Wednesday, September 21, 2016 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, September 21, 2016 // The Statement
5B
D
ressed in a black cap and gown, walking
across a stage in front of thousands of
their colleagues with a sash over their heads
and diplomas in their hands — people dream of
their college graduation from the days of their
youth. It is a day held in the highest esteem.
The ensuing party, full of thoughtful gifts and
congratulatory gestures, is often also antici-
pated — but while being the subject of praise
and adoration for a day is nice, the reason grad-
uating from college is such a momentous and
meaningful occasion is much more layered.
Society hails the importance of a college
education as a ticket to upward mobility and
a new kind of necessity for a prosperous life.
Since the turn of the century, college enroll-
ment has risen dramatically, as high school
diplomas and, more recently, even bachelor’s
degrees, have lost their clout. A college degree
has become almost an assumption, a taken-for-
granted symbol of accomplishment, because
contemporary culture claims that everyone
should — and does — attend college and earn
one. But that viewpoint fails to include an
important, and significantly rising, segment of
the population.
Nontraditional students, often defined as
adult students over the age of 25, have taken
over college campuses yet are still overshad-
owed by their more typically aged counter-
parts. According to the National Center of
Education Statistics, 38 percent of the 18 mil-
lion students enrolled in college in 2007 were
classified as nontraditional. However, despite
their growing presence in the classroom, non-
traditional students across the higher edu-
cation landscape lead largely invisible lives.
Often overlooked by college administrators
and fellow students alike, nontraditional stu-
dents tend to be lost in a sea of youth.
***
Helen Maynard graduated from the Univer-
sity of Michigan this past April, but she wasn’t
part of the incoming freshman class in the fall
of 2012. When Maynard took her first steps on
campus, the year was 1983.
A Cleveland native, Maynard faced finan-
cial troubles from the outset, as out-of-state
tuition costs roughly double that of in-state
tuition, and they didn’t subside as time went
on. By the time her senior year rolled around,
she worked three jobs simultaneously — an
ice cream parlor, a retail clothing store and
the campus recreational sports department —
and held an unpaid internship position at the
Community Television Network, the local TV
station in Ann Arbor. As could be expected,
Maynard struggled to handle the balancing
act, eventually burning out and being placed
on academic probation. The chips were heav-
ily stacked against her, but then, seemingly out
of nowhere, a production opportunity that paid
reasonably well came up and she had to make
a decision. So, a few credits shy of graduating,
Maynard dropped out.
Time passed, but still facing an uphill climb
to pay back her student debt, Maynard decided
to move back to Ohio and put her retail back-
ground to use while attempting to catch the
attention of local TV crews. One day, on her
way home from work, one of the videographers
she knew from the local ABC station was pass-
ing by in a truck. When he saw her, he yelled
out the window, telling her to call the head of
the station. They had an opening on the desk.
With a salary and benefits, she thought she
would be able to pay off her debts and finally
go back to school.
But then her professional life took off, and
those plans had to be put on hold. After moving
up the ladder with promotion after promotion,
working her way from producer to assignment
editor to assignment manager, Maynard began
to realize that the idea of finishing her degree
had faded away.
“You stop thinking about it,” she said. “And
it’s just not on your mind anymore.”
When Maynard did finally return to the Uni-
versity in 2014, it wasn’t as a student. She came
because she had been selected for a Knight-
Wallace Fellowship, a program for mid-career
journalists to complete a self-directed program
of study, participate in professional workshops
and travel abroad within a single academic
year. It was that experience that brought the
didn’t even exist. Even desktop computers
were a rarity. To access the Internet, students
had to wait in line at the Michigan Union to
use the small computer lab in the basement.
Now, there are computer labs in most aca-
demic buildings on campus. But they often sit
untouched, as students nowadays often prefer
to use their laptops in their dorm rooms.
For Maynard, the power to choose the life
you want to lead is a sentiment she’s found
common among her younger peers, and it’s one
that resonates with her. She hasn’t always had
the choice to determine how her life would pan
out, so she understands its value. But she did
decide to come back to the University and fin-
ish her degree, and it’s a choice that has paid
off.
“I didn’t realize that there was a hole,” she
said. “It gives me a new confidence to say, ‘OK,
I don’t have to figure out an answer to that
question if it comes up.’ It gives me pride to say
I’m a graduate of the University of Michigan.
