It Takes a Village: The Story Behind the Wake Forest SPS Moms Support Group

Shelli Tordé, graduate of the Master of Project Management program

Picture this: You’re a student in the Master of Project Management at Wake Forest School of Professional Studies (SPS). 

You’re also a mom, so life might look something like this: 

8:00 p.m.: Put the kid(s) to bed.
9:30 p.m.: Finish the reading for class this week.
10:00 p.m.: Close your eyes for some much needed sleep.
1:30 a.m.: The baby is up.
3:00 a.m.: The baby is up again.
5:30 a.m.: Your alarm goes off, and it’s time to get ready for work and start the day.  

You know this is just a season — a blip in the winding road of your journey, but that doesn’t make the experience easy. It’s exhausting. 

Shelli Tordé felt this, and she imagined a world with community support for women who struggle with balancing grad school, work, and motherhood. She envisioned a group in which moms (and expectant moms) feel seen and heard by women who understand.

Shelli, now an alumna, brought this vision to life by founding the Wake Forest SPS Moms Support Group. 

An Opportunity for Something Bigger

After five years as an analytical chemist, Shelli felt hungry. She was ready for a career pivot that emphasized her natural drive and business acumen. A personality assessment offered a recommendation: “Business Owner/CEO or Project Management.” 

Enter the Wake Forest SPS Online Master of Project Management. 

When she learned that the program was 100% online, Shelli took it as a sign.

Shelli navigated her masters program while pregnant, gave birth in the second-to-last semester, and graduated five months later. 

Easy? Hardly. Doable? Clearly. An opportunity for something bigger? Absolutely.

The Wake Forest SPS program helped Shelli hone her ability to identify opportunities, articulate next steps, and shepherd an idea into an outcome. 

What did Shelli identify? An opportunity to bridge a gap. 

Wake Forest SPS is known for its strong web of support between practitioner professors, students, alumni, and staff. Taking a cue from the school’s commitment to compassion and diversity, Shelli realized she could provide a supporting resource for an underrepresented demographic of students: mothers.   

“There’s not really a non-traditional student at Wake SPS,” explained Shelli. “Non-traditional is the traditional, and it can be really hard being a mom and balancing all of that.”

The way Shelli saw it, women supporting women, in careers, graduate studies, and life, benefits everyone involved. Even in the blur of newborn life, she was laser focused on making this opportunity a reality. She authored a detailed proposal and presented it to Wake Forest administrators. 

What Could a Moms Support Group Offer?

Shelli proposed a group for new moms, pregnant women, and even those who hope to become moms – a space for women to share a common journey, how to prepare for success, the joys and heartaches of motherhood, and more. It would be a digital space for women to swap everything from career tips to lactation consultant recommendations. 

Shelli intentionally tailored the group’s format to best support moms:

• Bi-monthly, regularly scheduled meetings allow busy moms to plan their time effectively.
• A conversation facilitator, ensures that each Zoom meeting fosters friendly introductions, sparkes engaging discussions on relevant topics, and provides an inclusive environment for every attendee to contribute.

Wake Forest SPS approved the project. That’s the beauty of a program focused on work-life balance and taught by professionals. In addition to fellow students and alumni, many faculty know what it’s like to balance career ambitions with parenting. 

Shelli experienced this firsthand. “I went into labor hours after having a conversation with my professor about how to navigate the classwork.” 

Her professors showed a genuine commitment to helping her strategize a flexible approach to continuing the program. “They’re so understanding, and they want to support you and your goals.”

The Wake Forest SPS Moms Group: A Bi-Monthly Haven

Currently, the group meets twice a month via Zoom. About 25% of participants are alumni, and 75% are current students in various phases of mom-life. 

Shelli reflects on the impactful reactions: “People are so grateful for it. They’re like, ‘I was just waiting for the meeting today. I forgot about everything, but I didn’t forget about this meeting.’”

The meetings have expanded beyond Zoom into group texts. Support, camaraderie, a sense of belonging, and shared existence in this new role – it’s all there. 

For Shelli, her academic program, the professors, and this support group also gave her the confidence to keep moving forward.

“Wake Forest showed me what a project manager not only does, but where a project manager can go in their career,” she said. 

Shelli’s little boy will turn one in July of 2025 and she took on a full-time position as a Continuous Improvement Engineer – a role directly related to her newly acquired project manager skills (including a solid command of Lean Six Sigma). 

The transition to daycare? The first-week-back jitters? For Shelli and the Moms Support Group, there will always be plenty to unpack next meeting.

To learn more about the Wake Forest SPS Moms Support Group or to join the next meeting, reach out to Loréal Maguire (maguirl@wfu.edu) or connect with Shelli on Linkedin.