A group of students involved in the First Year Leadership Program (FLSP) put together an organization called LIFE (Learning Is For Everyone) to promote adults to go back to college and get an education.
Students Dallas Kline, Shaughnesy Clark, Cherice Jackson, Cassie Aber and Natalie Hoffman chose to do education for the Clinton Global Initiative project that FLSP was doing this year as an end of the year projects.
Clinton Global Initiative is a part of the Clinton Foundation that is working towards helping people be the best they can be and reach their full potential.
The areas the Clinton Foundation focus on are climate change, economic development, girls and women, global health and health and wellness.
Slippery Rock University is a member of the Clinton Foundation and pays a membership fee each year, said Sarah Arpino, junior public relations major and peer mentor. The peers thought that since the university is paying to be a part of the program that they might as well participate in the project.
Freshman sports management major Dallas Kline said that her group wanted to be advocates for students and get adults that haven’t gotten a college education to come back and get one.
The group took a few weeks to organize their project to figure out a plan of attack and what they would do, Kline said.
During the process of putting the project together and thinking of ideas, the group created a Twitter for the organization, “LIFE @ SRU.” The group followed all the other SRU clubs and organizations they found on Twitter in hopes to gain followers from the SRU community.
Kline explained that they chose this topic because in our society today, in order to get a decent and well-paying job, a person has to have a degree.
Young students don’t realize how hard it is to come back to college as an adult and these young students need to open their eyes and realize that, Kline said.
The group is hoping to spread awareness on campus and get students to encourage their family members or anyone they know that didn’t go to college to go and get an education, Kline said.
Kline said she wants to keep informing the public and hopefully do more with the organization as time progresses.
Senior accounting major, Joanne Richardson is an adult student that decided to come back to college after being in the working environment.
Richardson said she went to college in 1996 to study French, however as she progressed, she found that she didn’t have a goal and it seemed pointless, so she left and decided to waitress.
After she lived her life for a few years, she decided to settle down and work in management, but after working for a while, she found her future was limited without a college degree and that is when she decided to come back to college, Richardson said.
Richardson said that her experience so far has been positive but at first it was extremely nerve-wracking.
The goal for the organization is to get students to respect adults coming back to college and to make their time easier, Kline said.
Kline plans on setting up an appointment with President of the University Cheryl J. Norton to talk about potential plans for the organization and what to improve upon.
It would be extremely helpful to have a specific advisor for older students, especially for things like how to format a resume in the midst of a career change, Richardson said.
Richardson gave advice for potential adult students and said to go for it without any regret and get involved as much as possible because no one is judging.
