Fifty-seven year old Patricia El, a junior Sociology major and Religion minor, is also a full time adult student at Montclair State University. El wakes up in the morning and hops on the shuttle from the La Quinta Hotel on to arrive at Montclair State University approximately 10 minutes later. El said that it was “the wears and tears of life” that motivated her to go back to school.

     “I did the mechanical thing, I took care of my children I took care of my husband. I owned my own business for awhile in remodeling and after my husband passed away I got sick,” said El. “ I couldn’t keep up with the construction field. Matter of fact, it wore my body out so I had to decide what to do with myself. I had to reinvent myself. So suffering through depression, oppression everything else, I decided to go back to school full time.”

     Forty-five year old Rojas, a Linguistics major with a concentration in English as a Second Language (ESL) and Spanish teaching, always wanted to go back to school, but says her biggest motivations are her two children.

     “I don’t want them to tell me that [they] can’t do it because I didn’t do it. If I as an adult, [I] can handle all this responsibility [and] come back to school, they can do it too, ” said Rojas.

     Fifty- four-year old Barbara A. Parker, a history major and a returning student, has been attending Montclair State for five years. She currently works and has worked in the Montclair School district as a Teacher Assistant working with behavioral students for four years. Parker stated that being unemployed and losing her job was motivation for her.

     “I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. I worked for an Insurance Agency for 22 years. Then they downsized and then I went to back to school,” said Parker. “I saw that they had demand for teachers. That’s how I got started back.”

     Fifty-one-year old Mary Ellen Tenore, an English Major with a double major in journalism and psychology, has been a part-time student for about 12 to 13 years. Tenore went to secretarial school after high school and always regretted that decision, so she decided to come back to school to get a better education.

     “I had taken a secretarial job after the company that I was working for closed … when I did take the secretarial job, it was a shock. It was a 50 percent pay cut, very low level. I was not happy,” said Tenore. “There was nowhere for me to move; nowhere to move up, no way to crawl out of the secretarial pool. I saw other, almost. I saw other people moving ahead that had better education and I said to myself, I can’t to this anymore. I have to get off my duff and do it.”

     Forty-one year old Rosa Paulino-Plett, a senior Linguistics major with a certification in ESL, is a returning student and first attended MSU in 1995. After taking some time off because of other obligations such as her own restaurant at one point, she decided she needed a change in career.

     “One of my dreams was going to go back to college. It was always in the back of my mind … It’s one of those goals I set up for myself that I knew I was going to do someday. So one day after lunch, I came over here and I picked up an application and brought it back. And here I am; the rest is history.”

     Retired 67 year old Alan Sokolow is taking classes in history department and his major interest is the history of the Middle East. When asked about his motivation to come back to school, he replied that he had a desire to be back in an academic environment.

     “It was just a desire to come back to school to read to learn about topics that I’m personally interested and to get back to an academic world and also kind of observed our younger generation coming up from the education system, and it’s really been wonderful,” said Sokolow.

     These students are not your typical students. They are part of the 16 percent of undergraduate adult students who are 25 years of age or over in a population of approximately 18,000 average students according to Monclair State’s Office of Institutional Research. These aren’t the traditional students college universities are use to. Only 352 of these students are in the Adult Learner Program according to Tara Morlando-Zurlo, academic advisor for adult learners at the Center for Advising and Adult Learning (CAAAL) Center. Some returned to school after living their life and others are starting their lives from scratch.

     Montclair State University has a program specifically made with the needs of adult learners in mind, the CAAAL Adult Learning program. To participate, students must be 25 years of age or older and have a high school degree or GED. Also, in order to qualify, a student must have been out of school in the last two years and pursuing an undergraduate degree.

     “The Adult Learning program [at MSU] is available to students who are pursuing a first time undergraduate degree program. It is a special admissions program, established in 2001, designed to support and encourage adult students to achieve their educational and personal goals of obtaining a first-time Bachelor’s degree after they may have stepped away from college for several years and/or have never attempted higher education previously,” said Morlando-Zurlo in e-mail.

     Along with the help of their advisor, MSU does also offer other services to adult learners. According to Morlando-Zurlo, students accepted in to the Adult Learning program are offered many other services such as a monthly newsletter, personal advising support from an assigned CAAAL Advisor, and a variety of programs and workshops each semester and a “Prep for Success” workshop each fall conducted for newly admitted students. The CAAAL Program also assists several students on how to get college credit for their life experiences.

