01/08/2001

Earning a degree ... in secret?

Master Sergeant Mark Lane '00, right, with Technical Sgt. Kim Johnson '00

Is it really possible to earn a graduate degree while keeping the whole thing almost entirely secret?

Master Sergeant Mark Lane, curriculum superintendent at the I.G. Brown Air National Guard Training and Education Center, Air National Guard Noncommissioned Officer Academy (NCOA) at the McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base near Knoxville, managed to pull it off. He earned the master's degree he received at December's Tusculum College graduation ceremony over the course of 18 months through Tusculum's Professional Studies program (maintaining a 4.0 GPA) -- and apart from his wife, Wrenda, and many of his co-workers, almost no one else close to him knew he was doing it.

The secret was finally let out around Thanksgiving, when Mark, who lives in Maryville, Tenn., sent out graduation invitations to unsuspecting relatives. Shortly before that he had told his two children, Michael and Kristen, about what he was doing. They had until then believed he was simply at work when he was actually in class at Tusculum's Professional Studies center in Knoxville. His relatives beyond his household were fully in the dark about it. Mark received several compliments from surprised and pleased relatives at Thanksgiving.

As Mark tells it, the idea of keeping his degree work secret came up pretty much spontaneously. One challenge was keeping the secret from Mark's mother, Jimmie, who lives in his hometown of Gate City, Va. After some time went by, the astute Jimmie began to suspect Mark was up to something, possibly having to do with higher education, but Mark never spilled the beans.

According to Mark, now 40, his youthful days gave little advance indication that he would one day be a motivated pursuer of higher education. After graduating in 1979 from Gate City High School, he worked a couple of years in an auto body shop, and was steered toward the military by his mother. His father had passed away when Mark was 15.

He joined the Air Force in early 1981, and over the years was stationed at locations ranging from Florida to Korea. During this time he began to be interested in furthering his education.

He tried his hand at college work through the University of Maryland while he was still stationed in Korea, and received a B grade in his first course. This helped inspire him to keep going and work harder, he said.

In 1993 he earned an Associates in General Studies degree from Louisiana Tech, following up with a Bachelor's degree in General Studies (maintaining a 3.79 GPA) from the same university a couple of years later.

Mark's Air Force career eventually led him to his current job. There he began to consider trying to earn a Master's degree, and from a co-worker, Technical Sgt. Kim Johnson, heard of Tusculum College and its Professional Studies program. Kim had already earned a Bachelor's degree through Tusculum and was ready to earn a Master's. Mark decided to do the same, and they ended up in the same Professional Studies study group.

Keeping up studies while still working full time were sometimes difficult, Mark says, but he kept at it. "There were some times it was extremely hard and I wasn't sure I'd make it. I couldn't have done it without the study group." Wrenda was his biggest source of support. "She was the driving force when I felt overwhelmed with class," he says.

Tusculum's Professional Studies program, incidentally, is popular at the Air National Guard Non-Commissioned Officers Academy, where about 15 people have already gone through the program and roughly the same number are currently enrolled.

Colonel Richard W. Burris, commander of the I.G. Brown Air National Guard Training and Education Center, says that "Tusculum has just exactly the right kind of program for working folks, both in the locations of classes and the way they structure the program. For us, it's a win-win situation." Colonel Burris himself has expressed interest in becoming a Professional Studies instructor.