Scholarships help single parents achieve academic goals
Sept. 30, 1998
UW-Madison undergraduate Alexandra "Xanda" Fayen, a returning adult who is a single mother, says it felt strange to be back in school surrounded by students who had mostly entered college straight from high school.
"At one point I looked around a classroom and thought, 'My car is older than some of these kids!' But I have bonded with some of the younger students as well as many older ones," Fayen says.
Fayen, recipient of the Nancy W. Denney Memorial Scholarship, is one of six Madison-area woman who have received UW-Madison scholarships for undergraduate students who are also single parents.
The six must work hard to balance academics, work and family. But they share the real-world experience that has helped them achieve academic excellence while nurturing children, building careers and giving back to the community.
Kristina Amelong, another scholarship recipient, has helped support herself and her 6-year-old son by running a food cart while in school.
"Running my own business for five years while parenting a very active boy has made me determined to stick to my long-term goals," Amelong says. Those goals include becoming a high-school teacher with dual certification in social studies and English.
Fayen, who grew up in New Haven, Conn., came to Madison in 1991. After attending MATC for three semesters, she left school and went to work selling insurance, which she continues to do. She returned to MATC in January 1995 and enrolled full-time at UW-Madison in September 1996, pursuing a double major in social welfare and women's studies.
Fayen also volunteers at Marquette Elementary, where her son Bailey is a third grader, and at Oasis, a parenting help agency. She also has been an active member of the collective news journal Feminist Voices.
After completing her B.A., Fayen plans to pursue her master's degree in social work at UW-Madison. She wants to work with other single mothers in community-based programs.
In addition to Amelong, the following students are recipients of the Single Parent Undergraduate Student Scholarships for 1998-99:
- Deborah Frosch, who expects to finish a bachelor's degree in rural sociology next year, helped initiate a "farm-a-thon" in Black Earth, Wis. and helped develop and carry out a research project on the unique problems faced by rural women under W-2. Frosch has volunteered at the Neighborhood House in Madison and worked on AIDS awareness activities.
Frosch hopes to proceed to the master's program in agricultural journalism. Balancing her academic and service activities with the needs of her daughter and two sons has been a challenge, but Frosch says she "takes pride in the values my children are learning as we all study together."
- Mateba Myers is a senior majoring in family and consumer education, a teacher and volunteer with the Early Childhood Learning Center and the mother of a 3-year-old son. She plans to pursue a master's degree in special education or educational administration and eventually to work with families, possibly in a community center.
Lorena Nedland, born in Argentina, came to the United States with her family when she was 15. She is majoring in Spanish and completing a certificate in business. Nedland has taught Spanish at Thoreau Elementary School, where her 7-year-old daughter Erin is a student, and has been a volunteer at the Madison Community Center.
After graduating next spring, Nedland hopes to pursue a career in international business. "During my years at the university I've discovered business skills I never knew I had," she says. "I want to find work that will allow me to combine those with my skills in language."
- Melanie Ray's 2-year-old daughter has helped inspire her toward a career teaching young children. Ray has served as a volunteer at the Broadway-Simpson Community Center and a tutor at James C. Wright Middle School. She plans to pursue graduate study in elementary education and "would like to teach children with learning disadvantages, including those with learning disabilities and those from low-income neighborhoods."
And as for Fayen, receiving the Nancy W. Denney Memorial Scholarship holds special significance because both her mother and her stepmother have survived breast cancer. The scholarship honors the memory of Nancy W. Denney, a UW-Madison professor of psychology who died of breast cancer in 1984.
"Nancy Denney understood the challenges facing students with joint responsibilities for parenting, work and schooling, and she put enormous effort into developing support systems for those students," said Pat Fessenden, assistant dean in UW-Madison's Division of Continuing Studies, which administers the scholarship. "The Denney Scholarship is one of the ways we acknowledge her efforts."
For more information about next year's scholarships, call Lisa Munro, (608) 263-6960; or write: UW-Madison Adult Career and Educational Counseling Center, 905 University Ave., Madison, WI 53715.