As told by Joelle Lieberman
I believe that there's room for everybody at UVU. There's a place for you to come and do whatever you want to do.
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The very first time that I attended UVU was in 1979. At that time, I thought the only thing that I was going to be able to do was be a mom and/or a secretary. So, I took [a] speed writing class. [Then] I started raising my family, and it just got busy.
After my husband passed away, I decided I needed to find a way to support my kids. So, I came back to school. I was carrying a full load. I was working full-time, and that was really, really hard. At that point, I had some kids that were getting ready to go to school.
Because I was a widow at the age of 32, I was the sole provider for my three children. This will be the fifth time that I've come back to school, and it's always been at UVU. It's never been any other school.
The hardest part was finding time. When you're raising a family, trying to go to school, and you have a job, time can work for you or against you. You're either short on time, so you have to really get things done expeditiously, or you just take your time, and it takes you forever to do it.
I learned early on that I could survive with very little sleep, so that's where I made up. The times when the house was quiet, and my brain was turned off from everything else — that's when I could focus on school. But for me, the biggest barrier was cost because I was a widow, I was a single mom. The other [barrier] was how to take that time away from my kids when I should be with them.
I wanted to be in school, so I tried to work it in around where I was only either working on school after they were asleep or while they were in school. It was always UVU, mainly because of its convenience and location. [UVU] offered everything that I needed to get the degree that I wanted, which I wasn't even sure what I wanted at that point.
I was working with a company called Vital Smarts, and they're the ones that put out “Crucial Conversations.” I was on the team that helped make that a number-one bestseller before it even was published and before it came out on the market. [I used] my speed writing skills when I was at that company, and that was a lot of fun. But again, real life got in the way and made it difficult to be able to maintain my GPA. I wanted to keep my GPA high. I ended up having to quit school after that semester. And then, there was a long break when I finished raising my kids.
We started raising my granddaughter when she was eight months old. I left corporate America and decided to stay home and take care of her for a while. We went from empty nesting to diaper bags. To us, she's not even our granddaughter. She's our daughter. She calls us mom and dad, and we call her our daughter.
When she started school, I thought, “Well, I'll go back to work.” I followed her to the elementary school, started teaching P.E. and then computers, and then followed her to the junior high. I was the tracker. I took care of all the naughty kids at the junior high and then went over to the LC and Nebo School District, which is where they do the live interactive classes. And that's where I was first exposed to the possibility of working at UVU.
I had a feeling — I didn't know for sure — but I had a feeling that UVU would pay full-time employees’ tuition so I could finish school. I decided I needed to get a job at UVU so I couldfinish my education.
I wanted to go back to school because my mom taught me that it doesn't matter where you are in life or how old you are in life: you can. You should never stop learning if you have the opportunity, even if it's just to read self-help books or to take a community class. You should always continue to learn.
The reason that I really connect to what my mom said is because she started [college] when she graduated from high school, and after a year, she got married and then never went back to school. And she always regretted the fact that she didn’t take the opportunity to go back to school and continue with her degree. She was always doing something that was helping her learn, whether it was learning a new hobby or learning a new language. She was always listening to tapes that would teach her a different language, because she always just wanted to expand her abilities and her horizons. And so, for her to tell me to always keep learning always stuck with me. And I've raised my children as well, my adult children, to continue learning. So they've all continued on different paths to go get their educations.
So, when the opportunity came up for me to be able to possibly apply for a job here [at UVU], it really appealed to me. And the ulterior motive was that my granddaughter would be coming to school here as well, and I was hoping that maybe we'd be able to take some classes together.
After about 10 years in the school district, I started working at UVU in the Executive Education and Professional Education department.
And then [our granddaughter] graduated from high school in 2023, and now she's here at school with me. We took an English class together.
A paper that would take my granddaughter four hours to write would take me four days to write. There's a big difference between either the way we think about school or just the way our brains process school and the things that we're learning. So, it was really fun to be coached by her saying, “Mom, you don't need to say that,” “Mom, you don't need that information. Just do it simple, quick and simple, and get it done.”
I am the business development and program manager in Executive Education. And now, I take two or three classes a semester, and every time, I wonder what the heck I'm doing because it's crazy busy. But I wouldn't do it any other way
I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I'm 63 years old, and I don't know what I want to be. I’m old enough now that I don't have to necessarily think of a career. I can just think of classes that will benefit me in my daily life and somehow work them into a degree.
I'm kind of leaning towards some marketing or public relations. So, anything I can learn, whether it's public speaking or it's how to write, how to create a great spreadsheet to track all of my contacts, or how to manage a customer relationship, that's going to help me in the job that I'm already in without having to think, “What’s 10 years down the road?” I get to think in the here and now, which is kind of fun.
I believe that there's room for everybody at UVU. It doesn't matter if you're 25 years old and you're a nontraditional student because you are a mom who needs to come back to school or wants to come back to school, or if you're a grandma and you just want to take some classes. If you just even want to audit some classes and not worry about grades and things like that, there's a place for you to come and do whatever you want to do.
I took a watercolor class last semester. Most stressful class I've ever taken. It was supposed to be relaxing, but when I needed to have the perfect painting to turn in, then it got really crazy stressful. I just had to step back and go, “It's okay if I don't get 100 percent on this assignment.” I just wanted to do something that would enhance my life.
I think that's what nontraditional students are doing. They're finding ways not only to sometimes get a degree but to find things that enhance what they're already doing or to create a path for them to do something new that they haven't done before. And UVU is a great way to do that. If you look at our course catalog, anything you put your mind to, you can find a class that will cover that particular interest.
UVU is great about offering opportunities to people who are nontraditional. I got hired here when I was in my 60s, and they are willing to give me a chance and give me the opportunity to work on my degree. I am very appreciative of the fact that this is a cool place to be. And I can be cool in so many ways, not just to my kids. Well, I'm not really cool to my kids, you know? But I get to do this job here, and this school that I go to has offered me so many opportunities to meet some of the most amazing people. And that's what I get to do all day. Best job in the world.
I love the idea of [UVU] being a dual-mission university because you're not just stuck in the traditional educational path. You could take classes other than just academic classes. I found out I could take a class called Paint Your Car. I knew that that was exactly what I needed to do because my dad when I was three years old, worked for Ford, and that was the year that Mustang was coming out. As part of their promotion for Mustang, Ford put out a pedal car for little kids. It cost people $12.95 if they wanted to purchase one of these. My dad gave me one. We ran into doors and walls and rocks. I knew at some point I wanted to restore this pedal car. So, being here and having the opportunity to take the Paint Your Car class gave me the opportunity to restore this for my dad, and it's been so much fun. I've learned how to use power tools and a sandblaster, and I've gone into the hot room to be able to paint it.
My dad had a stroke a couple of weeks ago, so I'm hurrying really fast to try and get that car done. And I have so many people in that class who are saying, “Let me help you do this,” because they know I want to get that done and give it to him before he passes away. It has been so much fun to just play with the big tools and have so many people in there who are willing to help.
I wish my mom was still here so I could say, “Look, Mom — I'm still learning, and I'm learning cool things. Things that you wish you would have learned.”
