Out of a high school class of 365, Liz Padilla-Pollauf graduated No. 360. She tells this not out of pride but to underscore how far she has come.
She has completed a college education while raising three children. And she has found a way to help others who are trying to get educations despite similar obstacles. Padilla-Pollauf created the Women`s Incentive Fund, which gives non-traditional University of Colorado women students recognition and financial support.
Padilla-Pollauf, 37, a native of Ft. Walton Beach, Fla., is the daughter of a Mexican-American mother and a father who is predominantly Anglo with some Native American. Her father told his children they`d have no chance to complete school or to do well.
”He told us we were half-breeds and half-breeds didn`t have the ability to achieve academically,” Padilla-Pollauf said.
Although her mother attempted to counteract her father`s attitude by praising the children`s ancestry, there weren`t many Mexican-American role models to help undo the damage.
”The only role models we had were the Frito Bandito or lazy people or troublemakers in the movies,” she said.
Padilla-Pollauf wanted to go to college. She wanted a career as a child psychologist. But she was convinced, she said, that it wouldn`t happen.
She did attend a junior college and believed that she must be reasonably intelligent because she contributed to classroom discussions, but she never saw herself as a serious student.
In 1977, when she was 24 and a single parent, she moved to Boulder to look for work. She returned home to Florida for several years, but by the mid- 1980s she had moved to Boulder permanently, was married, had three children and a social service job with the city.
”It finally dawned on me,” she said, ”that while I still wasn`t sure about my intelligence, when it came to common sense and understanding people I was heads above everybody else. I did my job well and I was innovative and I was beginning to think I did have some potential.”
She decided to apply for admission to the University of Colorado, which has its main campus at Boulder. The university didn`t want to admit her at first. Her high school records were poor and, as she said, ”There wasn`t any reason for them to let me in, given the fact that they had so many people trying to enroll.”
By July 1986 she had become angry with the school`s refusal to admit her. She called the admissions office and said, ”Look, I`m going to be at CU Boulder in the fall so you may as well admit me. If you don`t, I`ll call you every day.”
And that`s just what she did, but without result. She finally saw that she would have to prove that although she hadn`t been a good student in high school, in her adult life she had accomplished things that showed she deserved a chance at college. She asked people she knew, including a co-worker, to write letters of recommendation, she said, ”and I think that`s what did it, that and the fact that the admissions counselors were so sick of hearing from me.
”The most amazing part of the story, and remember this was 1986, was that on the last day of late registration they called me in to tell me their decision. They asked whether I had my husband`s permission to go to school. I was stunned by the question. So I told them what they wanted to hear: that my husband (who was supportive) wanted me to go to school and would be furious if I wasn`t admitted. They admitted me on the spot and congratulated me.”
Padilla-Pollauf was enrolled provisionally. She still had to get above-average grades to stay in school. By her second semester she had made the dean`s list, which she could hardly wait to tell the admissions counselors:
”From that point we were friends.”
By the end of her first year of school Padilla-Pollauf had the idea for the scholarship fund. Through her classes she had met several of the school`s non-traditional women students, she said, and after the first semester a few already had dropped out.
”The reasons were always the same: They were either exhausted or were out of money and had to go back to work.”
Among these was a woman Padilla-Pollauf had met who was earning straight A`s and really wanted to keep going. She was a single parent and had to work to support her child as well as find time to spend with her child. She went to bed at 2 a.m. after feeding her son, playing with him and studying. Then she was up at 6 to go to work before her classes.
After some investigation, Padilla-Pollauf learned that even women in the administration who worked with women`s issues had the attitude of, ”That`s the way it goes; you expect a certain amount of dropout.”
She couldn`t find any official CU statistics on the drop-out rate of non- traditional women-those over 25. But she believed that if she`d met so many in a short time, and there weren`t many such students to begin with, the drop- out rate must be significant.
”There was nothing in the system to help make an education affordable to a woman who is primarily responsible for raising and supporting her children.” Padilla-Pollauf said. ”Women really have the skills to complete this education and be dynamic, if given the opportunity.”
Padilla-Pollauf wrote a proposal for a scholarship fund and went to the chancellor, James Corbridge. ”I was naive at the time,” she said. ”I only asked for $2,000. He gave it to me and told me I`d need to learn to ask for more money.”
With the money, Padilla-Pollauf and a committee she formed printed a brochure and started seeking money from donors. They awarded their first group of scholarships in 1988.
This past April the fund distributed $2,600 in scholarships to 10 students. Awards are given to women 25 or older who are full-time students. The 11-member committee-students, community members and staff and faculty of the University of Colorado at Boulder-bases the awards on financial need, community involvement and academic success, though no grade-point average is required. To date, 36 women have received awards.
Each award is either $200 or $400, which the recipient may use in any way she wishes. ”If they need it to pay bills, that`s fine,” Padilla-Pollauf said. ”And my guess is that`s what most of it is used for.”
One woman who won an award was two months behind in her rent and was trying to prepare for her finals, Padilla-Pollauf said. She showed her landlord the letter announcing that she was about to receive $400 and told him that when she got the money she would turn it over to him. Just the letter provided enough release from the stress she was under that she was able to study and successfully take her final exams.
Padilla-Pollauf is now executive director of the Women`s Incentive Fund. She graduated last May with a bachelor`s degree in communications has begun to study for a master`s degree in telecommunications at CU.
Her advice to those who find doors closing in their faces for any reason: ”Women should keep reminding each other of how truly amazing we are, how much determination, energy and skill we have.
”But sometimes you have to be mean in the face of a system that does not want to provide equity for women. If someone tells you it can`t be done, you have to find a way to work around them. Remember that they are limited; you`re not. It`s the only way I got into school and through school and into graduate school. Just stay mean and persistent.”
