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Maria Alvarez '09 Education Hometown: DeLand, Florida |
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"George Eliot once said, 'It is never too late to be what you might have been,'" says Maria Alvarez. "As a student who returned to graduate school at the age of 45, I live by these words." When Maria started work on a Ph.D. degree in the Educational Policy and Leadership Department of the College of Education in 2005, she was grateful to receive a Dean's Graduate Fellowship, which has made pursuing her degree financially possible. "I can't adequately express how grateful I am for this opportunity to continue my education," Maria says. "I am very aware that fellowships like mine are often supported through the generosity of alumni and friends -- perhaps they remember what an educationally rewarding, but financially challenging, time this can be in our lives." Maria's four-year fellowship has enabled her to stay focused on her studies in educational policy. Born in Havana, Cuba, she maintains an interest in the Cuban culture and had planned to research education in that culture before and after the revolution. However, now that travel to Cuba has become difficult, she has shifted to a related and timely topic: the Afro-Creole culture in Louisiana and the educational system before and after Hurricane Katrina. In addition to helping students like Maria pursue their fields of interest, private gifts to the Graduate College support many valuable programs, such as the Certificate in Teaching Excellence Program, the coveted Faculty Mentor Award, and the Jakobsen Research Conference, which offers UI grad students invaluable experience presenting their work in a conference setting. In addition, private support enables many students to travel for research and conferences, and to continue their studies over the summer months. Says Maria, "When you help fund higher education, you uphold the vision that academic exploration makes a difference -- not only in our individual lives, but in what each of us can offer our collective humanity." For Maria, generous private support means that she will be able to fulfill her dream of becoming the first in her family to receive a Ph.D. degree -- and it has helped turn "what might have been" into "what will be" in her professional future.
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