle’s spent the last three years focused on prioritizing education.

Dymanic Duo

She loves the organization and the talented, kind people she works with. She also loves the response she gets from Duolingo’s users. Since her e-mail, press@duolingo.com, is the only public facing contact on the website, she gets a handful of crazy responses, but the heartfelt ones stand out to her the most. She’s gotten messages from people using the app to speak to extended members of their families overseas, elderly folks reminiscing on past travels by relearning the foreign language, and even patients with muscular issues improving their brain health through repetitive language practice. “I love seeing people get positive effects,” said Earle.

As her career continues to progress, she’d love to grow her team and manage people as they expand their corporate storytelling. She’s currently completing her MBA online at UF as she utilizes her education and experience to teach the next generation of PR students, so don’t be surprised to see her pop up as a guest lecturer real soon. She admits she never would’ve predicted the path to where she is now, so she knows better than to attempt a prediction of her future, but she wants to stay working for mission driven organizations.

(Written by Alex Achorn, Published 1/2/25)

Local Business Showcase: Main Made Studios

Putting the Pedal to the Metal

If You Build It, They Will Come

(Written by Alex Achorn, Published 1/7/25)

Donor Spotlight: Eddie Collins

Continuing our “Thanks for Giving” campaign, we’d like to recognize Dr. Eddie Collins, founding faculty member for the UNF - College of Arts and Sciences Department of Sociology, who has established a need-based undergraduate scholarship to echo his commitment to student success.

Collins attended public school in eastern North Carolina and went to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University for his bachelor’s degree in sociology and anthropology. After graduating in 1966, he went to Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University) where he got a master’s degree. He then taught at Clark College across the street for four years, and when he was researching for his thesis, he ran across Dr. Carroll Simms, a professor at Georgia State, who ultimately became the first chairman of the department of sociology at the newly founded University of North Florida. Simms called Collins and asked if he’d be interested in joining him, and he became an Osprey in 1972. After three years, Simms left to go up north, but Collins has remained part of the UNF community ever since. 

In the early years, there were the core four in the department. Simms, Kumar Kuthiala, Chris Rasche and Collins. “Students were attracted to sociology because at least they had a vision of having some impact on society,” he said. Many of his students were much older than him; some were military and some had started their education before joining the workforce and never finished. Collins said, “Students who had a lot of real­ world experience and [were] very eager to get through.” The University allowed them to complete their degrees. 

When he started, he taught the three courses of the social welfare program for about ten years and was also an advisor. He’d never taught these courses before, but he says “I was lucky to find some good textbooks and took a couple of other courses at Gainesville, and those courses became the courses that I enjoyed.”

He also organized a fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega National Service Fraternity, who got charted in the first couple of years. He’s loved seeing the growth of campus and the student body and remembers the first time he walked around and noticed students were playing around and suntanning on the green.

“Coming out of the 1960’s, it was a very optimistic time,” he said. “I saw this university as a part of that new revolution of creating a society that was much more open, much more diverse, and much more optimistic in terms of human possibilities.”

“I think the university probably impacted the city in terms of its racial climate more than anything that’s happened in the last hundred years,” he said. He was an active member of the Jacksonville Community Council, Inc. that did an assessment of the city. Back then, the city was fragmented by regions, and he’s seen it grown tremendously in terms of developing an identity.

After 35 years, he retired from the University in July 2007, but still finds ways to contribute as an emeritus.

(Written by Alex Achorn, Published 11/26/24)

Oz For A Cause: Sarah Roberts

In this month’s edition of #OzforACause, we are highlighting a triple alumna who’s not only dedicated her life’s work to helping others through counseling and art therapy but has also staunchly advocated for herself and others living with diabetes. November is Diabetes Awareness Month, and we recently sat down with Sarah Roberts, RMHCI (’21, ’21, ’24), to discuss her career and advocacy. She currently works as an associate therapist at Elite DNA Behavioral Health in Jacksonville.

A Third-Degree Swoop

As an Osprey, Roberts stayed active on campus and in the classroom, earning dual bachelor’s degrees in psychology and interdisciplinary studies, focusing on ceramic art therapy. This year, she completed her master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling and incorporates her UNF education into her work, primarily counseling children aged 9 and up.

