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INSIDE IOWA STATE
April 5, 2002
Grants help P&S staff study toward their dreams
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Lynette Sherer (left), a 27-year employee of ISU, will graduate May 11 with
her youngest child, Tara Moses. Photo by Bob
Elbert. |
by Anne Krapfl
May 11 -- graduation day at Iowa State -- probably can't come fast enough
for Lynette Sherer. Mother of three adult children and currently an
administrative specialist at the Virtual Reality Applications Center in Howe
Hall, Sherer is closing in this spring on a 14-year pursuit: her bachelor's
degree. She credits Iowa State's P&S tuition grant program with helping her
earn a degree in finance.
"I'm extremely grateful to the university for this program, and to my
managers who let me do this and manage a job," Sherer said. "Especially when
I began my coursework, without the grants, it would have been too much of a
financial burden on my family to do this."
Beside the break from year-round homework, she is excited about sharing
commencement day with her youngest daughter, Tara Moses, a graduating senior
in industrial engineering.
"This is one of the greatest accomplishments I'll ever feel in my life,"
Sherer said. "My kids were young when I started and I knew it would take a
while -- if I knew then I'd be 50 when I finished, I might have been
discouraged from trying."
Sherer said it takes the right balance of patience and persistence to earn a
college degree one class, one semester at a time. But there are others like
her on campus, hungry enough to put up with the significant juggling act --
classes, homework, family, job responsibilities -- for a decade or more.
Pat Strah, budget officer in the office of the vice president for business
and finance, spent eight years finishing the last three years of her
bachelor's degree in accounting. She took a year off and in 1990 started on
a master's degree in public administration. After five years of graduate
classes, a "mental block or two" and a few years to complete her creative
component, she received her master's degree in August 2000, again with
considerable help from the tuition grant program.
"The first degree was to get me out of clerical work. The second degree both
added to my qualifications and knowledge, and lets me apply for some jobs as
they come up," she said.
"The tuition grants were very, very helpful for me," Strah said. "They let
me go to class, for one thing. Early on, my kids were very small, so the
money really made a difference. I primarily had to pay for books."
How it works
Last year (FY01), 223 grants totaling $110,743 reimbursed P&S employees for
classes they took toward degrees or in certification programs (an average
grant of about $496). The P&S tuition grant program presently guarantees
reimbursement for up to three undergraduate or graduate credits per semester
at ISU tuition rates, regardless of where the class is taken. Employees must
have worked at Iowa State full time for a year (or the equivalent) to be
eligible and must receive a passing grade in a class to receive
reimbursement.
Since the fall of 1993, a separate tuition grant fund for Professional and
Scientific employees has existed in the Provost Office budget. Prior to
this, P&S and Merit employees shared a fund. (The Merit tuition grant
program also continues to grow; funding for the program this year is at
$43,912.)
Dan Woodin, information systems leader for ADP and former P&S Council
president who led the request to split the tuition grant fund into two, said
the intent was to do a better job of funding requests and meeting the needs
of two different employee groups. For example, he said P&S employees tended
to take more graduate-level courses than Merit employees, so the "everyone
gets $150 this semester" approach wasn't as useful to P&S. In the five years
before the split, Woodin said individual P&S grant awards varied from 33
percent to 68 percent of requested amounts, depending on how many eligible
applicants there were in any given school term.
After several more years of the council and the P&S professional development
committee monitoring demand for the program, the tuition reimbursement fund
took another leap forward. In the summer of 1997, former president Martin
Jischke committed $40,000 to the previous $56,500-$58,500 annual
allocations. The three-credit guarantee was created, with the provost and
vice president for business and finance promising to fund the difference
between the $98,000 budgeted amount and actual reimbursement payout.
This "pilot" project has operated on a year-to-year basis since. For the
current fiscal year, $123,838 is budgeted for P&S tuition reimbursement
grants. A mandatory cost increase to offset tuition increases is included in
the provost office budget request for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
Every bit helps
Scott Openshaw and Jeff Mohr are two more P&S employees grateful for the
financial assistance of the tuition grants. Openshaw, formerly an academic
adviser in mechanical engineering who switched to full-time student status
this spring, is two years away from a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. Mohr,
an Extension program specialist in product development at the Center for
Industrial Research and Service, has received tuition grants since fall
semester 1999 while working on a master's degree in systems engineering, one
class at a time. He said he hopes he's a few months away from completion.
Both Mohr and Openshaw say they would have sought advanced degrees without
the tuition assistance, but acknowledged the grants helped ease their costs.
Prior to his arrival at ISU in August 1998, Openshaw said tuition assistance
was part of the discussion at his job interview. And while his family
members work at other universities that offer 100 percent tuition
reimbursement, Openshaw, who routinely takes five to six credits each
semester, said every bit helps.
Mohr said expectations about a master's degree came up during his interview
process. He's glad to be taking classes that help him do better work on the
job and be a more consistent contributor to his engineering team. He also is
hopeful that a master's degree will help him get reclassified to a higher
P-level position, which in turn would allow him to serve as a principal
investigator on sponsored research projects.
Success
Two years ago, Sherer started taking two classes a semester in order to
finish this spring, after missing her first goal: graduate from Iowa State
with her middle child.
"Many times I wondered how I'd do it," she admitted. "There were several
times I dropped out for a semester after being overwhelmed the previous
semester. But then I'd get back in it.
"I always applied for tuition grants and I always received something," she
added. "I can't say enough about the program."
So, what's next for this perpetual juggler, who also owns a photography
business?
"Volunteering," she said without hesitation. "I have wanted for a long time
to volunteer, and now I will take the time to do things like that."
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Published by: University Relations,
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