I was born near Askov in east central Minnesota
to John Normile and Louise (Nielsen) Clark. I was the fourth
child in a family of five, with an older brother, two older
sisters, and a younger brother. I attended the Hans Christian
Andersen School in Askov, graduating as salutatorian of
the class of 1963
Near the end of eighth grade I became ill with rheumatic
fever following an apparent undiagnosed strep throat. I
missed the last six weeks of school. When I was well enough
to do some school work, our principal came to the house
with my final exams and I was able to move on with my class
to the ninth grade in the fall. The doctor who treated me
always showed me what he was doing with my blood sample.
I was intrigued and started researching the field of medical
technology as a career. From then on I had my heart set
on working in a clinical laboratory.
With a limited number of schools offering a medical technology
program and limited financial resources, the University
of Minnesota was my school of choice. The program was set
up so I could take the first two years at the Duluth campus
and then transfer to Minneapolis to complete my degree.
When I finished my internship in the University of Minnesota
Hospital Laboratories, which at that time was a full calendar
year, I was hired for a job at the hospital in Grand Rapids,
Minnesota. I moved from staff technologist to assistant
chief technologist to lab manager.
In the late 1980s I started taking classes offered on the
Itasca Community College campus in Grand Rapids through
a collaborative program with the College of St. Scholastica
in Duluth. The program was geared to adults wanting or needing
to further their education. I pursued a degree in management,
but because of the pressures of work taking a toll on my
health, dropped out of the program and left my job at the
hospital in 1994.
During the time I was not working, I participated in a
class where we had to write about what we would do if we
were given a large amount of money. One of the things I
wrote down was “I should see what I would need to
do to become a technical writer.” I didn’t pursue
that idea, perhaps because I didn’t receive that large
amount of money.
In the fall of 1994 I started working as a “traveling
medical technologist.” Through a staffing agency I
spent most of the next seven years working at two different
Indian Health Services facilities in Tuba City and Chinle,
on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona. I did take
one break from that during the first half of 1997 when I
worked as a field data tabulator for a national research
study on clinical laboratory testing availability.
About midway through the six-month job, the staffing agency
I had worked for when I was in Arizona started calling,
telling me whenever I was ready to come back, Tuba City
or Chinle would have a spot for me. I again returned to
Arizona, first to Tuba City, then to Chinle and back to
Tuba City again.
Early in 2000, when I had an eye exam, I found I had several
early conditions that could progress to a point that I would
not be able to continue to work in a laboratory. I wondered
what I would do if that became reality. I thought again
about technical writing, but thought I couldn’t go
back to school now and had several reasons why. Then one
day I thought—why not?
I did a little research on the Internet and found the University
of Minnesota, Crookston (UMC) had a Scientific and Technical
Communication program. I contacted the director of the program,
Dr. Traci Kelly, inquiring about the program, wondering
if I was crazy to pursue a new career at my age, and if
classes could be taken online. I was encouraged by her reply,
and made an appointment to see her when I came home during
the summer for a family reunion. I enrolled in the program
and started taking online classes that fall. I took another
online class in the spring and then started an extended
term correspondence course while I continued to work in
Arizona. By this time I decided it was going to take too
long taking one class a semester and made a decision to
come back to Minnesota and start taking classes on campus
in the fall of 2001.
Everything seemed to just fall in place for me. While I
was in Minnesota in July for my family reunion, I found
a place to live, enrolled in classes, and was hired at the
Altru Hospital in Grand Forks, North Dakota. I went back
to Arizona and worked another month to complete my obligation
there.
Why UMC? A lot of people have asked me that. Why not the
Twin Cities campus? My answers: First, the size of the campus
and the community. I much prefer the smaller school and
the smaller community. Second, the technology. I had read
about UMC being the first laptop college. I had used a laptop
for the job in 1997. While the use of the laptop was strictly
for entering data and uploading and downloading the necessary
files and email limited to communicating with my supervisor,
I enjoyed working with it.
Have I felt out of place as an adult with students—most
much younger, and instructors—most of them also younger
than myself? Sometimes, yes, but almost all of my classes
had other non-traditional students. UMC is a friendly campus.
Because of the size the instructor’s know the students
and the students can get to know one another better.
Finding a suitable internship to meet requirements and
not lose my present job was also a difficulty. I also thought
my age could be a problem in someone wanting to take me
on as an intern. Working with Dr. Mary Pringle, I worked
out an on-campus internship by doing projects for three
departments that involved interviewing, writing, editing,
and preparing online class materials. I was able to work
primarily on my own and did much of the work at home, contacting
people via email or scheduling meetings on campus with the
people I did work for. This was a good internship experience
for me because it was done in the way I hope to work with
my degree in STC.
My lack of keyboarding skills, and having primarily taught
myself anything about computers, I found myself behind.
But the instructors and computer-literate younger students
were always willing to help me learn to perform a task—or
perform it more efficiently than the way I was doing it.
Has it been hard to study? It has sometimes. But I have
always enjoyed learning new things. I find that my life
experience has given me much more to draw on for writing
papers and researching topics than I had the first time
I went to college. Time has been more of a problem for me,
but when I got behind, I communicated with the instructors
and all have been willing to help me work around the struggle
of juggling work and class assignments to enable me to complete
the class. The use of email for communication helps in that
you don’t have to make an appointment and be available
at the same time someone else is available.
I think anyone who desires more education - be it to change
careers, advance their present careers, or just because
they want to - should enroll in classes. Take advantage
of online or other distance education classes. I have been
fortunate in that because of my work in the lab I have not
had any financial struggles in returning to college. Several
people have contacted me to tell me about financial aids
available to older students, so I know there is help available
for those who need it.
What does the future hold? My eye conditions have stabilized
for now, but I hope at the beginning of the New Year to
start finding writing and editing work I can do from home.
I expect it to take some time for me to build up enough
income for it to be my sole support. I plan to continue
to work at the hospital until I reach that point.
Will I take more classes? I consider learning lifelong,
so probably, either through some distance education courses
or on a campus somewhere. As I told my high school classmates
at our reunion in August…..there’s still the
University of Minnesota, Morris.
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