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Dr. Carolyn Turner empowers learners as new assistant dean of Cincinnati Undergraduate Center
As published in The Cincinnati Herald, March 21, 2008
As the daughter of Cincinnati civil rights leader and education advocate Dr. Bailey Turner, Dr. Carolyn Turner learned to value education at an early age.
“My father preached that education was the way out and the way up for many,” said Turner. “He would tell people that if they wanted to get better jobs they had to go back to school.”
Today, Carolyn is following in her father’s footsteps. Both she and her dad earned doctoral degrees from Union Institute & University. Most recently, she served as the director of doctoral admissions at UI&U, located in the Tudor-inspired building on East McMillan Street in Walnut Hills. Carolyn is also the former executive director of Cincinnati Parents for Public Schools.
Now she is honoring her father’s mission to empower people through education in her new role as assistant dean of undergraduate studies at UI&U’s Cincinnati Center. In fact, Carolyn has her father’s doctoral dissertation on hand in her office to reference at any moment.
“I’ve got a chance to give people opportunities they didn’t even know they had,” she said. “Most don’t know how flexible UI&U’s degree programs are, and that they may be able to get credits for trainings and professional certifications they already have.”
According to a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 450,000 adults in Ohio have completed some undergraduate coursework but have yet to graduate.
Without those coveted undergraduate degrees, many are finding it difficult to advance in their careers and increase their earnings.
The problem, said Carolyn, is that although many adults want to complete their undergraduate education, most are too busy juggling the demands of work and family to return to school. The solution, she said, can be found at UI&U.
“We offer tutorial-based curriculums, so that learners can take their courses whenever it works best for them,” she said.
Some learners may prefer face-to-face instruction while others may need to complete their entire degree online. Either way, UI&U will meet the learners' needs while providing quality instruction from leading scholars.
The accredited undergraduate programs earned praise from the Ohio Board of Regents. Carolyn said that on their most recent visit to UI&U to approve 14 new B.S. majors, the regents found the majors to be well-developed, with a lot of potential, and clear ties to UI&U’s mission to serve adults with non-traditional programs that focus on social relevance, creative and critical thinking, and a scholar-practitioner model.
UI&U offers both traditional degrees and others in areas that are experiencing job growth – including early childhood education, social work, and counseling. The university also provides free career counseling to all learners, who may use the service even after they graduate.
This progressive approach to higher education is nothing new for UI&U; the university has been offering practical degree programs for adult learners since 1964. Cincinnati serves as UI&U headquarters, and there are undergraduate centers in Sacramento, Los Angeles, Miami, and Vermont.
As traditional universities embrace online learning and entirely online institutions like Phoenix University gain in popularity, Carolyn said UI&U stands out for one important reason.
“We are committed to social justice and community involvement,” she said. “We know that education can enhance and improve not only our own lives, but the life of our entire community as well.”
About 36 percent of UI&U learners are African-American, evidence of strong diversity and commitment to social justice.
Like her father, Carolyn sees education as a change catalyst. She is writing a book about her father, and shared the reminiscences she gathered from Carl Westmoreland, noted senior advisor for the Underground Railroad Freedom Center: “Bailey Turner was a master at getting people to believe they could change their own lives, that they could help themselves,” said Westmoreland. “He was one of he first college-educated people that I ran into who wasn’t an intellectual bigot. Bailey taught people that they could walk with anybody, and that they could function with anybody if they understood what they could do.”
His daughter is living these words everyday at UI&U.
“If we can continue to do our part and get people educated,” she said, “we can slowly transform our society.”