Written by Madelaine Christensen
Graduate school at Hillsdale College is always a rigorous adventure, but some students embark on the quest for a graduate degree during demanding seasons of their lives. Among the alumni of the Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship are men and women who completed their studies while pregnant or parenting young children, while caring for family members with disabilities, or while juggling long commutes and weeks away from family members. These students especially embody Hillsdale’s motto that “strength rejoices in the challenge.”
By the time Kathleen Finders Thompson,’18, Ph.D., had completed her master’s degree and had a dissertation proposal in hand, she was married with two children ages three and one, and she and her husband Rocky were expecting their third.
“Finishing coursework and studying for the comprehensive exam was one thing, but writing a dissertation while mothering two toddlers and battling morning sickness seemed impossible,” Thompson remembers. In a moment of discouragement, she told Rocky she didn’t think she could finish her doctorate.
“He told me with the greatest kindness imaginable that he would support me either way, but that he believed I could do it,” Thompson said. “So, we hatched a plan.” Thompson spent Saturday mornings writing in a coffee shop while Rocky took care of the kids. On weekdays, Thompson woke up an hour before her children and wrote out of a makeshift office in the closet of the family’s one bedroom apartment.
Thompson completed her dissertation, and walked the stage in 2018, one month before her daughter was born. She was one of the first two Hillsdale graduate students, and the first female graduate student, to earn her Ph.D. at Hillsdale.
“I could not have done it without Rocky’s faith in me, nor without Dr. Pestritto, my dissertation director, whose guidance and prompt editing of my drafts on the one hand, and enduring patience with my familial circumstances on the other made it all possible,” Thompson said.
Samantha Strayer, ’15 M.A., also credited her husband Ben, and dedicated faculty members, as playing an integral role in her graduate school success. When Strayer began studying in the School of Statesmanship, she was living with her husband in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, over an hour-and-a-half away from the College. She spent each semester in two worlds—spending weeks on campus studying and weekends at home with Ben in Belleville, Michigan.
Distance wasn’t the only challenge Strayer faced in completing her degree. As a nontraditional student who hadn’t been to college in 17 years, Strayer also wondered if she belonged.
“My classmates were all so smart and quick and asked such great questions in class,” Strayer remembered. “I process information very differently.”
Strayer, a political science major from the University of California-Irvine, decided to study at Hillsdale after an experience she had while serving as the administrator for the department of dance at a major public university. When faculty members began criticizing George Washington, Strayer realized that she didn’t have the language to speak up.
“I was an avid follower of politics, but I didn’t know how to defend a Founding Father,” Strayer remembered. “I didn’t know how to refute their arguments, even in my own mind, and I wanted to do something about it.” Strayer’s strong desire to understand political principles propelled her to apply to the School of Statesmanship, where she began her studies in the fall of 2013.
As a student in the School of Statesmanship, Strayer began to gain the in-depth understanding of American political theory and practice she had been seeking, but at times felt overwhelmed by everything she didn’t know.
“I will never forget sitting for one of my first exams,” Strayer said. “I was so anxious, it was almost like my brain started changing the letters on the page and I couldn’t read them.” When the test anxiety became overwhelming, she spoke with her professor, whose kind counsel to take things one step at a time and focus on what she recognized made the difference between defeat and victory.
“I followed his advice, and I killed that thing!” Strayer remembered with a smile. “Breathing through it, making that human connection with the faculty, and just regrouping and doing my best helped me build confidence.”
From there, Strayer’s confidence began to snowball. She began receiving positive feedback on papers and tests. “It was really powerful when it started to make sense,” she said. “Not only could I follow, but I started to form opinions about what I was reading.”
Strayer completed her graduate degree in the spring of 2015. When she walked down the steps of the commencement stage and saw all the faculty members who had helped her along her journey standing shoulder to shoulder, she felt deeply that the challenge had been worth it.
“I just felt the power of that moment—what their friendship and their partnership and shared vision for the program had done for me,” Strayer said. “Grad school changed my life. It opened my eyes to so many things, and I’m forever grateful.”
Both Strayer and Thompson said the sacrifices they made in graduate school were worth the effort, and that what they learned in the School of Statesmanship has made their lives and careers richer and more rewarding.
For Strayer, the sharpened writing and communication skills acquired in the program are invaluable in her work as the College’s Senior Director of Publications. In her free time, she applies the prudential understanding of statesmanship she developed at Hillsdale in her work in local politics and freelance journalism.
“Every time someone finds out I’m from Hillsdale, it opens doors,” Strayer said. “When I am engaged in political conversations and I am able to present a nugget of wisdom I learned in the graduate program, it gives people pause and causes them to think.”
For Thompson, the knowledge of the true, the good, and the beautiful cultivated by her graduate education is a valuable gift she passes on each day as she takes the lead raising and homeschooling her five children.
“It is right and just for women who will be ‘just a housewife’ to pursue the kind of knowledge and wisdom that the Graduate School of Statesmanship teaches,” she said. “Not only does it enlarge her mind and heart, making her into the flourishing person at which the liberal arts aim, but it also equips her to pass this same flourishing on to others.”
Maddie Christensen, M.A., ’24, has her undergraduate degree in journalism from Brigham Young University and is thrilled to be studying in Hillsdale’s Graduate School of Statesmanship. After graduating, she plans to pursue law school. A native of Southern Utah, Maddie enjoys running and rock climbing with her handsome husband.
Published in February 2024
