Smiling all the way

Fort Worth, TX

2/10/2006

Rachel Escamilla's walk across the Commencement stage in December may have seemed like the end of the line for a very determined and energetic middle-aged woman. But her colleagues in the School of Education aren't finished with her yet.

Now that the bachelor's degree is behind her, they're rooting for their dynamic former administrative assistant to go on and get her master's. (Since graduating, Rachel has been promoted to the position of academic program specialist in the School of Ed's graduate office.)

Now 55 and the first in her family to get a college degree, Rachel hired on at TCU more than four years ago. She and husband, Ray, have been married for 25 years. They have three grown children and five grandkids.

She had finished high school in Vernon, TX, in 1969. After working and taking occasional junior college classes, Rachel ultimately left a job as a buyer at Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine (now UNT Health Science Center) and decided to become a full-time student at Tarrant County College. In 1996, she received her associate's degree in applied science, with a certificate in business management.

Rachel says the entire time she commuted back and forth from her south Fort Worth home to the TCC Northwest campus, the route would take her by the TCU campus. She couldn't help but dream about "someday, maybe," she recalls.

A year after getting a job here, in fall 2002, Rachel began working on a degree in general studies. Classified as a junior, she began ticking off core classes that she lacked ... math, art, etc. She took a lot of education classes, she adds, noting that having them available in the building where she worked was hard to resist. Her faculty colleagues paid special tribute to Rachel on the morning of Commencement when they gathered with students for a hooding ceremony in the Student Center. From the podium, Rachel was invited to join the faculty on the platform and "sit with your family."