It’s like hitting a giant reset button. I have the
same issue as everyone else who graduated
this year: ‘What am I going to do with the rest
of my life?’ I’ve got a lot of life left.”
***
Leslie Barroso graduated from Eastern
Michigan University with a bachelor’s degree
in English literature and a minor in sociology
when she was in her late twenties. Though
she was on track to graduate in four years, she
dropped out of college during her senior year
to join her family’s insurance business. But
after an experience filled with more lows than
highs, Barroso decided to switch course.
After she earned her degree, she bypassed
the workforce and chose to start a family
instead. She got married and moved to a small
island in Maine, where she spent the majority
of her adult life raising her children as a stay-
at-home mom. It wasn’t until three years ago
that Barroso returned to Ann Arbor, but col-
lege wasn’t part of her plans initially.
She had always considered continuing her
education and earning a master’s degree, but
since she could never figure out what to study,
the idea fizzled out. Living in Ann Arbor again,
the allure of the University was hard to resist.
So, fate stepped in.
Volunteer work has always been important
to Barroso, and moving to a new place didn’t
stop her from getting involved in the commu-
nity. She spends a considerable amount of time
at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional
Facility, and she also works with young women
in recovery to help ease their troubles. Then,
she met a few social workers in
her circle of acquaintances,
and that’s when it hit her.
She wanted to pursue a
master’s degree in social work.
So she enrolled in the School
of Social Work in the fall of 2016,
which means she is only two
weeks into her 16-month long pro-
gram; however, she is already learning how to
navigate the classroom environment.
In one of her classes a few nights ago, the
professor told the class to partner up on their
own, and she had a sense that she would be the
odd one out because of her older age.
“I just knew I was going to let everyone
else pair off and I would take who was left
because nobody flocked over to me,” she said.
“And I didn’t take it personally. I understood
it. They’re forming friendships in their own
group.”
While it might seem like it would be hard for
her to find a sense of belonging, Barroso says
that it’s quite the opposite. Her email inbox
is loaded with offers to join various student
groups and attend certain organized activities.
But she has openly chosen to opt out of those
opportunities — a choice frequently made by
nontraditional students — because she simply
doesn’t have enough time in the day.
“To be honest, I don’t expect to find a sense
of community here,” she said. “I have such a
busy and full life outside of this — and I put a
lot of that on hold to go to school. I really need
the information they can teach me, so that I
can do what I want to do afterwards.”
Barroso wants to work for an agency as a
therapist in direct practice, hopefully at the
University Health System, while also develop-
ing a private practice on the Internet to pro-
vide herself with more flexibility. While it may
have taken her a while to figure out the next
phase of her career and life, she said she knows
now that it has all worked out for the best.
“You only get one lifetime, so it took me this
long but, oh well,” she said. “All these things
converged to say, ‘This is what you want to
do,’ and I think I made the right decision. I
do have those feelings that I wish I had done
it 10, 20 years ago, but not much further than
that because I really loved the life that I lived
between then and now. I’ve been really lucky.”
***
Brittney Williams also graduated from the
University this past April, but her road back to
college was considerably shorter than those of
many nontraditional students. She left origi-
nally during her junior year after her
mother was diagnosed with early onset
Alzheimer’s disease, and she had to go
home to Alabama to serve as her mother’s
primary caretaker and help take care of
her younger siblings.
She came back five years later, in the sum-
mer of 2015, to pursue a bachelor’s degree in
sociology, along with minors in Afroamerican
and African studies and community action
and social change through the School of Social
Work, where she is now a master’s student.
Though Williams was in her late twenties
by the time of her return, her undergraduate
classmates seemingly couldn’t tell the differ-
ence. She said until she actually disclosed her
age, many people just figured she was a fifth
or sixth year senior. But they responded well
when they did eventually find out the truth.
“I think that people looked at me in a class
mom sort of way, and so they were like, ‘You’re
so wise,’ ‘You’ve experienced so much life,’
and I kind of embraced that,” she said. “And so
much of my nature, because of my caregiving
experience, is about loving on people and mak-
ing them feel supported, so it was fine with
me.”
While Williams felt accepted by her fellow
classmates, it wasn’t the same as having people
who could fully understand her situation. It
wasn’t until she participated in a focus group
of nontraditional students at the Center for
the Education of Women that she felt a sense
of comfort.
