While most of us were enjoying intellectual challenges, worrying about grades, having fun, and getting passionate about various causes, one of our classmates was balancing an honors program in biology with the demands of summer work, five children, one unofficial foster child, and a husband. We were, by and large, 22 when we graduated. Jean Rogers, now 80-years-old and a self-described "pre-Ada," was 50.

Jean came to Smith via the circuitous route. Initially, she entered Simmons College in Boston expecting to complete her undergraduate training there. After only one year, however, she decided to leave both for financial reasons and because her then-fiancé was drafted into the Army. A few years later in 1947 she earned her diploma in nursing from Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing. A year-long bout with rheumatic fever kept her from graduating with her class in 1946. After graduation, Jean worked as a registered nurse prior to leaving work in 1950 to raise children. She and her husband, Don Rogers, an M.D. with a family practice in Northampton, met when they were both 16-years-old. Together, they grew through adolescence, school, work, marriage, and family. "I had no adult life without him," Jean said. That is, she had no adult life without him until she embarked on her Smith education in 1969 at age 44.

Jean had already supported her husband though his last two years of medical school, his internship, and his residency, by the time she was contemplating a return to nursing to help cover her children's upcoming college costs. With her youngest child barely past toddlerhood, however, she realized that she had another 15 or 20 years of work ahead of her if she was to see all five children through college. The rigors of nursing, she decided, would be too demanding by the time she reached a point when she could think of retirement. With this in mind, she decided to return to college and earn the bachelor's degree that was then the only qualification she needed to teach, rather than practice, nursing.

With a daughter already in her second year at Brown, a son about to enter Yale, and her youngest child in nursery school, Jean approached Smith seeking to complete the undergraduate education she had begun at Simmons. At the time, the Smith administration, like the rest of society, was still coming to terms with what it meant to honor a feminist perspective. When Jean told the admissions interviewer that she wanted to major in biology, she was cautioned. Wouldn't focusing on art, music, or literature – something "easier" than a hard science – be more appropriate at her age and in light of her situation? After all, Jean was told, it was very likely she wouldn't graduate. Fortunately, the interviewer's ungrounded assumption wound up serving Jean well. There were moments – facing the challenges of organic chemistry, for example - when hearing the interviewer's words ringing through her head strengthened Jean's resolve, solidifying her determination to master the material at hand.

And master it, she did. After six years, Jean graduated with departmental honors in biology. She was the first part-time student ever to honor at Smith. Her honors project, done in conjunction with Professor Merritt on genic variability in freshwater fish, was published. Despite being given credit for the chemistry she had studied at Simmons, Jean felt she "didn't remember much," so, in addition to taking her two regular courses, she audited the introductory chemistry course before tackling organic chemistry. And believing it was crucial that her education be broader than the sciences, she routinely audited arts and humanities courses, particularly enjoying things like The History of Western Music.

Jean cherishes especially fond memories of the professors who nurtured her with their understanding of both the subject and of her unusual situation. Elizabeth Horner, Mary LaPrade, Jeanne Powell, and her thesis advisor, Bob Merritt, all members of the biology department, particularly stand out. "Everyone was wonderful," however, and, at graduation, the entire biology department stood up in recognition of her achievement when Jean received her degree.

It had certainly not been an easy row to hoe. Jean didn't have the recent experience researching and writing papers that her classmates could draw on. When she expressed her frustration and fear that she wasn't up to the task, her older daughter taught her the fundamentals of research and report writing. Progress toward her degree was hampered by the demands of family life. (Simultaneously having a gall bladder attack and two children down with chicken pox definitely gives one pause.) Like many of us, Jean did her intern teaching at Northampton High School. Unlike the rest of us, she had teenage children who asked that their mother please not embarrass them by teaching their classes. During summer vacation, Jean's days were spent meeting the needs of her home and family; her nights were spent working as a nurse in a local nursing home to cover tuition costs.

