Commencement Profiles Part 2

Grandma Graduate Earns Degree to Set an Example for Grandkids

She's a grandma, but that doesn't mean it's too late to graduate. For Patricia Rogers, a long-time employee in the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, working on a degree was about self-fulfillment. This June, she completes an associate’s degree in applied business from UC’s Raymond Walters College more than two decades after she first sat down in a UC classroom in 1981.

Full story on Rogers

By Answering His Country's Call, UC Student Delayed Completing College

All around the world, people’s lives changed after the fall of New York’s Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001. One of those lives so changed was that of UC mechanical engineering technology (MET) senior Eric Randall, 28, of Hyde Park. Randall was called to duty at the beginning of his senior year in the College of Applied Science. When he returned a year later, he brought home a new wife from Turkey.

Full story on Randall

Law Grad To Take His Post In Homeland Defense

Now that Jim McMahon has graduated with his classmates from the UC College of Law, he'll resume his 14-year career with the Coast Guard and use his legal skills to help safeguard the nation's ports and shores. McMahon is a native of Sandusky, Ohio, and the son of a Coast Guard veteran. With Lake Erie in his backyard, the Coast Guard always appealed to him. Law school was a different story. He didn’t really become interested in the law until taking a military justice course at the end of his undergraduate experience at the Coast Guard Academy.

Full story on McMahon

Joint Degree Pays Off With Top Washington Assignment

After completing UC's joint degree program in law and women's studies, Ellen Eardley is headed to Washington to claim one of the most competitive women's advocacy positions in the nation. "I think I’m really blessed, because I’m going to get to do exactly what it was that I wanted to do coming into law school," says Ellen, who graduate from the UC College of Law with a 4.05 GPA, tops in the May 2003 hooding class.

Full story on Eardley

Distance Learning Grad is a UC Pioneer

Annette Gamble is among the first group of students to graduate from a distance learning program launched by UC in 2000. This mother of 10 children –four grown and six of them young adopted foster children –  will graduate with honors and will receive her associate’s degree in early childhood education. Gamble, a resident of Kimbolton, Ohio, is a teacher’s aide at the Coshocton County Head Start and has worked there for five years.  She never thought she’d be able to finish a degree, care for her own family and work – all at the same time. UC provided the path she needed to fit it all in.

Full story on Gamble

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