Taps for My College: Marygrove

[eriehiker]

My alma mater, Marygrove College in Detroit, has announced that it will close.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019...t-declines

I am a second generation Marygrove grad.  My mom attended back in the 50s/60s and earned her teaching certificate there.  I completed my MAT there in 2003.  By that time, the college had become a bit of a correspondence school for teachers working on masters degrees while working full-time jobs.  The internet was still relatively new and it was mostly a paper and pencil degree.  I did have weekly meetings with my study group and I watched a lot of VCR tapes of lectures.  Haha.  We did have real professors that we phoned and emailed.

I think that the degree cost me about $10,000 and it paid for itself many times over with the masters degree pay bump at my school.

My mom had an even better story related to Marygrove.  She had earned a scholarship to attend, but my grandfather told her to turn it down because "women don't go to college."  So, she turned it down.  Then, my grandmother, Hazel, turned the screws on my grandfather and convinced him to change his mind.  My mom had to call the scholarship committee back and ask if the scholarship was still available.  They again offered her the scholarship and she became the first person in my family to earn a college degree.  

My mom became a teacher.  Later, I became a teacher as well.  So, I have a soft spot for this school.  I'm not really sad to see it go because the economics changed, but I have a lot of respect for what this school did in its time.