Persevering for 13 years earns diploma
For 13 years, Kris Hall had every legitimate excuse to quit her quest to earn a bachelor’s degree from Ohio State University.
She needed to help take care of her dad in Florida while he fought bone and skin cancer, and she had a major surgery of her own.
A tornado ripped through her community and blew a
neighbor’s garage into her house.
She lost her job and was unemployed for a year.
There were two young boys to raise and a husband with his own career.
Still, Hall, a dental-assistant instructor at the Career and Technology Education Centers of Licking County in Newark, pushed forward. She drove 35 miles from her home in Heath to Ohio State’s main campus to take classes, mainly at night. Studying and writing papers ate up her evenings and chunks of her weekends.
Hall started taking classes at Ohio State in 2004. At Sunday’s commencement ceremony, the 49-year-old will receive a bachelor of science degree in career tech education.
“It will be surreal and an honor to finally walk across that stage with the other graduates,” Hall said. “I’ve tried to dedicate much of my life to helping my family, friends, students and other people. But this degree was about myself. I did it for me.”
Hall will be among those receiving an autumn-class record 3,721 degrees from Ohio State in the Jerome Schottenstein Center. Ohio
State President Dr. Michael V. Drake will preside over the ceremony, which is to begin at 2 p.m. U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, will give the commencement address.
During the ceremony, the university will award the honorary doctor of humane letters degree to Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund.
Each graduate will receive her or his diploma at the ceremony, which is rare at a university the size of Ohio State.
It won’t be the first time Hall has held a college diploma.
In 2011, she earned an associate degree from Ohio State after seven years of attending classes. She decided to skip the graduation ceremony; instead, she picked up her diploma in an envelope from OSU’s Newark campus and sat alone in her green Honda Pilot. There were mainly tears of joy when she took a photo of the diploma with her cellphone and sent it to her parents in Florida.
She said she regretted not attending the graduation ceremony with her classmates. In part, that helped fuel her desire to go on to earn a bachelor’s degree. She promised herself she would complete the four-year degree before she turned 50 Kris Hall has the support of her high school dental-assistant students in her lab at the Career and Technology Education Centers of Licking County as she prepares to receive her bachelor’s degree from Ohio State University at Sunday’s commencement.
and before her 19-year-old son earned his associate degree.
“From a persistence standpoint, she is at the top of the list,” said Chris Zirkle, Hall’s adviser and an associate professor in workforce development and education in the College of Education and Human Ecology. “There were some pep talks along the way, but it was her amazing determination that made this happen. What was so impressive is she didn’t need this degree for her job or anything else.”
Hall graduated from Newark High School and C-TEC with a
dental-assisting certificate in 1986. She was then hired by John Wallace, who recently retired after 38 years as a dentist in Newark.
Hall credits Wallace for being the kind of mentor she tries to be to her junior and senior high school students at C-TEC.
“I was 18 when I started working in his dental office, and he taught me how to act like an adult, what it meant to be a professional,” Hall said. “I had to mature quickly, and without him, I wouldn’t be getting this degree now.”
Wallace said he can remember the day he hired
Hall, and she has never disappointed.
“I am so proud of her, and I knew she would accomplish whatever she wanted in life,” Wallace said.
Hall switched careers when she returned to C-TEC as a dental assistant instructor in 2004. She immediately began taking classes part time at Ohio State because she wanted the additional education and most of the cost was covered by her employer.
On a bitterly cold day last week, about 20 of her 40 total students were preparing for a root-canal test in their state-of-the-art dental laboratory when they surrounded one of their favorite teachers and wished her well at the upcoming graduation. Some wanted to attend Sunday’s ceremony, but there weren’t enough tickets.
This time, Hall won’t be celebrating alone in her car. Her husband, two sons and several other family members will be there.
But it might not be her last graduation ceremony.
“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about going for a master’s,” Hall said with a chuckle. “But I’m tired. I think I’ll just enjoy this degree for a while.”