Cartwheels in the hallway: The undefeated joy and lasting legacy of Dr. Jenn Gonyea

It was a Saturday and the building was empty – for Jenn Gonyea, a perfect time to catch up on work at the office.

It wasn’t until several hours later, walking to her car, that she noticed the security cameras lining the ceiling. The following Monday, she sought out the facilities manager, Casey Crane.

“She told me, ‘Please don’t look at that footage,’ ” Crane remembered.

He did, of course - immediately. What he saw was Gonyea entering her office, emerging for a quick break, and suddenly launching into a cartwheel in the hallway.

Then another, and another.

“She told me ‘I’ll just be walking and start doing cartwheels,’ ” Crane said. “Just to blow off steam, I guess.”

Even nearing the end of an 18-year ordeal with breast cancer, Gonyea’s joy remained undefeated.

“That’s such a Jenn thing to do,” said Christine Hargrove, a colleague and friend. “She always made sure to add a little fun.”

Line dancing and meteor showers

Michael Gonyea’s uncle told him if he wanted to meet girls, he had to go country line dancing.

“I’m from upstate New York – lot of country fans up there,” he said. “I wasn’t one of them, but he bugged me for like six months. I said OK fine, I’ll go.’”

That night at Cocktails outside Plattsburgh, N.Y., in the summer of 1994 proved to be a fateful one for Michael.

He gave an old acquaintance a ride home that night. She had a daughter, Jenn, who was a little younger than Michael. Would he come to her college graduation party?

That’s where their story begins.

“There were a lot of people at the party,” he said, “but to the two of us, we were the only ones there.”

A few weeks later, they had their first date under a meteor shower in mid-August on a sandy beach on Lake Champlain.

“I’ve written poems and songs about that night,” Michael said.

She had beautiful eyes, he said, and they shared a love of the outdoors. He never said it out loud, but Michael knew early on he was going to be with her forever.

They got married on the lake on August 29, 1998.

“There’s always been three words I’ve used to describe Jenn,” Michael said. “Beautiful, smart, silly. She was all three. She had a laugh, a rolling laugh that filled a room. You always knew she was in the room.”

Driven by a dream

They moved to Georgia in 2000 when Jenn enrolled in the doctoral program in marriage and family therapy in the University of Georgia College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

After receiving her degree, she joined the faculty as a lecturer, eventually becoming a clinical professor in the FACS department of human development and family science. She also established a private practice in the Athens area.

“She was a clinician at heart,” said Hargrove, who studied under Gonyea as a doctoral student and now serves a clinical assistant professor in FACS. “She was just so warm and empathetic. I could tell she really cared about people.”

She was a tough instructor, deeply passionate about preparing future clinicians. If you made an A in her class, you earned it, and if she was your clinical supervisor, you were better for it.

One thing always bugged her, though: UGA did not offer a master’s program in couple and family therapy.

“She hated to see incredible students graduate from UGA as undergrads and then have to go somewhere else,” Hargrove said. “She believed one of the best ways to improve mental and relational health in Georgia is to train up our own.”

It took years, probably the better part of a decade, and there were setbacks and frustrations. But in fall 2025, the program welcomed its first cohort of four students.

“That program was a dream of hers for such a long time,” Hargrove said. “She was so excited about her vision of what she was doing that even though it took a massive amount of work and blood, sweat and tears, she focused on how wonderful it was going to be once it got off the ground. And she was right. Her vision was wonderful.”

Michael remembers a conversation they had not long before the program was finally approved. It was the first time Jenn referred to it as her legacy.

Joyful and alive

Jenn and Michael always wanted to be parents. When it didn’t happen after a few years, they chose open adoption.

In February 2008, they welcomed their newborn daughter, Abby, into their home. Four months later, Jenn was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer.

Immediately, there was fear, but also intense guilt.

“Somebody hands you their baby, their newborn, and all of a sudden, four months later, you say ‘Yeah, I have a terminal illness now,’” Michael said. “That weighed on her for quite a while.”

Within a year, Jenn had undergone a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation. It became a pattern in her life: treatment, remission, more treatment.

“She taught and worked at UGA nonstop through those 18 years, until this past year when it was really just too much,” Michael said.

Colleagues never heard a complaint. She rarely even mentioned it, Hargrove said.

“She was just so joyful, so alive,” she said. “She would just every day take the bull by the horns and it wasn’t just that she didn’t take any day for granted, she didn’t take any people for granted either.”

The cancer eventually wore her down. Jenn passed away on May 8, two weeks before Abby graduated, almost exactly one year since the MFT program was approved. She was 52.

Beautiful, smart, silly

The hardest part, Michael said, was always the unknown.

“Once we had a plan, we dealt with it through humor,” he said.

Before her mastectomy, they hosted a “bye-bye boobies” party, where guests came wearing bras outside their clothing. Later, they had a massive food fight in the driveway with about 25 of their friends on Jenn’s birthday.

“She had this love of that mischief,” Michael said, laughing.

Two days after Jenn began chemotherapy in 2008, she and Michael gathered friends and family for a “head-shaving party” on their back deck.

Jenn’s hair is arranged in braids, and one by one, each person clips a braid as Jenn laughs and Michael films.

After everybody has had their turn, Jenn takes the scissors and cuts the final braid. A cheer erupts.

“She’s free!” somebody shouts off camera. “She’s free!”

As the video ends, Jenn holds the last braid to the camera, rubs her head and smiles. She’s free.