The experience made her openly wonder if
there were any student organizations where
these dialogues about the trials and tribula-
tions of nontraditional students existed. When
there were none to be found, she resolved to
take matters into her own hands.
So she founded the Michigan Organiza-
tion of Non-Traditional Students, her self-
described “brainchild,” through the Center for
Campus Involvement. She convinced the CEW
to become its sponsor, so it became a sponsored
student organization, and she served as presi-
dent.
Initially, the organization struggled to find
its footing and recruit members, for several
reasons. Williams noted there are many logis-
tical issues that can prevent nontraditional
students from participating in student groups,
such as having busy schedules, raising children
or commuting to class. On top of that, there is
often a mentality that nontraditional students
are supposed to focus solely on academics, not
engage in social activities.
To combat these issues and get the organi-
zation off the ground, Williams reached out
to the CEW for help. Together, they shifted
the mission from a social gathering place to
an educational resource center, implement-
ing workshops about dealing with being the
same age as the professor, doing group work
with younger peers and finding resources that
aren’t as socially accessible to them, and they
resonated strongly with many nontraditional
students.
As an example of how the group helps con-
nect nontraditional students, Williams said if
UM’s Counseling and Psychological Services
utilized social media as a key outreach strat-
egy to connect to the digital generation, a
nontraditional student in his or her late fifties
would have a much less active presence online,
if at all. Therefore, an older student would have
less access to resources and support from the
administration, a fundamental problem Wil-
liams noticed across the college landscape.
“How you think about age is that at certain
points in life you have different levels of self-
sufficiency,” she said. “I think half of it is mak-
ing assumptions about what people know and
what people need who are older students and
half of it is about not wanting to come off as
condescending.”
While Williams has since stepped down as
president to concentrate on life as a graduate
student, MONTS will continue to carry on its
mission to create a safe space for nontradition-
al students with a new executive board and a
budding membership.
“It’s really exciting,” she said. “It’s nice to
have something that you conceptualized and
worked so hard to establish continue to grow.
It’s great.”
***
Oftentimes, when we talk about college, we
see something specific — the typical experi-
ence of someone 18-24, navigating their first
years away from home. But for a growing num-
ber of non-traditional students on campuses,
that isn’t the case. Though they take the road
less traveled, they reach the same ultimate
destination, and if these three women are any
indication, the journey is worth the wait.
idea of earning her degree back to the forefront
of her mind.
“I hadn’t thought about it in years, and being
here on campus made me think about it again,”
she said. “I was so struck by all the great work
that young people were doing and the enthusi-
asm and that feeling of you can go do anything
and there’s every opportunity, and I had lost
some of that.
“It’s an amazing environment being on cam-
pus, the amount of energy that you have, the
variety of viewpoints, this unlimited opportu-
nity to learn. It just re-kindled something.”
So Maynard reached out to the Center for
the Education of Women, a University orga-
nization that provides various services and
financial support to women and nontradition-
al students in an effort to empower them to
achieve educational success and degree com-
pletion. After applying and sharing her story
with them, Maynard earned a spot as a CEW
Scholar. It was that scholarship that enabled
her to enroll as a student again for the 2015-
2016 academic year.
Through fellowship events and professional
workshops held by the CEW, Maynard found a
community of contemporaries that could relate
to her experience as a nontraditional student
and its inherent challenges. While some of
her coworkers were amused or confused by
her decision to return to school in her early
fifties, her colleagues in the CEW understood
her reasoning and encouraged her to carry on.
She knew it was the right decision for her, and
their support eased her transition back into the
world of academia.
The University she found upon her arrival
was starkly different than the one she left
three decades ago. The technological revolu-
tion at the turn of the century, for example,
made it harder for her to keep up with her
technically-skilled classmates who had grown
up in the digital age.
On her first day, she showed up to class
without her laptop because she had read a
CTools notification the night before from the
professor that told the class not to bring them.
But when she looked around the room, all of
the other students had their laptops out. As it
turned out, the professor had told them not to
bring them, except on the first day in order to
complete an online assessment.
“(Before) if you didn’t know by the end of the
day or the class, you weren’t going to find out,”
Maynard said. “No one was calling your dorm
(saying) they wanted you to read X instead of
Y. Now I’m getting emails and notifications on
CTools at 11 o’clock at night.”
When she started school at UM, laptops