Before she competes to become Miss America in December, Miss Pennsylvania Alysa Bainbridge (ʼ23) is sharpening her leadership skills in Cabrini’s Master of Science in Leadership (MSL) program. The online degree program has provided Bainbridge the flexibility needed to pursue higher learning while advocating for mental health and addiction recovery through her Miss Pennsylvania platform.
“It’s completely online, part-time, and that has been such a blessing,” said Bainbridge, who enrolled at Cabrini in fall 2021 after earning a full scholarship through the Miss Philadelphia Scholarship Foundation in 2019. “I don’t know if I would have been able to do it otherwise.”
Serving as Miss Pennsylvania is a full-time job for Bainbridge, who resides in Berks County. In addition to representing the Miss Pennsylvania Organization and meeting with potential sponsors, she supports her social impact initiatives—mental health and substance abuse prevention—through speaking engagements at schools and conferences and other public appearances.
These issues are close to Bainbridge’s heart. She grew up with an older brother and younger sister who suffered from bipolar disorder, ADHD, and other mental health struggles.
“I saw the judgment and the stigma not only they [received] but my entire family received,” she said. “I set out to do something to empower individuals who may feel defined by their illness and let them know there’s so much more than a mental health diagnosis.”
In 2018, Bainbridge lost her brother Tyler to an opiate overdose stemming from his untreated bipolar disorder, and she expanded her advocacy platform to support those struggling with addiction and substance abuse. She founded a non-profit, Tyler’s Triumph, in 2021 to provide scholarships and other assistance to those working toward recovery.
“I now do a lot of work in the recovery community sharing my brother’s story,” she said. “Unfortunately almost everyone I meet has some kind of connection, and can relate to that. [Addiction] is still not talked about enough and there’s this stigma attached to it.”
Though Bainbridge is a natural leader who has been competing for local titles in the Miss America pageant network since she was 15, she credits her ongoing MSL coursework for reinforcing the value of servant leadership.
“If there’s one big takeaway from all of the classes I’ve taken so far in the program, it’s that leadership is selfless,” she said. “A good leader works not for themselves or for their own glory, but for other people. That to me is what leadership is, and especially the kind of leadership I try to embody as Miss Pennsylvania.”
In the process of taking a leadership role on these tough societal issues, Bainbridge has seen improvements around mental health stigmas. But much work remains to be done around chronic illnesses as well as substance abuse.
“We talk about self-care and taking care of our mental health, but we still don’t want to talk about that dark fact that this is a disease that people live with every day,” Bainbridge said. “Especially as far as substance abuse disorder is concerned, so many people don’t want to talk about it.”
Bainbridge will share her story and work on the national stage in December at the Miss America competition in Connecticut. Following a week-long schedule of panel interviews, talent performances, red carpet appearances, and public Q-and-As, she hopes to be chosen as Miss America—a dream that has been at the forefront of her life since childhood.
Until then, she will continue juggling her duties as a Cabrini student and as Miss Pennsylvania, advocating for hope and creating dialogue around one of modern society’s most daunting challenges.
“That’s my goal: to use this platform that I’ve been blessed with to have a conversation that to some people is dark and hard to have, and put that spotlight on it,” she said.