And, as good as her marriage was, it was not built during a generation that supported this sort of undertaking. "When my husband was in school, I worked to support us and did the housework. When he had his medical practice, he worked, and I did the children and the housework. When I went to Smith, he worked, and I still did the children and all the housework," she laughingly recalled. "It wasn't easy." A Christmas gift of three frying pans from her husband was met with, "She doesn't need frying pans; she needs a subscription to Scientific American," from their daughter.

Above all, there was the unending balancing act. "I lived with guilt all the time," she remembers. While studying, she felt she was depriving her children of the attention they needed. When she was with her children, she thought of how badly she needed to study. Before her youngest child went to school, Jean chose classes that coincided with the nursery program available at St. John's Episcopal Church adjoining the Smith campus.  Later, she would get home after the children only to be asked by her then-kindergartener, "How was school today, Mommy?"

Looking back now, she believes going to Smith was the "best thing [she] did for herself and her family." Not only did it lead to the career that paid for her children's college educations, but it taught them independence and gave them a role model they draw on to this day. Shutting herself away to study for finals, Jean would tell the children, "If there's a fire, come get me. Otherwise, figure it out."

Together with her children, Jean learned to rely on her own intellectual resources. Although she went on to earn a master's degree in medical and surgical nursing together with her certificate as a nurse practitioner in 1978 from the University of Massachusetts, she credits her Smith professors with teaching her to find her own answers to questions. Rarely directly answering the questions she posed, they would "point to a reference," and she would search out the answer herself.  This stood her in excellent stead when she went alone, in 1997 at age 72, to spend a year working in a remote village in Guatemala. Not having additional medical expertise available and not having herself previously handled a number of the medical procedures required, Jean had the confidence to study and teach herself what to do. She delivered babies, performed minor surgeries, treated malaria, and did many other things that someone with other training would, under normal circumstances, have been the one to do. Today, Jean continues to study Spanish, which she began learning during her time in Central America.

Jean's husband, Don, passed away in 1993, four years before her trip to Guatemala, but she greatly enjoys the company of her children and grandchildren, most of who live relatively nearby. Her daughter Susan teaches at New York University, but often visits Northampton, where she owns a condo. Two sons live in the Berkshires with their families, and another daughter lives in Boston. A third son lives in Milwaukee, but, still gutsy after all these years, Jean flies there to visit and so maintains close contact with all her family.

Now 80 years old, Jean continues working in the career she entered Smith for. In 1994, she retired from Northampton State Hospital, where she had worked for 14 years managing the various physical ailments of psychiatric patients. She has, however, continued to work part time since then, teaching for seven years (1994-2001) in the nurse practitioner program at the University of Massachusetts. For the past thirteen years she has also worked part-time handling admission physicals for patients entering the psychiatric ward at Cooley Dickenson Hospital. In addition to this, she volunteers one evening a week at a free clinic in Northampton and one morning a week at a clinic for the homeless in Springfield. Commenting on her good fortune, Jean notes, "I just love what I do. I loved nursing when I was eighteen, and I absolutely love it still. I don't think many people can say that they've done what they love for that long."

She has kept in touch with a number of Smith friends and even a professor or two from her student days. Her Smith memories do not include meals in the houses, Friday afternoon teas, mixers, or Amherst parties. She didn't have the social and career worries of many, if not most, undergraduates. Like all of us, she remembers the thrill of learning and studying under wonderful teachers, but she also recalls the students who would say, "I wish my mother would do this," or who would look at her with dawning realization after a difficult class or exam and say, "Oh, God! Now you've got to go home and cook dinner."

When Jean enrolled at Smith, her mother sadly appraised the situation: "If you go back to school, you'll never join the Women's Club." Well, Jean never did join the Women's Club. Instead, she proved that 50 is no barrier to undertaking major changes or to doing new and terrifically positive things in the world. She discovered the thrill of higher learning, built a career she loves, developed a well earned confidence in her own abilities, did something she had always wanted to do by spending the year in Guatemala, and raised a remarkable family. "If I ever had to honestly choose between my career and my family, there's no question I'd take my family. They're the most important thing in my life. They always have been," Jean acknowledges. Fortunately for everyone, it was a choice she didn't believe she had to make. It was instead a terrific balancing act. Well done!