Lorette Cameron

"Despite my 60 plus years and graying hair, I never felt out of place," she says. "The students didn't treat me differently. That's part of the Sarah Lawrence culture, which is very, very accepting."

When corporate executive Lorette Cameron retired, she was determined to study for the undergraduate degree she had never earned.

Lorette, who dropped out of high school in the early 1960s, entered the workforce in the early days of business computers. She learned programming and worked her way up in the industry at a time when few colleges had courses in computer science. By the time she was in a management position for a major corporation in the early 1980s, she had passed college equivalency exams and was accepted at the University of Chicago's MBA program, where she earned her degree in 1985.

Her MBA served her well professionally; yet, she still yearned for that liberal arts education she missed out on back in the early 1960s.

"I looked on a business degree as a kind of high-level trade school," she says. "I always wanted a broad liberal arts education, but it wasn't possible when I was working because I traveled so much."

Lorette discovered Sarah Lawrence in the late 1990s, when a friend's daughter was interested in coming to the college. Lorette and her husband accompanied the girl to an hour-long seminar modeled on a regular college class. They all enjoyed the experience and were introduced to the Center for Continuing Education in the process. "I wasn't retired yet, but my husband was, and he took a couple of classes," she says. "We were both very impressed."

So, when she retired, Lorette came to the Center for Continuing Education herself. The small adults-only seminar classes eased her into the rich Sarah Lawrence academic environment.

"The relationship you have with the professors here is much more personal than in a typical classroom setting, where the teacher is the dispenser of information and you, the student, are the recipient," says Lorette. "In the seminar system, you are actively participating in the learning process."

Like other Sarah Lawrence students, Lorette met regularly with her teachers and her faculty advisor, who encouraged her on her academic journey. One of her early supporters was professor Lyde Cullen Sizer.

"I'd taken a class with Lyde [Sizer], and she was very demanding and made you do your best," says Lorette, who later asked Sizer to be her don. "She was a wonderful teacher, and, as my don, was very honest with me about what classes I should or shouldn't take. She helped me assess the course content and the professors and build my own program."

"I was interested in getting as broad an education as possible," says Lorette, so she took courses in French, modern poetry and Chinese history. She studied philosophy, genetics and society, and brain physiology in a psychology class. And she also tried to do things she had never done before: she learned how to make prints in art class, and wrote a sestina in her poetry class.

"Despite my 60 plus years and graying hair, I never felt out of place," she says. "The students didn't treat me differently. That's part of the Sarah Lawrence culture, which is very, very accepting."

In June 2002, Lorette walked to the podium to receive her bachelor's degree, 22 years after she earned her MBA at the University of Chicago.

Earning her undergraduate degree did not end Lorette's commitment to live an intellectually stimulating retirement. She returned to take classes as a Post-BA student and then commuted to Annapolis, Md., to earn a MA in liberal arts from St. John's College. She is now back at Sarah Lawrence taking another class.

"My first semester at Sarah Lawrence, I remember sitting in The Pub, reading a book for class," she says. "I looked around and saw all these kids around me reading books, and suddenly, I felt so lucky. I was there reading literature for pleasure, without guilt. I was doing exactly what I wanted to do, and it felt like a present I was giving myself. It still feels that way."