Lifetime education, lifetime involvement: 'Finding a home' at IU South Bend

Melanie Baker (left) and student Elizabeth Martin discuss philosophy at IUSB in Baker's Wiekamp Hall classroom.

A decade ago, a non-traditional student, wanting to spend 'quality time' with her son, began a quest that has lead to a doctoral degree and teaching position.

Melanie Baker experienced a rare moment of reference Aug. 25 as she became one of the first faculty members to teach in Indiana University South Bend's new sun-filled Wiekamp Hall.

Baker, an associate philosophy instructor, was herself a first-time student only 10 years ago. At 39, she enrolled in the same introductory philosophy course she teaches today. Never intending to go to college, she took the class to spend "quality time" with her oldest son, who was taking credits while home from college.

"I took that class, with (philosophy professor) Mike Washburn, and thought, 'I have found my home,'" said Baker. Today she is completing her philosophy doctoral dissertation at Purdue University on the topic of the ethics of suicide.

What Baker might have seen on "Day One" of fall semester was the more recent version of herself, the non-traditional student edging toward a new life. What she saw, instead, surprised her.

The latest set of demands is one IUSB long timers might not have seen a decade ago, when nurturing the talents of non-traditional students like Baker was a primary faculty focus. Students today are looking for the 'real' college experience, such as sports facilities and social activities.

"There are no non-traditional students in this class," said Baker, who was left pondering the implications of class discussions among students so recently cut from their parents' apron strings. Getting them "to take out their ideas and examine them and learn to argue for their views" is the greatest challenge.

Since it was organized as a center decades ago and as a campus in the 1960s, IUSB has been accustomed to fashioning itself to community needs. But the latest set of demands is one IUSB long-timers might not have seen a decade ago, when nurturing the talents of non-traditional students like Baker was a primary faculty focus.

Traditional-age students today are demanding opportunities -- like social activities and sports facilities -- and guidance on how to negotiate their paths into the grown up world. But this pressure for a "real" college experience seems to be coming from more than just IUSB's youngest population. Contrary to popular assumption, non-traditional students, too, are demanding this experience. Even alumni are returning to campus, asking for a way to be plugged into campus life.

The Student Activity Center, being planned with an almost $1 million grant from the General Assembly, will give the campus a focal point for its non-classroom life, as will the athletic facilities being constructed on property across from the St. Joseph River, and the residential housing that may one day occupy that land as well.

The opening of IUSB"s first sorority house (see story) and the creation of Threshold Learning Communities (see story) are just two ways in which IUSB is adapting to its younger student body.

But as shown by the new SPEA program, also discussed herein, IUSB is by no means getting out of the business of non-traditional students. Indeed, the current of today's student and alumni demands seem to be signaling that the campus must be ready not just for lifetime education, but lifetime involvement.

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