Adult Student Award Winners, 2008
Iliriana Gashi and Nicole Harp: heroic efforts celebrated by UW-Madison
When war broke out in Kosova nine years ago, Iliriana (Anna) Gashi and her brother Ilia fled to the United States with all of their belongings in two backpacks. Months later their parents made it to America as well, but for a long time Gashi and her brother were the only family members who spoke English so they had to support the family for several years before she could begin attending UW-Madison.
Eight years ago Nicole Harp was in a serious car accident that left her in chronic, often debilitating pain. As one result of this life-changing event, she returned to the college education that she had put aside in 1986 for the sake of her family.
Gashi and Harp, who earned their bachelor’s degrees in May, are this year’s recipients of the Dean of Students Outstanding Returning Adult Student awards at UW-Madison. The awards are cosponsored by the Dean of Students Office and the Division of Continuing Studies’ Adult and Student Services Center (ASSC).
Soon after arriving in Madison in 1999, Gashi went to work cleaning houses, then found a job at Walgreen’s. After working there for seven years she was finally able to enter the physician assistant program at UW-Madison in June 2006. “I was taking classes in the daytime, working at Walgreen’s from 2 to 10 p.m., and working at Woodman’s on weekends.”
But when her son Dorian was born in February 2007, Gashi realized she would have to cut back on something. “Fortunately, with the help of my husband and other family members, I was able to stop working for a while and concentrate on my degree and my baby.”
Time with her family is of the utmost importance to Gashi. “I can live with less money but not with less family time. In fact, my mother, brother, son, and I are traveling to Kosova for a month this summer to see family members I’ve been separated from for almost ten years.”
Gashi, who grew up in Kosova (the spelling that’s recognized by the Albanian population of the country as opposed to the Serbian-preferred spelling Kosovo), plans to become a physician assistant. “It’s just the right degree because when I’ve finished, almost any field of medicine will be open to me. I love variety in my work and appreciate that I’ll be able to choose from a wide range of areas after trying several.”
Right now she’s leaning toward going into either trauma and life support or family practice. By the time she completes her M.S. in physician assistance next year, she expects to have a clearer picture of what specialty holds the most appeal.
Born and raised in Antioch, Illinois, Harp moved with her husband Chris and their two daughters to the Madison area for Chris’s work as an architect. Later she went to work full time in a law firm while also attending the paralegal certificate program at Madison-Area Technical College part time.
“One of the things I find fascinating about the law is how it is always changing,” Harp says. “And it has some interesting parallels to social work—many people move from one field to the other.”
Harp’s own move came soon after the accident she suffered in the summer of 2000. Working at a desk became very difficult, sometimes impossible. Only when she took some time off from work did her physical condition begin to improve. In January 2005 she was able to enroll at UW-Madison.
Her numerous volunteer and community service positions have included helping other chronic-pain sufferers in the Inpatient Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Unit at Meriter Hospital, and working as a resource manager for three clients of Yahara House, a day-treatment program for people with severe and persistent mental illness. Recently she was able to draw on both these positions by designing and starting a chronic-pain-management group at Yahara House to help clients who deal with physical pain in addition to mental illness.
“After nearly five years of nonstop school, I’m looking forward to being away from it for about three months.” Harp’s summer plans include traveling with her husband and their two daughters to Biloxi, Mississippi, to help rebuild homes devastated by Hurricane Katrina. In the fall she’ll be back in school, entering the master of social work program at UW-Madison with a concentration in mental health.
Having completed one degree this past May, Harp now looks forward to completing another next May. “The year after that, our older daughter Ashley expects to graduate from Winona State University and our younger daughter Danielle will graduate from Oregon High School. We have a lot of educational accomplishments to celebrate in the near future.”
For more information about returning adult students and services at UW-Madison, go to the ASSC Web site; call 608-263-6960; or visit ASSC on campus at the William S. Middleton Building, 1305 Linden Drive, 3rd floor.
—Alex Hancock