Part of my memory of taking classes at the university involves being in a lecture hall with one or another of my kids.
By now I worked at the university and could take classes for free. Free is a big bonus for me. Four credit courses and 4 in continuing education. I signed up for everything.
I asked my kids what they were taking that semester and then I would ask them if I could join them.
Alternately together we would find something that looked like fun and both enroll in that class.
Bonnie Wyora said to me, “You are taking so many classes – why don’t you just do all of the prerequisites for another degree?" That thought had never entered my mind.
I went to the registrar, applied for entrance and soon there were a lot of choices.
I had to submit a major with a focus, and a minor.
For the major, I tried to think what would work for me.
In my adult life, I had sometimes run up against ideas I didn’t understand.
“Why were women paid 66 cents for every dollar a man was paid, for doing the same work at the same level?” “Why was there a gender disparity in some of the professions?” “Why were there a disproportionate number of Indigenous women incarcerated in prions?”
I was looking for answers.
For Mother’s Day, Kelvin gave me Betty Friedan’s 1963 ground breaking The Feminine Mystique.
This was the book where Friedan identified “the problem that has no name”.
Still left hanging in the air was the problem that seemed to have no solution. I wondered if I signed up for a Women’s Studies Degree, if my reading around this subject wouldn’t become more focused and some answers made clearer for me. So I registered in Women Studies, with Native North America as my focus.
I also had to declare a minor. I asked around at home. Rebecca said, “I have a selfish idea. Register in film studies and then you will have the tools to be an outside reader when I publish some of my work in law and film.”
That is the story of how I took finished that second degree: BA with a Women’s Studies major and a Film minor. When the certificate came in the mail, it said, “With Distinction”.
I had to look up what with distinction meant, so I can't be that smart.
Arta
By now I worked at the university and could take classes for free. Free is a big bonus for me. Four credit courses and 4 in continuing education. I signed up for everything.
I asked my kids what they were taking that semester and then I would ask them if I could join them.
Alternately together we would find something that looked like fun and both enroll in that class.
Bonnie Wyora said to me, “You are taking so many classes – why don’t you just do all of the prerequisites for another degree?" That thought had never entered my mind.
I went to the registrar, applied for entrance and soon there were a lot of choices.
 |
| ... cover of the first edition ... |
For the major, I tried to think what would work for me.
In my adult life, I had sometimes run up against ideas I didn’t understand.
“Why were women paid 66 cents for every dollar a man was paid, for doing the same work at the same level?” “Why was there a gender disparity in some of the professions?” “Why were there a disproportionate number of Indigenous women incarcerated in prions?”
I was looking for answers.
For Mother’s Day, Kelvin gave me Betty Friedan’s 1963 ground breaking The Feminine Mystique.
This was the book where Friedan identified “the problem that has no name”.
 |
| ... cover of the 50th Anniversary edition ... |
I also had to declare a minor. I asked around at home. Rebecca said, “I have a selfish idea. Register in film studies and then you will have the tools to be an outside reader when I publish some of my work in law and film.”
That is the story of how I took finished that second degree: BA with a Women’s Studies major and a Film minor. When the certificate came in the mail, it said, “With Distinction”.
I had to look up what with distinction meant, so I can't be that smart.
Arta
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