Sivi Lentz: A Dream Fulfilled

Sivi Lentz made a stunning discovery as her boyfriend shoved her down a flight of stairs. After a decade of addiction to heroin, cocaine and speed, Lentz realized she had finally hit rock bottom.

“It was that emotional, spiritual bankruptcy,” she says, her voice breaking at the memory of tumbling with her 8-month-old son in arms. “God said to me, ‘You’re going to live or you’re going to die. What do you want to do?’”

Lentz, then 32, decided fervently that she had to live. She’s been making up for lost time ever since. In the past six years, she’s zoomed through rehab and earned her undergraduate degree at University of Phoenix. She owns a car and a condo, dates a wonderful guy and is employed as the lead paralegal at a Phoenix law office.

Lentz gladly shares her inspiring story with other women struggling to escape drug addiction and domestic violence. She tells them how she spent 11 months in drug rehab, where her son, Devin, celebrated his first birthday. They then lived for 18 months in a YWCA shelter for homeless women with children while Lentz earned her paralegal certification at a junior college.

Her story was featured in a YWCA brochure that caught the eye of Elizabeth Tice, a YWCA board member who was Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs at University of Phoenix. Inspired by Lentz’s determination and her goal of attending University of Phoenix, Tice persuaded university officials to offer her a full scholarship in 2002.

Lentz had just landed a full-time job at Burdman & Shore, a law firm that specializes in construction-defect litigation. The prospect of adding college to that workload and her parenting responsibilities left her “absolutely scared and terrified and excited all at the same time,” she says. But she knew she couldn’t pass up the gift of an education. She enrolled in full-time night classes and received her undergraduate degree in business marketing in February 2005.

She’s used the skills she developed at University of Phoenix to arrange marketing events for Burdman & Shore, organize legal seminars and create targeted mass mailings. She also drafts motions, complaints and discovery, which will serve her well if she decides to fulfill another goal of attending law school.

Lentz’s life today is a far cry from her childhood of domestic violence and near-poverty. Even as a child, she knew she wanted a better life. But her dreams of college seemed increasingly distant in her early 20s, when she began hanging out with drug abusers and, later, a boyfriend who turned violent when he used drugs.

“They were poor choices, but I wouldn’t take them away for anything in the world,” she says.

Lentz became the first member of her family to earn a college degree. But she’s sure she won’t be the last. Education, she says confidently, “will start a tradition different than what I was used to.”

LaVonne Cordova Brooks: Success from afar

Once LaVonne Cordova Brooks decided to earn a master’s degree, she wasn’t going to let a little thing like distance get in her way. The Reno, Nev., resident commuted by plane about a thousand miles each week to the Albuquerque, N.M., campus of University of Phoenix to earn her degree in organizational management and development in 1998.

She whipped through the 46-credit graduate program in 11 months by persuading her instructors to allow her to double up on courses. Meanwhile, Brooks was also running a consulting business in Albuquerque and flying home each weekend to Reno to spend time with her husband.

It seemed like Brooks, who started her undergraduate education at age 34, was making up for lost time. Though she’d had a successful career in manufacturing, sales and marketing, she realized she needed a degree to bolster her credibility as a consultant. “It certainly gave me confidence,” Brooks, 49, says of her education. “Once it’s yours, no one can take it away.”

She eventually wearied of so much travel and decided to live and work in Reno. She figured she’d continue as a consultant there but certainly never envisioned herself directing a non-profit agency.

A job interview at High Sierra Industries persuaded her otherwise. The nonprofit’s 240 workers, who are physically, mentally and developmentally disabled, assemble everything from hardware kits to components used in slot machines.

Intrigued by the opportunity to tap her manufacturing experience, expertise in project management, and “book learning” on strategic and financial planning, she became CEO in 2000.

Clearly, despite her demanding commute, Brooks was paying attention in class: Under her stewardship, High Sierra’s gross annual revenues have soared from $3.7 million in 2000 to $8.3 million in 2005.

Terrance Wagner: New school equals new opportunities

Terrance Wagner’s University of Phoenix education quickly proved its worth. He landed three promotions in five years thanks to his ability to apply his coursework to his career.

For a project in a business class, Wagner examined the impact of shortening lead times for ordering and shipping merchandise for his employer, the Army & Air Force Exchange Service. Wagner, who worked in procurement, discovered that military exchange stores could cut costs by decreasing the volume of stock they carried without significantly affecting the availability of merchandise.

“It really did pay off,” Wagner says of his education. “The benefit was very tangible.” He was a member of the first University of Phoenix graduating class in San Francisco, earning his Bachelor of Science degree in business in 1981.

Wagner was initially unsure about enrolling in this new college program, but he decided to take a chance on the new school after ascertaining that it was accredited.

His early classes were held in students’ homes and sometimes even in the instructor’s house. Wagner’s home was too noisy for any studying or class meetings because he had four children between the ages of 1 and 12. “Libraries became my friend,” he jokes. His wife, Evelyn, generously shouldered childcare and home responsibilities so he could focus on his coursework.

