2 mark struggles to make it to graduation: ‘I cried many tears’
At times, classmates and now friends Tiffany Ruffin, of Merrillville, and Jacqueline Harding, of Lynwood, Illinois, wondered how they were going to get through the next day — never mind reaching graduation from Purdue University Northwest.
So when the dean of nursing announced the conferral of their nursing degrees Saturday afternoon at the commencement ceremony in Hammond, Ruffin, 32, and Harding, 49, jumped up and shrieked with joy.
“(Going back to school) was a financial struggle for me,” said Harding, whose “Nurse Jackie” glistened in the field house lights. “I’m a mom of three with two grandkids, and I’m old. I cried many tears.”
For Ruffin, her family fell on hard times, first losing their home, then her car. She lost a second car in an accident, she said.
There was a group of seven students who started the program together, the women said, studying and supporting each other. One by one, they dropped out because life became too much, and Harding and Ruffin ended up joining another group whose numbers had also thinned.
The two continued to push through despite it all. And now, neither are finished: Harding will start work on becoming a nurse practitioner and Ruffin will start her next level of classes while working on expanding her family.
Indiana state Rep. Mara Candelaria Re a rd o n , D-12th, who delivered the commencement address, understood the women’s plight. Her grandfather expected her mother, Victoria Soto-Candelaria, would “only get married,” so she didn’t need school, she told the crowd.
Candelaria Reardon’s uncle, Andrew Soto, who’d joined the U.S. Marine Corps and was one of three men in his platoon to go through officer training, had bigger ideas for his little sister. He first offered to pay Victoria a nickel for every book she read, then insisted she go to school — even if she would be an older student, Candelaria Reardon said.
Soto-Candelaria went on to help shape education policy under the Clinton administration, the elected leader said. And after her own struggles with dyslexia, she said, she has risen through the ranks of the General Assembly and is now the first Latina ranking minority member of the Statutory Committee on Interstate and International Cooperation, among other accomplishments.
“Would my grandfather believe that we achieved so much? He might not. But that’s what my uncle and mother gave to me. A strong work ethic will help you accomplish anything you set your mind to. It’ll make you do a little better and dream a little bigger, so let that empower you to help others to aspire to learn and do more,” she said.
Purdue Un i ve r s i t y Northwest graduated 1,251 students, including two who received doctorates, 146 getting master’s degrees and 1,103 who earned bachelor’s degrees for 2019. More than 800 graduates participated in four commencement ceremonies held Friday and Saturday.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the PostTribune.