University of Southern Maine

News Releases

It's Never to Late for College

May 11, 2005

Spring is in the air and high school juniors are planning their college visits. Graduating high school seniors are making final decisions about what colleges they will attend in the fall. But, college isn't always about teenagers leaving home for the first time.

Two of the over 1,600 graduates at the University of Southern Maine this year are in their 50s and have taken over 15 years to achieve their USM degrees, both while working at the University and raising families. These women, Robin Day of Standish, and J. Leigh Hamilton of Gorham, give new meaning to the term multi-tasking.

Day, assistant dean for finance and administration in USM's College of Education and Human Development began talking classes at the University of Southern Maine in 1986 when one of her sons began kindergarten. She earned an associate's degree in liberal arts from USM in 1998, and will receive her bachelor of science in Leadership and Organizational Studies at Commencement exercises on Saturday, May 14.

Day, a mother of three boys, began working at USM 25 years ago as an administrative assistant. She has been active in both the USM Classified Staff Senate and the Professional Staff Senate, serving as the chair of both organizations.

Her son, Micah Day, a U.S. Air Force veteran and Bonny Eagle High School graduate, also will march at USM's Commencementto receive his bachelor's degree in psychology.

J. Leigh Hamilton of Gorham, the oldest of nine children, is a first generation college student. She has been working on her degree for 15 years, first receiving an associate's degree in plant and soil science from Southern Maine Community College before transferring to the University of Southern Maine as a psychology major. Realizing that clinical counseling would not be a good fit for her, she designed her own major in career development and life planning and is about to begin an internship with Pathways to Higher Learning this May.

Hamilton and her husband Stephen raised two children during the years she pursued her bachelor's degree.

She works in the History Department on the Gorham campus and has been an active member of the Gorham community since 1986, serving as a Girl Scout leader, a school volunteer, and a member of the Gorham Garden Club.

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