Adult students reveal stories of triumph

Frances Corry once worked with a woman who could use nothing but her chin; she attached a pencil to her chin and used the pencil to type data into a computer. Corry describes this woman as “the main reason I decided to go back to school and pursue my dreams. If she could overcome all the obstacles she faces, I can overcome mine.”

Corry is one of two recipients of the Dean of Students Outstanding Undergraduate Returning Adult Student Award (OURASA) this year. In August, she’ll complete her bachelor’s degree in English, with an emphasis in creative writing, before moving on to graduate school in social work and theology.

Ken Richardson, this year’s other ORASA recipient, tutored himself in math and English before putting aside his successful business career to become a returning adult student; he plans to pursue a doctorate in English and African American studies.

Though Corry has a language-learning disability and vision impairment and though she struggles with health issues, she has maintained a high grade point average throughout her college years, while also volunteering in her church and with young people, community elders and people with disabilities.

Before entering UW–Madison, Corry lived for three years on Native American reservations, first in Ontario and then in Manitoba, counseling and learning from a wide range of people.

In addition to academic work and church/community service, Corry has already self-published a book, “Wisdom of the Elders” is in circulation at Oakwood Village Nursing Home in Madison (where she worked for many years) and among residents’ families and churches. She’s also writing a memoir about her childhood and her recent experiences living with Six Nations of the Iroquois in Ontario.

In the fall, she will begin graduate work at the University of Chicago School of Social Work and the Catholic Theological Union. She plans to become a hospice chaplain and social worker, counseling the dying and their families, “possibly on a Native American reservation.”

Corry also seeks to continue using her writing “to help change the attitude of society toward the elderly and dying. I want to write about what the Native American elders taught me about honoring the elderly and the continuance of life after death.”

Richardson believes that “continuing education also means making sure that education continues into the next generation. Whatever else I’ve accomplished, I hope I’ve planted a seed in my son so he doesn’t face the same obstacles to an education that I did.”

For Richardson, those obstacles included growing up in an environment with little value placed on education, and the fact that at an early age he was labeled “unable to learn in a formal sense.” At age 36, he found himself vice president of a successful electric supply business but holding a limited ability to read, write or do simple arithmetic. Using a set of elementary-school workbooks, he set out to teaching himself basic skills in English and math. Next, he spent two years as a part-time student at Madison Area Technical College, building his self-confidence and discovering his own writing ability.

At 39, he entered UW–Madison as an undergraduate, majoring in English but also taking such difficult courses as physics, biology and Latin. “While I’m obviously older than the traditional undergraduate student, I’ve rarely been the oldest one in a classroom — and I’ve never felt out of place. Being around students of typical college age makes me feel younger, not older,” Richardson says.

Sharing the event with his wife, Ellen, a veterinarian in Mazomanie, and their 3-year-old son, Ian, Richardson says, “My favorite day of my own education so far was when I brought Ian with me to campus. He sat with me in the library just soaking up the atmosphere.”