After graduating from high school, Wagner had completed a year of college but had to drop out when he couldn’t afford to continue his education full time. He felt fortunate to be able to return to school in his mid-30s and was delighted to find classmates equally committed to their studies. “I enjoyed learning with other adults, the exploration, the interchange,” says Wagner, now 58. “Everyone was there because they wanted to be and had made a level of sacrifice.”

Wagner’s 32-year career with the Army & Air Force Exchange Service concluded in 1999, when he retired as vice president of sales. Today, he and his wife live in Olympia, Wash., where he volunteers as a mediator with the local Dispute Resolution Center.

Rhonda Fleming-Makell: Letting nothing get in her way

When people think of the U.S. military, they may envision fighter planes or soldiers, “but behind the scenes, it’s pretty much a business,” says Rhonda Fleming-Makell, a University of Phoenix alumna who spent her career in the U.S. Coast Guard.

Fleming-Makell, 43, found plenty of practical applications for her 2003 MBA in technology management. While directing the Coast Guard contraband-sniffing dog program, she used what she learned in her courses to create a database that tracked each dog team’s training record and its “finds.”

Fleming-Makell enlisted in the Coast Guard while earning her undergraduate degree at South Carolina State University. After graduating in 1985, she worked in New York, Washington, D.C., and Miami. Her assignments included gathering information on every oil spill in the United States and coordinating efforts with the U.S. Customs Service and the FBI to seize illegal drugs entering the country by boat.

After about 18 years in the military, Fleming-Makell enrolled in University of Phoenix to earn a master’s degree. Her husband, William J. Makell Jr., a Coast Guard helicopter pilot, also became a student to attain his Master of Science in computer information systems. After each had put in a full day of work, they headed home to care for their three children and then took turns on their computer to access online courses.

“It was definitely a challenge,” Fleming-Makell says with a chuckle.

She retired in 2004 as a lieutenant commander, the first African-American woman commissioned officer in the Coast Guard’s history to earn a retirement. But she’s by no means done working. Fleming-Makell says she continues to draw on her education to oversee the real estate investment business she and her husband run, and she might one day launch her own business.

This summer, she expects to finish the romance novel she’s been working on for years. She doesn’t yet have a publisher, but she hopes the book helps her launch a new career.

Steve Delahunty: A collective effort

When Steve Delahunty was called up for two weeks of National Guard duty, he brought his laptop with him. While serving his country, he also had to keep up with his homework.

In 2002, Delahunty integrated his military duty into his studies for an MBA in technology management. When he was away from home, he tackled coursework in a hotel room and during downtime on duty. He jokes that he went through “at least two, and pieces of three” computers while earning his degree and working full time in Washington, D.C.

Delahunty says he enrolled in University of Phoenix because he wanted to tap into the collective knowledge of his fellow students, not just his instructors. In a traditional classroom setting, only the teacher reads and comments on students’ work. But online, classmates are required to critique each other’s coursework and share insights on assigned readings.

“And it wasn’t input from guys and gals who are 22 years old,” says Delahunty, 40. “It was input from working adults in your field.” Those classmates were scattered from Antarctica to Japan and throughout the United States.

Delahunty last year became a senior associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, which provides defense contracting for the Army and commercial consulting. The hallmark of a valuable education, he says, is that he continues to draw on what he learned from his textbooks, coursework and classmates.

Sandy and Dewey Harnagel: The power of two

When Sandy and Dewey Harnagel enrolled in University of Phoenix in 1977, the school was so new that classes met in a trailer behind a hospital.

The Phoenix couple was uncertain about attending a school that hadn't yet achieved its accreditation. But as full-time employees and busy parents, they liked the university’s emphasis on a practical education and its focus on working adults. They decided to give it a try.

“I thought, 'This is the way I can get a degree and still support my family,'” says Dewey, who was frustrated at being passed over for management jobs because he had only an associate’s degree.

Sandy, who also had an associate’s degree, was working as a secretary. “There was nothing wrong with it,” she says. “I just wanted to do a little more.”

Both wanted to earn undergraduate degrees in business. They enrolled as full-time students, taking the same classes so they could study together. They were pleased that their instructors were experienced businesspeople who used real-life examples to illuminate lessons. “We got a much more broad view of what business was really like,” Sandy says.

The stress of being parents, employees and students was sometimes overwhelming. “We each talked the other out of quitting a time or two,” Dewey recalls, laughing.

Their daughters, then in junior high, cheered them on. “They said, ‘C’mon, Mom. We’ll help you with your homework,’” recalls Sandy, 63. “We all sat around the kitchen table and did our homework.”

If the girls inspired their parents, the Harnagels believe their quest for education motivated their daughters. Both are college graduates.

At their parents’ graduation in 1979, “You could hear the kids yelling in the background,” Sandy says, “not just ours but others, that their parents had finally gotten degrees.”

After graduating, she worked as a manager and technical writer. Today she’s a personal trainer at a women’s fitness center and helps care for three young grandchildren.

Dewey, 66, went on to earn his Master of Arts in Management degree in 1982 from University of Phoenix. He is employed at a computer company.