“The options that are presented to them include CLEP (College Level Examination Program) exams, University Challenge Exams [for] SPCM 101 and CMPT 109, NYU Foreign Language Proficiency Exam, and the completion of an evaluation program such as the Thomas Edison State College,” said Morlando-Zurlo. “All of our students are strongly encouraged to meet with a CAAAL Advisor to discuss their interest and needs in detail before they pursue any of the options – to fully ensure that the options will truly satisfy. [These programs] are not restricted to Adult Learning students.”

     Along with those services, those in the Adult Learning program have the ability to apply for three different scholarships – Alicia P. Savage, Ralph Purcell and Helen Savage.

     “The scholarships are awarded annually. The process is conducted during the summer for the following school year,”said Morlando-Zurlo. “The awards were endowed specifically to support students in the Adult Learning program at our university, therefore students must be admitted in to the Adult Learning program in order to be eligible to apply.”

     Sokolow is no stranger to the college life, having obtained a BA in Political Science from Brooklyn College in the mid sixties along with an MA in Public Administration at Syracuse University in the late sixties, but Sokolow is taking advantage of another program Montclair State offers it’s students – the Older Adult Tuition Waiver program.

     “They offer the senior system program, which makes the cost reasonable to just fees and not tuition as long as we are here as an auditing student and so I’m in my third class for two semesters,” said Sokolow.

     The Older Adult Tuition Waiver program (OLA) is a tuition waiver program for New Jersey residents over the age of 65. The applicants must have a high school degree or GED to qualify. OLA is available for undergraduate or graduate programs and allows students to enroll at Montclair State University on a space-available basis with only the costs of administrative and student fees. It’s up to the specific academic program to decide whether the applicant can take courses for a degree or not. According to Morlando-Zurlo, 50 students are enrolled in this program for Spring 2010.

     Montclair State University also has a program entitled the State of New Jersey Department of Labor Job Training Program for Unemployed Persons Tuition Waiver. To apply, students must be currently unemployed or in receipt of a layoff notice. Students must also want to take courses which are part of a job training program or Employability Development Plan approved by a One Stop Career Center within the NJ Department of Labor, to assist them in gaining re-employment. Students must seek a tuition wavier for the classes before enrolling or registering for them. Also students must accept responsibility to pay for the mandatory $20 registration fee and all student fees. Due to a confidential application process, the number of applicants enrolled in this program is undisclosed.

     “I took advantage of the Unemployed Persons Tuition Waiver for about 12 months. I recommend it to anyone,” said Parker, who took advantage of the program during her first year. Rojas’s education started about 10 years ago when she first emigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic. At first, she came back to school at Passaic Community College to learn the English language for communication purposes.

     “In the process of learning a new language, I understood that I was able and capable of doing a better job. So instead of stopping with my ESL classes, I chose to go further… and realized I had the ability to be a teacher,” said Rojas.

     After an associate degree from Passaic Community College, Rojas applied to Montclair because of its ability to grant her a bachelor degree with a certification in ESL teaching.

     “I used to be a college student [in the Dominican Republic] and it’s different in the extent of how much you have to study. Over there, for me was easier,” said Rojas. “ Here you need to get the book, to read the book entirely and after that expose what you have learned from the book. It’s a little more challenging and I completely think that it’s more rewarding.”

     During her road back to school, El tried other colleges including Miles College in Alabama and The College of New Jersey, but liked Montclair State University the best. She described MSU as having a friendlier educational environment. She stated that she felt different in Miles College because they teach a “black curriculum, which is fine, but [she] didn’t come from that [culture].” El was raised in New Jersey in a multicultural environment and didn’t feel like she fit into thinking in one ideology.

     “It takes a whole lot of folks to make up this world. So you have to know who you are dealing with and how to deal with that and you can’t get that [lesson] if you’re going to a school that only teaches one way,” said El.

     In comparison to her past studies in secretarial school, she describes her studies at Montclair as more intense and more focused. She believes she has obtained a very good education here at MSU.

     “With the secretarial school that I went to, everything was based on serving your boss. Dictation, typing, basic accounting, English grammar – that kind of stuff,” said Tenore. “ Here [at MSU], you get a much more well-rounded education. I think the professors are very thorough. They are sharp. They are always prepared.”

     The choice of coming back to school was not easy for Paulino-Plett due to her past experiences in her education system. She described her experience at Montclair as, “hard. I had to start from scratch.”

     “Because [in] my grammar school, elementary and high school, I feel like I really didn’t learn anything. I was in ESL classes since I was in the sixth grade. I already knew some English since my brothers and sisters were already in regular classes except for me,” said Paulino-Plett. “Until my sixth grade teacher gave me a test and I passed… Then they put me in mainstream, but then I was so far behind that it was so hard to catch up with the mainstream students. I was always average. I could never get past average.”

