It\u2019s never too late to start or finish your degree. And the journey for Elizabeth J. Smith will end when she graduates from The University of Toledo\u2019s University College Degree Programs Sunday, May 10, at the age of 84.<\/p>\n
Smith graduated from Florence High School in Wisconsin in 1942 as the class valedictorian and was offered scholarships to three schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere wasn\u2019t enough money to go to school and women didn\u2019t usually go to college,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Unable to pursue her college dream at that time, she moved to Chicago and worked as a bookkeeper. She married Hoyt Ensign and moved to Toledo, where they raised their two daughters. After their children graduated college, her family encouraged her to return to her studies.<\/p>\n
Smith will graduate cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree in adult liberal studies with a 3.5 GPA.\u00a0 Her senior thesis focuses on strategies on aging, health and gerontology, and touches on her own personal experiences. She said she enjoyed the face-to-face interaction with students of all ages and participating in study groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cElizabeth personifies the idea that it is never too late to start or finish an undergraduate degree,\u201d said Director of University College Degree Programs Kim Pollauf. \u201cShe is an inspiration to anyone who ever doubted the ability to achieve success at a later point in life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elizabeth J. Smith, 84, will be one of nearly 3,000 students who will graduate from UT this weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1849"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}