‘Miss Stella’ finds her education groove as a non-traditional student

Stella Dyson, known to students on campus as Miss Stella, is one out of 310 undergraduate and graduate non-traditional students on Southern University’s campus.
Non-traditional students are considered to be students over the age of 25 who did not attended college directly after high school.
Dyson, from Baton Rouge, stopped attending college her junior year in 1982 to be a mother to her children and to take care of her mother. She was inspired to come back because her sixteen year old grandson told her she had help him through college.
Now Dyson has returned to college after 20 years and is expected to graduate in Summer 2003 with a Bachelor of Arts and Humanities in secondary education.
“At first I thought I was going to feel out of place, but they see me as a mother. Some students call me Mom or Miss Stella but they respect me and I respect them,” Dyson said.
Southern University’s enrollment has 3.6 percent of non-traditional students out of 8,986: Louisiana State University has 4.8 percent out of 27,196 students and Grambling University has 5.5 percent out of 4,500 students according to the Board of Regents.
“Economic reasons and wanting to be an example to their children will send them back to school,” said Barbara Carpenter, director of the center for service learning and division of continuing education. ” Most individuals return because they haven’t been successful in the job field and realize they need a degree to earn more money,”
“Non-traditional students are more focused because when you’re younger you want to fit in, when you’re older you have goals and pursue them,” Dyson said. “It is not about money but about fulfillment of life.”