Thirty-six years after she started her University of Regina degree, Carla Brown finally has it in her hands..On June 9, she walked across the stage to receive a Bachelor of Arts in English with great distinction. She expressed her joy in a Facebook post,.“Convocation at last! I started this degree 36 years ago and today it is mine! It’s been a long hard road, but I’m not a quitter! 😊 Thanks be to God.”.The farm girl from Ituna, Saskatchewan had no idea the journey would be so long when she started university in autumn 1986. Her high school marks got her an entrance scholarship, and she continued with full or nearly full course loads through the fall of 1988. Scholarships paid for her tuition, but her living expenses were carried mostly by student loans. She also held several part-time jobs, including singing in a country band..“I drifted away from university because I worried about the cost — my parents raised me to be debt-averse — and also, when people asked me, ‘What will you do with an English degree?’ I didn't really have an answer,” Brown told the Western Standard..“Of course, I know now that there are lots of jobs to which a BA in English can lead. But then, playing in a band was what I really wanted to do.”.Brown shelved her studies, married in 1989 and worked briefly for Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming. All the while, she continued to sing and write songs, eventually joining the Red Hot Burritos. This band gained some notoriety with their radio airplay from their independent CD and winning the Jack Daniels Battle of the Bands at the Big Valley Jamboree in Craven in 1992..That summer she also took a course from a popular sociology professor. He gave her good marks despite their periodic differences in class. .“It terrified me to speak up in class. Few people ever did. I remember one occasion, the professor implied that religion was for people who needed a crutch and that all women were oppressed even if they didn't know it,” Brown says..“I disagreed with both assertions.” .Brown moved to Nashville with her husband in 1993. There, they had three children, eventually returning to Saskatchewan at the end of 2000. One more child was born in Regina in 2002. In 2004 she gave university another shot in 2004, taking a night class on short stories. Soon afterward, the family relocated to a small town and studies were once again put on hold. By 2010, finances and family dynamics prompted her to return to school in earnest. .“I realized I needed to do something to be in a better position to support my family,” she recalls. “Very few English classes were offered online in those days, so I took what I could get and used up most of my electives.”.After three classes in 2010 and two in 2011, Brown had to set academics aside again after she and her husband separated. She moved to Regina with her four children and found full-time work in the Saskatchewan government. A divorce followed and in 2015 she married Brad Brown..“He encouraged me to get at it if it was something I wanted to do. So I did.” .Now Carla Brown, she returned to university in 2016, taking mostly online courses because they worked better with her busy schedule. “Every time I went back the goalpost had moved. I had to get approval for my old classes, which they called ‘stale-dated,’ to fulfill my degree requirements.” .Brown got to keep some of her credits, thanks to Mary Jesse, the registrar who worked at Luther College from 1985 to 2019, a journey almost as long as Brown’s..Brown took one or two classes winter, summer, and fall for eight semesters in a row, finally wrapping up in Winter 2022. She says the desire to demonstrate a good example to her now-grown children motivated her down the home stretch, as did the chance to bring her life experience into courses dominated by younger students..“I felt like I could offer some longer perspective into every class meeting. Making what I hope were helpful contributions encouraged me the most and kept me going when it was hard,” the graduate says..“University kept me flexible — I learned from the young people, too.”