     Many of these adult learners have learned to transition to life in the classroom and have learned from others around them.

     “Even though I am in my middle age, I love to be surrounded by young people because they give you a lot of energy. They keep you current with everything. They teach you how to use Twitter, Facebook, Flip cams, everything … ” said Rojas.

      “It’s a culture shock for me, because up until now all of my classes have been night classes with mostly older adults. It is very different with younger students. Their outlook is very different. They are not as serious. That is not to say that they don’t do well. It’s just that when you get older your whole attitude and demeanor changes, but I enjoyed it. I think they’re fun,” said Tenore.

     El was worried she wasn’t going to fit in with the younger crowd and realizes that she doesn’t, but she does try to understand the younger generation since she does live in the La Quinta Hotel.

     “I try to understand them, because I’ve raised kids. So I know they like their music; they like their partying, but I try to reiterate that all that is gonna catch up to [them] sooner or later,” said El “You have to get your studies. Don’t be like me, take a page from my book; fifty-eight year old trying to get a degree to make a decent living in the world. It’s O.K., but it shouldn’t be. I should have done this along time ago.”

     Sokolow wasn’t sure of what to expect in his studies at Montclair. He was unsure about the quality of teaching, the students or how comfortable or welcomed he would feel in the classroom environment, since he hadn’t been in a classroom for over 45 years.

     “ It’s partly the quality of the coursework and welcoming spirit of the teacher because I’ve been very participatory and I’ve enjoyed being with the students, recognizing that they’re under more pressure, than I am,” said Sokolow. “They’re taking it for credit; they’re taking multiple courses. So it’s easier to for me to keep up with the readings and be a more actively engaged in the class conversations.”

     “Adult Learning students are required to meet the same academic standards as all other students at the university. Nothing is off the table for adult learners to pursue,” said Morlando-Zurlo.

     So does MSU fulfill needs of adult learners? When asked if they thought the university lacked any facilities or resources, Rojas commented that she thinks the university is very complete.

     “What maybe there is a lack of is lack of information, but it’s not because the university lacks the resources, sometimes [they are] just not marketed as [they] should be … You can find a lot of resources here, but you need to look for yourself,” said Rojas.

     Paulino-Plett also doesn’t feel that Montclair State University lacks any facilities. “I take advantage of every thing, the gym, the tutoring, everything,” said Paulino-Plett.

     But one issue they do find is acquiring classes that fit the schedule of their busy lives.

     “Part time, as I was getting closer to graduating [finding] evening classes were getting harder, working 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or … getting out after 2 p.m., … especially for my major, history. But thank God, I was able to get all of my classes,” said Parker.

     Tenore stated that if she weren’t laid off, she would not have been able to graduate, due to her work schedule conflicting with day classes.

    “Some of the required classes were only given during the day… There were no online classes or anything that you could take at another time,” said Tenore. “It was either you go during the day or you don’t get the class. So that’s part of the reason that my graduation was delayed so long. I have to keep pushing off those classes and it was the hard.”

     When questioning Morlando-Zurlo about this common problem found, she said that for those who have strong conflicting work schedules, she recommends the evening or weekend programs, depending if it is offered within the major. Other than that, class schedules are not in her control.

     “We can advocate on their behalf in communicating to [their major] department, but students have to work with those in their department to come up with a solution,” said Morlando-Zurlo in a face-to-face interview.

     Many adult learners don’t let this issue stop them. And why should they, when they have overcome so many other obstacles in their journey of obtaining their degree?

     The Adult Learning Scholarships Available for next Academic Term Ralph P. LaSalle Scholarship is a scholarship available to those who fit the following criteria: a part time student enrolled in a degree program who is 50 years of age or older. The award is $200 a year ($100 per semester).

     Helen M. Purcell Scholarship is a scholarship available to those who fit the following criteria: a female part time student with a GPA of at least 3.25 from MSU who is 35 years of age or older and is employed at least 25 hours per week. The award is 500 per year ($250 per semester).

    Alicia Pareha Savage Scholarship is a scholarship available to those who fit the following criteria: a student enrolled in at least six semester hours per duration of award, with a GPA of at least 2.5 from MSU who is 25 years of age. The award is $600 per year ($300 per semester).

     The Adult Learning Scholarships are available to all currently enrolled and qualified Adult Learning students at Montclair State University. Applications must be submitted directly to the Center for Academic Advising and Adult Learning by July 1 to be considered for awards for the following academic year. Please visit the following site for the application and extra information.

http://www.montclair.edu/AcademicAdvising/media/pdf/cal/scholarship.pdf

Lurdes Ruela

Chief Copy Editor