When Noelle Kadar ’02 asked her best friend Jennifer Chiappa ’02 to join her on an Oak Knoll School of the Holy Child tour, Chiappa reluctantly said yes. She was perfectly happy in her Morristown middle school and anticipated matriculating to the area’s public high school. What she didn’t expect was that both of them would immediately fall in love with Oak Knoll, and she would return to tell her parents she wanted to apply immediately and attend an independent all-girl Catholic high school. They were pleasantly floored.

“Oak Knoll just blew me away,” Chiappa recalled. “For an eighth-grader to be that taken by a school is pretty remarkable. Suddenly, I was shifting complete gears and going to an all-girls school of my choice. The campus was beautiful, but I think it was witnessing the girls in the halls as we were going through the school. They were just so carefree and happy.”

Chiappa attributes that lack of stress to the fact that there were no boys around to “impress” and no need to shy away from appearing “too smart.” While visiting classes during their tour, she noted the confidence girls exhibited in the classroom. “All of the girls were incredibly engaged with their teacher, were freely raising their hands, were actively participating, and none of them were shy or unwilling to demonstrate their intelligence,” she recalled.

Once enrolled, Chiappa’s confidence grew, and she jumped at the opportunities to explore the limits of her curiosity. In her junior year, the Spanish teacher inaugurated a Mandarin class, and Chiappa eagerly signed up. She took Mandarin for her final two years and went on to get a dual major in psychology and Mandarin from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Initially, Chiappa worked for a nonprofit organization running community group homes for individuals with developmental disabilities. She served as a host home provider for two men with cerebral palsy and saw first-hand how people they encountered often spoke down to them and failed to see the richness of their intelligence and personalities. Her experience during those years became the birth of her calling to enter a more physical form of healthcare than psychology.

“I found my love for health care,” she related. “I realized that I wanted to be a nurse and didn’t want to be in an office, helping people talk through their problems. I wanted to be more hands-on and help treat and resolve problems.”

Chiappa’s existing bachelor’s degree qualified her for an accelerated program in nursing, and she hasn’t looked back. Years later, she is at the top of her field in one of the country’s highest-rated hospitals. She is the Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Clinical Officer at St. John’s Health in Jackson, Wyoming. She oversees nursing operations across the entire organization — within the hospital, their long-term care facility, and their outpatient clinics. She supervises nearly 300 nurses, establishing nursing protocols and evidence-based practices.

And remember that Mandarin degree? It was a lifesaver many years later.

“In Jackson, we typically have many folks coming from China as tourists,” she related. “A few years ago, a tour bus flipped over, and everyone in the crash was a Mandarin speaker. I could translate as the injured were coming through the emergency room and getting surgery. You can imagine their faces and surprise.”

Jackson, Wyoming, is an ideal location for Chiappa, both professionally and personally. “I have always had a significant love for the mountains and the outdoors. Every summer, my parents would take us camping and backpacking, and we would tour almost every national park on the West Coast. I stood out among the Oak Knoll girls because while many wore pearls, khakis, and coach loafers, I wore jean skirts and Chaco sandals. I wanted to go kayaking when the norm was to visit the mall.”

Her sense of adventure is sated by hobbies such as skiing, fly fishing, hiking, rock climbing, biking, and generally enjoying the outdoors with her six-year-old son and four-year-old daughter. She is also passionate about service work and Striping for a Cure, a group of female anglers who raise funds and awareness for breast cancer, and the St. John’s Health Foundation’s Women’s Health Care Fund.

“I think Oak Knoll is very responsible for much of who I am today,” she declared. “What I learned while at Oak Knoll was empathy and an ability to step back and to see things from somebody else’s perspective. I volunteered a ton when I was with Oak Knoll because I enjoyed getting out of my privileged bubble and seeing the world from somebody else’s eyes.”

Oak Knoll also nurtured Chiappa on her leadership journey. “I was our senior class president and loved speaking for a collective, getting insight from team members. and giving a greater voice to a larger group of people,” she continued.

Though 22 years after graduation, Chiappa communicates closely with many Oak Knoll classmates. They utilize a texting group and take an annual fall trip together.

“Nothing has changed,” she joyfully stated. “We’re all grown and have these big jobs, families, and lives across the country and the world. Who we were in high school is who we still are as adults. It’s pretty incredible. Those years in Oak Knoll were so formative in developing who we are.”