Incommunicado

I am finally able to briefly come up for air. I will remember the Summer of 2011 as the summer I spent completing my degree.

I moved to Seattle in 2000, and tried twice to complete my degree over that distance. Both times, faculty were full of smiles and nods until decisions had to be made, and that’s when they stopped answering my phone calls and emails.

In October, 2008, I decided to try again. One of my former instructors, Dr. Stempniak, was the department chair of my major (INT), and I hoped he would remember me favorably and help me along. He said he did not remember me, but he referred me to Academic Support, where I met the person who changed everything: Dr. Roswell Park (“Ros”).

Over the years since I began my studies (1980), the entire curriculum has changed. Classes I took no longer exist, or have been combined or split and recombined and reconfigured into new classes. The first hurdle was to be reclassified into an older set of requirements (from GE2K to GEC), without which I would have to start over nearly from the beginning. My academic appeal was accepted, and my major changed from Industrial Technology to Individualized Studies, as the courses I have taken no longer match a current INT degree.

My initial audit showed that I needed eight more classes: 3 credits AST, 3 credits ART, 3 credits HUM, and ENG 101. Ros helped me write petitions that made most of those “go away,” leaving three: college-wide Global Issues and Diversity requirements, and a “writing intensive” course.

Diversity and Global Issues classes are mandated by New York State, so there was no way to wriggle out of those requirements. In June, I enrolled in classes at Cascadia Community College, and by August 25th, I had completed almost four hundred pages of essays in World Civilizations III and Multicultural Communications. I passed HIS 128 with 101.67% and CMST 150 with a 98.5%.

At the beginning of September, I petitioned to be excused from the W course. I asked the smartest people around me to critique my petition letter. Granted, it was a draft, but I was stunned that every single person found technical errors, and one completely rewrote the letter.

I fully expected the Director of College Writing to reply with, “Mr. Tabor. Please supply a 500 page double spaced examination of the evidence for the existence of a Supreme Being. Be sure to compare and contrast the works of Satre, Kant, Nietzsche, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Cheng Yi and Li Zhi and their cumulative effect on the development of fundamentalist cults in 19th Century America. Please submit by tomorrow, in APA format.” (I have detailed nightmares.)

Instead, it was over in a single email:

“Ros and Heather,

I will support his petition. He took Eng 300, which is a currently a WI course, and though it wasn’t listed as such then, it is a writing course – and so certainly was writing intensive.

Michele”

I asked Cascadia to forward my credits to BSC, and I have applied for my degree, which will (barring complications) be granted this coming December.

All the paperwork is completed. By the new year, I will be able to put letters after my name that will hopefully open doors to better employment opportunities.

Woo Hooooo!!!!