Bancroft Daley ’21

Found a Place to Belong — and a Path Forward

hen Bancroft Daley thinks about belonging, he doesn’t just think about fitting in. He thinks about showing up fully, fearlessly, and with purpose.

“Belonging,” he says, “is when you’re not just included. It’s when who you are, your identity, your experience, your history, is woven into the fabric of the space you’re in.”

It’s that sense of intentional belonging that Daley found at SNHU, and it’s something he carries with him today as a teacher, public speaker, and advocate in Philadelphia.

But the path to SNHU wasn’t always clear.

At 21, after years working at a trampoline park in Connecticut, Daley saw a commercial for SNHU and signed up for online classes. “I had no roadmap. College wasn’t part of the plan,” he said. “But something told me there was more for me.”

After one semester, he transferred to SNHU’s campus in Manchester, New Hampshire. “I hadn’t even realized how far it was until my mom and I got in the car,” he laughed. “But the moment I stepped onto campus, I felt something. It felt like home.”

As a first-generation college student, a Black man, a wheelchair user, and someone from a working-class urban community, Daley brought layers of lived experience to campus. SNHU made space for all of it.

“From the start, I wasn’t just included, I was celebrated,” he said. “People said, ‘We’re glad you’re here.’ And they meant it.”

Daley originally planned to earn his associate degree and move on, but graduation day changed that. “Seeing my whole family there, seeing how proud they were, especially my grandmother, it just hit different,” he said.

He stayed to complete his bachelor’s in business at SNHU. After graduating, he went on to pursue a master’s in human rights and gave a TEDxSNHU talk about the cost of fitting in, continuing his path of advocacy and leadership.

Now a high school teacher in Philadelphia, Daley is working toward becoming a principal, with the same mission he’s always carried.