FAYETTEVILLE — Rebecca Krusz graduated from the University of Arkansas with a bachelor’s degree in political science in May.
She doesn’t think it was a big accomplishment, but others do.
Krusz, who has nine children ranging in age from 2 to 20, received the 2012 Arkansas Alumni Association Non-Traditional Student Leadership Award. It is the second year the association presented the $1,000 award, which is meant to recognizea non-traditional student with a challenging personal situation or environment who also displays leadership and promise.
The award is given in partnership with the university’s off-campus connections office in the Division of Student Affairs.
Non-traditional students are defined by both the university and the state Department of Higher Education as those who return to college after an extended absence or are attending for the first time with some delay aftercompleting high school.
In order to complete her studies this spring, Krusz completed 39 credit hours of classes in the 2011-12 school year, nine more than what is considered a full-time student.
She finished with a 3.29 GPA from the state’s largest and oldest public university. And she commuted 60 miles a day from her home in Bentonville.
“I don’t really see it as a big deal,” said Krusz, who turns 40 on Friday. “I was thinking of it as a personal goal ... like I could check it off my bucket list.”
She’s not done with college. She will pursue a master’s degree in political science at UA.
When she starts graduate school in August, two of her children will be attending with her. Her oldest, Jacob, is a junior at UA. Christopher, 18, will be a freshman.
Krusz grew up in Fond du Lac, Wis. She graduated from high school in 1990.
She married her high school sweetheart, Cortney, and the couple had their first child when she was 19. The couple moved around the United States while Cortney served in the U.S. Navy.
“It never dawned on me that I would go back to school,” she said. “I just moved where he moved and we started a family.”
The Kruszes returned to Wisconsin after he got a job with International Paper. The family moved to Northwest Arkansas in 2006 and Cortney got a job with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in Bentonville.
Taking nearly all her classes online, Krusz graduated from Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville in 2010, about a month after she gave birth to her youngest child, Charity.
Charity was born with extreme disabilities, including blindness.
Krusz remembers stealing moments in the parents’ room at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock just after Charity was born so she could finish up her coursework on a laptop.
Charity often has appointments with specialists at Children’s. Closer to home, Krusz takes Charity to the Centers for Children in Lowell, a partnership of Children’s and the Pediatrics Department at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
Krusz enrolled at UA in fall 2010. Then in her late 30s, she was sitting in college classes for the first time.
“That’s when it got serious,” she said.
While on campus, she tried not to talk about her family life, especially with her professors.
“I tried to keep that separate because I didn’t want them to give me any kind of special leeway,” she said.
Sometimes while chatting with traditional students, it would come up that she was older and that she had children. Jaws would drop when her classmates heard she had nine children.
“I call it the ‘wow factor,’” she said.
Her push to graduate in2012 started in the spring 2010 semester, when she took 18 credit hours. That summer, she took 12 more.
She is extremely organized, keeping a tight schedule during the school year. Sometimes she drills her day down to the half-hour, with appointments, meetings, errands, homework (both hers and her children’s) and housekeeping.
Five of her children attend public schools in Bentonville. She credits her husband, who helps with daily chores and grocery shopping, and a “good support system of people who approve of what I do.”
“I depend on our community,” she said.
Krusz discovered a passion at UA: international relations.
It started, she said, when one of her political science professors, Pearl Ford Dowe, talked about human trafficking during a lecture.
The United Nations defines human trafficking as “an act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring or receiving a person through a use of force, coercion or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them.”
Krusz has traveled toWashington, D.C., to speak against human trafficking before Congress. She also volunteers for International Justice Mission, a human rights organization.
Her long-term goal is to work with a non-governmental organization or the U.S. State Department to fight human trafficking or affect foreign policy through diplomacy in developing nations.
“I have people tell me all the time that I’m an inspiration,” Krusz said. “I live one day at a time.”
William Schreckhise, an associate professor political science who nominated Krusz for the Arkansas Alumni Association Award, said she exhibited maturity and dedication.
“Like a lot of non-traditional students, she brought with her experiences that your average 21-year-old doesn’t have,” Schreckhise said. “And doing this human trafficking thing on the side, that made her very exceptional. And she’s doing it [with nine children].
“For her to do that and to succeed academically is pretty amazing,” he said.
To contact this reporter:
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 06/19/2012