Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series on nontraditional students at UNM.
It is difficult to imagine anyone finding time to study at the bustling Compton household.
Political science major Cara Valente-Compton, 42, somehow completes homework amid the chaos of four children, four cats and a dog scrambling around.
The Compton household is a hectic atmosphere, Valente-Compton said, but her family has supported her drive to get an education.
“My experience here has enhanced their desire to complete their education,” she said. “My 9-year-old wants to be a mini lawyer like me. I read my materials to them — that helps me but they learn, too. They are really soaking it in, and they see how hard work pays off.”
Valente-Compton said her day begins at 6:30 a.m., and it doesn’t stop until bedtime.
“My husband, Charles, gets the kids up and ready. The little ones are out the door by 7:30. Amanda is out by 8,” she said. “Charles drops me off, and I am usually on campus by about 8:30. I like to sit outside, even if it is cold, and look at the trees and stuff before class. I have class all day and usually leave campus about 5. I come home, make dinner, take kids to activities, play cards with my next door neighbor, and do homework. It’s a lot.”
Valente-Compton, a mother of five, returned to school in January 2009 after completing work for Sen. Tom Udall and President Obama’s campaigns.
“My dream my whole life has been to go to law school and be a lawyer, so that is what I’m doing,” she said. “Most of my professional life, I have worked for politics or health care, and when I found myself out of work, I decided that rather than go for another job. I was going to apply to UNM to finish my undergraduate work.”
When she was 18, Valente-Compton said her family didn’t have money for her to go to college, and she wasn’t aware of the programs available to underprivileged students.
“I have made some different choices and I have kind of wandered a bit,” she said. “I don’t regret any of it. I have a wonderful life.”
Then, motherhood took priority over returning to school, Valente-Compton said. She moved to Missouri after marrying her husband, Charles Compton, and returned to New Mexico in 2005.
“I feel like I spent all of those years in Missouri with me being pregnant or with an infant,” she said. “In the nine years we were there, we had four kids, so it really was pretty much like that. We had three in diapers at the same time, which was tough.”
Valente-Compton’s children — Amanda, 12; Sarah, 10; Madeline, 9; William, 6 — said they are proud of their mother for going back to school.
Madeline said she enjoys accompanying her mother to class.
“It has been really, really good having her in school,” Madeline said. “It has been more exciting and fun because now we get to go to UNM.”
Valente-Compton’s son Willie said he led his mother’s campaigns and elections class in the pledge of allegiance.
“I learned who wrote the pledge of allegiance — Francis Bellamy,” he said. “His granddaughter said he would be really mad if he heard it today because they changed it to say ‘under God.’”
Professor Tim Krebs said Valente-Compton’s children don’t disrupt the class.
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“In general, having kids in the class doesn’t change anything that I do,” he said. “Students with children have childcare challenges. I have kids and the same challenges, so I understand where they are coming from, and if the kids can be well behaved in class, it is not a problem for me to accommodate that.”
Charles Compton said his wife’s return to school has positively influenced their children.
“They are actually seeing what college is about,” he said. “These kids are now excited to do the same thing that their mom is doing.”
Still, Valente-Compton said, being a nontraditional student comes with its challenges, but the rewards outweigh negative aspects.
“It can be pretty daunting in a classroom where everyone is half your age,” she said. “I have kids. I have been in the workforce for many years. I don’t live on campus. I’m not in a dorm, and I’m older.”
Krebs said having older students in class helps the academic setting because they have more experience in life and work.
“With Cara in particular I can say something in class from the decade of the 1980s — a historical reference about an election — she is going to get it because she lived through it,” he said.
Through all of the daily demands, Valente-Compton still finds time to serve as the vice president of UNM’s Association of Non-Traditional Students. She said she works to reach other nontraditional students.
“Anybody who feels like they don’t … fit the mold of the traditional student is welcome in ANTS,” she said. “We need that because I don’t think there is quite the outreach to the nontraditional students.”
Charles said it has been different with his wife in school, but he can tell she is happier.
“For the longest time, she felt that she had had a couple years of college, and then it had stopped, and we got married. We had kids, and everything got put on hold for her,” he said. “Now that she is back in school, she feels like she is fulfilling something, doing something, working toward something.”
