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Distance education

Winter 2009

Yolandé McVey ’07—Taking life back

The heroine of Love’s Secrets puts on perfume, goes to a barbecue, and meets Rod: caramel skin, wavy hair, muscles, and commitment issues.

The author of Love’s Secrets can never do two of those three things. Exposure to perfume or barbecue smoke could kill Yolandé McVey ’07, who suffers from severe asthma and allergies. “I’m so allergic to everything that when I was given an allergy test, I went into shock,” she said. “They had to call an ambulance to take me to a hospital.”

McVey began to lose ground in her lifelong battle with respiratory problems in 1997. She had just moved to … » More …

Summer 2003

The Great Conversation

As diverse as the state, each of Washington State University’s 10 learning centers has its own character, determined both by location and by the personality of its staff. But they share a common mission—to provide opportunity throughout the state to all place-bound adults who desire further education. The learning centers combine “high tech” delivery methods and “high touch” service of the resident staffs, to provide opportunity that would not otherwise be available. Last fall, North Olympic Peninsula Learning Center coordinator Robert Force presented this evocative paean to the experience to Provost Robert Bates and other visiting administrators.

One Saturday evening I was wearing my Washington State … » More …

Spring 2003

The More You Learn: Distance Degree Program celebrates its tenth

What it came down to was that Michele Candela needed a college education-but it was going to have to come to her rather than her going to campus. When she made the trip from Bainbridge Island to Pullman for commencement last May, it was the first time she’d ever set foot on campus. Or met, face to face, the staff of the Distance Degree Program who helped her achieve a bachelor’s degree in social science (with a 4.0, it should be mentioned), working from the private classroom she shares with a husband and four children a few miles outside of Kingston.

“If you look at … » More …

Summer 2009

In from the fields

A dozen preschoolers puff into plastic wands, shrieking as soap bubbles kite across the classroom. Sylvia Guzman, 29, sits cross-legged on the floor, next to a poster showing ways to calm down (put hand on tummy, take deep breaths). She reads aloud in Spanish: “There are three amigos.” She points to the book. The children flock around. She turns the page. “Four armadillos. How many armadillos? Let’s count them.” They count together—“Uno, dos, tres, cuatro”—as one boy stomps errant bubbles. “Look. Five cows,” she says. “What does a cow say?” Everyone moos in unison.

Guzman, a Distance Degree Program student at Washington State University, has … » More …