by George Lorenzo

Ruth Sullivan came home for commencement. As a hard-working student in the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Online Learning Program, Sullivan was able to achieve two personal goals: journey back to some of her family roots and walk on stage to physically accept her associate’s degree at RIT’s 2001 commencement exercises.

Sullivan was born in Rochester, but she hasn’t lived here since she was six-years-old. For most of her life, she has lived in Montclair, New Jersey. She currently works as an administrative support assistant to the medical director at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, a physical rehabilitation hospital in Montclair. She’s enrolled in the BS in Applied Arts and Sciences online degree program with an emphasis in Health Systems Administration, and her plans are to earn a bachelor’s degree by the end of Winter quarter 2001.

Sullivan was not sure if she’d be able to make next year’s commencement, when, depending on her determination, she could pick up her 4-year degree. Combine that with her immediate desire to visit her roots, and the decision to participate in this year’s commencement became quite easy.

She did not come alone. Joining her were her 17-year-old daughter, and her sister (who happens to be an RIT alumni), brother-in-law, niece and parents. "It was definitely a homecoming weekend," she says. "We have so many fond memories of Rochester. My paternal grandparents lived on East Avenue. Every summer my parents took us to Rochester to visit family."

"We remember Letchworth State Park and the Legend of Mary Jamison, the Eastman Gardens and the museum there. . . For my sister and I it has been an emotional thing. We brought our children up to Rochester to keep that tradition going."

Sullivan enrolled in RIT’s Online Learning Program during the Spring 1999 quarter and has since enrolled in 12 credits per quarter. Adding on the responsibilities of a full-time job and full-time mother has been a real challenge, she says. In particular, the math and science requirements have been her greatest academic challenges, especially since, historically, those subjects have not been her strongest. On the other side of the academic spectrum, however, she does have a strong penchant for writing and a great love for the liberal arts.

After high school she was on her way to becoming an English major while an undergraduate at Barnard College, but she dropped out during her sophomore year. "Basically life always got in the way of me finishing my degree," she says, adding that her ultimate goal is to eventually earn a master’s degree.

Through a tuition assistance program at her place of work, along with being able to take advantage of the flexibility and conveneince of going online for all of her coursework, Sullivan has been given a golden opportunity to meet that goal.

"Even though I do moan and groan a lot about having to take these science and math courses, I can look back now and realize that I have gotten such a broad education in so many areas," she claims. "It has really given me something I would not have gotten in a typical liberal arts setting."

Nonetheless, Sullivan does wish there were more writing or philosophy courses in RIT’s online learning environment. So, to compensate, she became the founding editor of RIT’s Distance Learner, the program’s first online student newsletter.

Recently Sullivan was also appointed newsletter editor of RIT’s chapter of the Golden Key Honor Society. She’s basically living proof that one does not have to be an on-campus student to participate in RIT’s traditional student life activities.

She’s also a great example of how an RIT degree earned off campus is equal to an RIT degree earned on campus. And the living proof of that came when she was handed her associate’s degree at RIT’s 2001 commencement.

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