Alumni Stories: Amy Davies

Meet Amy Davies, a proud 2007 graduate who grew up right here in Dover, NH, but whose journey took her across the country and around the world before bringing her back to PCA. Amy’s ties to PCA run deep: she’s the daughter of two beloved PCA educators and is now a parent herself, with two children, soon to be three, enrolled at PCA.

In our interview, Amy reflects on her years at PCA, sharing memories of impactful teachers, lifelong lessons, and the unique blend of faith and family that shaped her. She also opens up about her post-graduation adventures, from missions in Africa to her career in IT, and her joy at returning to PCA as both an alum and a parent.

Her advice to Upper School students? Be open to change and trust God’s plan—even when it leads somewhere unexpected. Read on to learn more about Amy’s incredible story and the legacy of faith and education that continues through her family at PCA.

Talk to me about your highlights, impactful teachers and your time at PCA:

I went to PCA from Kindergarten to 12th grade. My mom, Mrs. Shevenell, taught sciences while I attended school. My dad, “Coach Shev,” was on the school’s Board of Directors and coached track and cross country. He also taught academic classes at PCA, but not until after I graduated in 2007. I loved the family aspect of being at PCA; family life and school life were indistinguishable.

I had great friendships at PCA. While we’ve drifted in the years since graduation, I feel like anytime I bump into people in public or around PCA, it almost feels like we never left.

It’s so fun to be at PCA as a parent to my own children and see so many of my former teachers still here. I had Ms. Corso in 2nd grade, and it is so good to have her as assistant principal for my own kids. I had Mr. Foley, Dr. Gamble, and Mr. Beal in high school; they’re just wonderful humans! No one can go through the high school without talking about Mr. Beal and the impact he had. He has a very commanding presence and can come across as very strict, but he’s just very tall and no-nonsense. It is in his class you hone public speaking (among many other things), and I feel like everyone ends up with very strong memories of that unit when they make it out the other side.

Mrs. Higgins was my 4th grade teacher. She was great. My mom always talks about how much she loved that I was in her class. I was very bouncy and energetic and a little bit forgetful and not necessarily the best student. I would do my work, but then not hand it in, but Mrs. Higgins got me, and she was all about it. She celebrated who I was, and gently reminded me how to do the right things that I wasn’t naturally strong in doing.

Do you feel you would have had a different experience in public school?

I would be a very different person at a public school. As much as I can easily step into a leadership role in a lot of ways, I think in terms of social life and shaping who I was as a

person, I could have easily been a follower, which would have been dangerous in those years. It was huge for me that I was at PCA. I was surrounded by friends and their families who all had the same beliefs that me and my family had. We learned them at school, at church, and in our homes. We all had that common understanding, and we were all kind of building each other towards the same goals with the same values. Regardless of my parents being believers and teaching me in the way that I would go, public school would have influenced me.

Where did such a positive school experience take you after graduating in 2007?

It seems like one of the strongest things that influenced me was all these people (at school, home, and church) pointing me towards the God who speaks and leads and has a plan for you. Those first years after high school held the strongest examples of seeing the way He leads in my life.

In high school, I really wanted to go to RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) for college after I graduated. My dad had gone there, and I knew it was an excellent, very technical school and difficult to get into. It was late high school when I started applying and I had this really strong sense that I wasn’t going to go there. It wasn’t that I shouldn’t, not that I couldn’t, not that I would get rejected, but just this really strong sense from God that ”that’s not where you’ll be.” I felt like I was almost seeing the future. “I am going to UNH.” I don’t know why. I don’t know if that’s even what I wanted., but it was just “you’re going to be at UNH.” So, I only applied to UNH, and I got in. I started a degree in computer science. I left for a couple of years to participate in short-term missions work with Youth With A Mission (YWAM). At 19 I married my husband, Jesse, and we had only been married for about 6 months when we left for Africa to work in missions for a year.

And this is all hard to reconcile with the person I was during high school. I had a plan: get my bachelor’s degree, get married, get my master’s degree, and then start having kids. I was going to get a technical job like my dad, and probably go back to PCA and coach because that sounded awesome. I was somehow going to be both of my parents.

Then God really shifted and moved me towards things that I never thought I would have wanted to do. I didn’t have the desire to go live in Africa. God said,” This is where you’re going.”

What was that experience of missions in Africa like for you and your husband?  

I don’t recommend spending your first year of marriage in an unfamiliar third-world country, but it’s where God led us, and He taught us so much. Many of the things that God taught me during high school made me strong enough to say yes to the things He was asking me to do in those early years after graduation. I trusted Him enough to move toward or through something that wasn’t my plan and felt like I had direction even when I ended up in a difficult place. We were in Africa for one year and returned to the United States for a repair year with YWAM in Montana. Then we came back, and I finished my degree at UNH.

Did you continue your same path at UNH?

I graduated in December 2015 with a computer science degree. During college I worked at a place on campus at UNH called the InterOperability Lab (IOL), which is mostly all computer science work. That gave me some great experiences and connections to meet people.

I ended up getting hired right off the bat at Liberty Mutual in IT. My business unit got bought by Lincoln Financial six years ago. Now I’m in more of a project manager role at Lincoln Financial. My team works on the customer-facing website for the kind of disability and life insurance that people generally get through their employers. Our site is used by people who need to file a claim so that they can get paid while they’re out of work, for example. My job is to help my team organize their work and stay on track. I see what I can do to make them more efficient and happier in their jobs.

This stage of life is crazy and busy, but someday, I would really love to teach.

Tell us what your life with PCA looks like now.

Jesse and I have three children.:. Our oldest attends PCA as a 1st grader, and our second child is in the PCA Preschool. When our youngest is old enough, we plan to enroll him. My mom watches him twice a week.

It’s been fun to be at PCA as a parent. PCA is a happy place for us. We don’t rush when I come to pick up the kids from school. Sometimes we walk around and just enjoy being here. The kids are super excited when Papa (my dad) is here, and they like to snag him after cross country practice. This is where we want to be, and it has been fun to come in as a parent. I feel like I’m at home, honestly. It is just warm and fuzzy driving onto the campus.

Growing up I spent nights and weekends here a lot doing random jobs, hanging out here after school all the time for sports, etc. I came back and coached for six years, so all the time that I was in college and up until I had my first child, I coached with my dad and there was no major break in my time from PCA.

Was that a difficult decision? Sending your kids to PCA?

As I graduated from high school, I would have said it was my life goal to come back to PCA to start a Computer Science program and start teaching after I spent time gaining industry experience. It’s still a “maybe” in the long-term plan. I would have said my kids must go to PCA, but there were several years where I needed to learn that PCA didn’t have to be the answer. I needed to be open to other things. And so, I was so happy when it came full circle and Jesse started talking about trying to send our kids to PCA. Especially because of the way things are politically right now and the kinds of things that you hear about happening in some teaching environments. I will spend any amount of money to keep my kids in a school where they only need to concern themselves with what school is for – an education.

If you could give our Upper School students one piece of advice, what would it be?

Be open to change. Nothing is what you think it is, and nothing must stay the same. God will lead you in a lot of crazy ways you won’t expect. Ideally, pick the right spouse! Other than that, if you go somewhere and feel like it’s not right—a job, college, etc.—remember that pretty much everything’s changeable. You have more control than you think.