BACK IN SESSION Nontraditional students return to college in Owensboro BY ANGELA OLIVER
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MESSENGER-INQUIRER
my Coomes’ dreams of working in elementary education started at an early age. “I’ve always wanted to be a teacher, but I didn’t originally take the college route,” Coomes, 36, said. “I took the ‘get a job, get married and have kids’ route.” After graduating from high school, the Lewisport native worked at Aleris for nine years. Then, she married and moved to Cincinnati. Though she enjoyed her life as a stay-at-home mother, things changed when she was pregnant with her third child. Her husband left, so she moved to Owensboro to start over. “I needed to be back near family,” she said. “My support system is my family and friends, and they’ve made this transition so much easier.” Like Coomes, hundreds of nontraditional students tackle the college classroom every year. Whether they’re taking a second shot at higher education, pursuing a degree for a job opportunity or following a long-lived personal dream, nontraditional students can find a good fit at one of the four institutions in Owensboro. In particular, Western Kentucky University-Owensboro and Owensboro Community & Technical College serve a significant number of nontraditional students, many through the Joint Admissions program. The program allows dual enrollment for OCTC students with the agreement that they’ll finish their bachelor’s degree at WKU-O. “Most of our students come to me in their junior year,” said David Powers, director of career and workforce development at WKU-O. “They have a lot of courses behind them, so they can’t always use internships for academic credit. That credit is already used up.” The average WKU-O student is 31 years old, he said. Based on the 2014 enrollment report, 65 percent of the 652 students at WKU-O also have a part-time class schedule, largely because they work full-time and have families to care for. While that makes it more difficult to help the students prepare for the career world by connecting them to internships, Powers said his office has found other ways to adjust to the students’ academic needs. “On a commuter campus, we have to be very intentional and creative in our efforts because it’s tough to ask students who work and have children to commit to another 20 hours a week for an internship, on top of their class time,” he said. G R E A T E R
AMY COOMES
So, the Office of Career and Workforce Development has focused on finding project-based internships that students can work on in their own time, or fellowships and leadership or professional development workshops, often during the summer. Job placement has also been a strong point for the office, Powers said. “Most students I talk to want to live and work in Owensboro, or the area, so that’s making job placement here successful,” he said. “We pay attention to the businesses in town and try to tailor our academic programs to the needs of the local labor force. Even if we can’t place a student, we hope their experience here will spark a passion.” Jill Emerson has yet to decide on a career, though her passion is social justice, she said. With a father who worked in social services and a mother in juvenile justice, Emerson said she grew up watching them fight for people who were mistreated or otherwise needed help. “All my life, I was around people who didn’t have a chance,” she said. “I’ve seen what the lesbian and gay
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