Art therapy, in many ways, inspired Roberts to become a therapist. During undergrad, while taking 17 credit hours one semester, she struggled with stress as she pursued forensic psychology aspirations. Practicing ceramics during this time helped her manage the pressure and persevere through her studies.

“I thought, ‘How cool would it be for me to be able to use the tools that I’ve learned to put my stress into something and create something out of nothing and teach that to people.’”

During undergrad, Roberts also worked as an orientation leader, senior mentor, and development associate for UNF’s University Development and Alumni Engagement office after graduation.

She speaks highly of her master’s program, noting classes such as Expressive Arts Counseling, Equestrian Therapy, and Sexology as enjoyable and beneficial for helping clients. Currently, she holds a Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern (RMHCI) designation and will need to pass an exam after two years of client work and 1,500 direct-client hours to become a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC).

Diabetes at a Glance

Diabetes is a group of diseases affecting how the body uses glucose (blood sugar), according to Mayo Clinic. Glucose provides energy for muscles, tissues, and the brain, but diabetes can lead to excess blood sugar, causing severe health issues.

With Type 1 diabetes (T1D), the pancreas makes little or no insulin, the hormone that allows glucose to enter cells and produce energy. There is no cure for T1D, which is often caused by genetics or viral infections and typically appears in childhood or adolescence but can develop in adults.

In Type 2 diabetes (T2D), the pancreas produces insufficient insulin, often due to inactivity, obesity, or insulin resistance in fat, muscle, and liver cells. While T2D usually occurs in older adults, rising obesity rates have led to more cases among younger people, including children.

Roberts was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 3 after a severe strep throat infection triggered an autoimmune response that temporarily shut down her pancreas. She uses two medical devices to manage her blood sugar: a Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) and an insulin pump. These devices create a closed-loop system, acting as an external pancreas, she explained.

“I like to call myself part robot,” she said.

Insurance coverage for these devices can be challenging, and rising insulin costs remain a major issue for the diabetic community. Roberts said she’s had to fight her insurance provider to access the care she needs, while legislators often fail to grasp the life-or-death nature of insulin access.

“I think a lot of the time it’s seen as a luxury,” she said. “If you don’t have insulin, you can’t eat, you can’t function. You need insulin to survive.”

She also noted research showing that COVID-19 has triggered autoimmune responses in some adults, leading to late-onset Type 1 diabetes diagnoses.

“I know a lot of people in the mid-to-late 20s who got COVID and now they have Type 1, so it’s definitely something to pay attention to.”

Advocacy and Diabetes Camp

Roberts uses her T1D diagnosis to educate others and encourage younger generations to persevere despite their condition. As a child, she wrote a letter to President George W. Bush advocating for stem cell research, a potential avenue for curing diabetes. She received a reply with a presidential stamp, which she still has to this day.

Since age 5, Roberts has been involved with the Florida Camp for Children and Youth with Diabetes (FCCYD), returning frequently as a counselor. The camps offer a safe space and community for children with T1D.

Recalling her childhood, she faced bullying from peers who joked about her condition or mocked her medical devices. She said she often hid in school bathrooms to check her blood sugar.

“To be able to go to a space at least once a year [where] I didn’t have to hide part of myself is the best part about it,” she said.

Diabetes Camp provides a refuge where kids can participate in activities without worry, supported by trained counselors and professionals. The camps also offer diabetes education and mental health counseling. Roberts’ favorite, Camp Winona in DeLeon Springs, features lakeside cabins and is run by the YMCA.

Roberts advocates for person-first language, encouraging people to say, “I have Type 1 diabetes” instead of “I’m diabetic.” She explains that this distinction emphasizes that individuals are more than their condition—a principle she also applies to mental health and autism.

Living with diabetes requires constant decision-making, from monitoring blood sugar and food intake to managing devices and insulin. Roberts acknowledges this can be exhausting, especially after difficult fluctuations in blood sugar.

When she is not working as a counselor or volunteering at Diabetes Camp, Roberts enjoys pottery, spending time with friends, searching for shark teeth, visiting local breweries, and growing her vinyl collection.

(Written by Tyler White, Published 11/19/24)