MU| F e a t u r e s
T
he well-trodden path, this was
not. Jeremy Williams ’17 got
that instinctively.
His first clue was the distinct
lack of enthusiasm that
greeted him in some other places, before he
settled on a place where there was nothing but
open arms. But it didn’t really sink in just how
uncharted this all was until he found himself
teaching three dorm mates how to do laundry
within two weeks of landing at Manchester
University.
Williams was 33 years old at the time. The
dorm mates were, well, not.
“I was living in a dorm with a bunch of
17, 18, 19-year-olds who have never been
away from home,” recalls Williams, a native
of Russiaville, Ind., who’s 35 now and one
of several nontraditional students who’ve
found a home at MU. “I’ve owned my own
home, I’ve done those things. I’ve had life
experiences, I’ve done those things. So it was
a little surreal.”
It is also enormously satisfying, for both
Williams and others who, for a variety of
reasons and motivations, have come to
Manchester years and sometimes decades
later than normal. If it is sometimes surreal,
it is also affirming for everyone involved,
a function that has as much to do with the
nurturing sense of community Manchester
provides as it does the character of those it
nurtures.
solving are really essential if they went
through the military, if they went through
having a job.
But one visit to Manchester’s Pharmacy
Program convinced her it was the right
decision, and the right place.
“It’s a different type of leadership, a different
type of mentoring. I think people just respect
them because they just bring a different
perspective to campus life.”
“I knew it was a new school and it didn’t have
its accreditation yet,” says Wireku, whose two
daughters, ages 5 and 9, are living in Ghana
with her parents while she goes to school.
“But even though I was looking at pharmacy
school at different places, I still wanted to be
here. (Everyone) was comfortable and wanted
everybody to succeed and wanted everybody
to get in, even though that wasn’t possible.
They wanted everybody to be successful and
they were forthcoming in what to expect.”
Maame Wireku ’18 certainly does. A
38-year-old mother of two who grew up
in Ghana and came to the U.S. in 1999, she
did her undergrad work at Luther College in
Iowa. A degree in management information
systems led to jobs with a management retail
company and a bank in the Washington, D.C.,
area, where she married, gave birth to two
daughters and ultimately decided, 15 years
after graduation, to pursue pharmacy.
It was a decision that cost her her marriage.
And while she misses her children, she
understands that, ultimately, she’s doing all
this for them. It’s a perspective and a life
experience that, as Chauncey says, tends to
rub off on the younger students around them.
Opposite page: Jeremy Williams ’17
enrolled at Manchester at age 33 and
immersed himself in the undergraduate
experience, including living in a residence
hall. Right, Maame Wireku ’18, a native
of Ghana, is a student in Manchester’s
Pharmacy Program. In her late 30s,
Maame has two children living with her
parents in Ghana while she completes
her Doctor of Pharmacy degree.
“My perspective is they bring in maturity,
they bring in life experience, and they’re
people that can really talk about how what
they’re learning can benefit,” says Brandi
Chauncey ’01, director of admissions.
“Sometimes, especially in liberal arts, students
don’t always see the benefit of what they
have to study. And these are individuals who
do realize that critical thinking and problem
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