The Kindness of Others in Education

Diane Porretta Fox
Assistant Professor, Nursing

My first attempt to apply to college began when I was a senior in high school early in 1968. I lived in a suburb of Detroit where a large concentration of Italians, Polish, and large blue-collar families settled. I was the oldest and only girl. My two brothers have never attended college. Mom was Scottish and had graduated two years early from high school with a lifelong love to read. She never worked after marriage and did not drive a car. My father wanted her to be home. My first recollection of nursing practice was caring for Mom when she slipped into deep depressions before I attended kindergarten. My final nursing practice with her occurred in the mid-1970s when Mom succumbed to a malignant brain tumor.

Dad was a hard-working Italian who left high school to join the army during World War II.  He worked at Eaton Manufacturing in Detroit putting springs for cars into a hot furnace every day. My dad was enthusiastic about learning from museums and took me to every museum available within driving distance. Most of all, he was fun and made learning enjoyable. These active learning sprees included visiting art museums, historical museums, science museums, and he even took me to the salt mines below the city of Detroit. Dad did not like school much because he was forced to repeat the first grade for speaking broken English. Looking back, I became a product of both parents. Now I love to read, am hard working, and enthusiastic about learning. However, when my teachers told me to start applying to college my father said, “we have no money for a girl to do this because she is just going to get married and have babies.”  Well, I thought about it and decided I did want an education and the next day I visited our high school counselor. She said that some hospitals have nursing schools with low costs because you work while you are in school in a diploma-nursing program. A nursing school accepted me and gave me a scholarship for what they termed a pre-NLN exam score of excellence.  I was so excited until Dad came home and said, “who do you think you are?” in a voice that sometimes resounds in my head.  For the first time my mom intervened and insisted that they sign my entrance papers.

My greatest influences have been my teachers, my husband and my uncle/godfather. My Latin and College English instructor in high school supported my writing and told me I could do anything I set my mind on doing. This meant a lot to me because he was so intellectual.  This high school teacher was translating some Latin books for the Detroit Public Library. He also read to our class some personal letters from Norman Mailer. Nonetheless, my Latin and College English instructor asked my why in the world I was going to nursing school instead of attending college. I never answered why but just knew this is what I would do. I was beginning to define who I was.

I attended the diploma nursing school for one year and did fine but did marry, fulfilling my father’s prophecy. This nursing school did not allow students to be married or engaged, so I withdrew. Next, I worked in the state mental hospital system as an attendant nurse and took an examination to become a nursing service supervisor. At the time, the state was selecting nursing supervisor candidates via this testing system. Mine was the top score in the state and I became a nursing services supervisor in the state mental hospital.  My brief first marriage ended in divorce and now I am happily married for 33 years to my soul mate. My husband has encouraged me every step of the way toward pursuing my education.  So began the higher education journey of: an AS degree in respiratory therapy, BA in general studies with a management concentration, BS in nursing, MS in nursing, two post-graduate certificates (Teaching in Healthcare Systems & Community College Leadership), and I am now pursuing my fifth degree, a doctorate in Educational Leadership. I continue to define who I am.

For eight years I was a director of Cardiopulmonary Services in a hospital that allowed me to use my management skills and develop smoking cessation programs, pulmonary rehabilitation programs, smoking cessation clinics, occupational health pulmonary function testing on site in factories, and precept respiratory therapy students. This job ended one day when thirty-some directors were told that the hospital was restructuring. Now, this is the time to make lemonade out of lemons, I thought to myself. I had worked so hard and brought in so much money via the program development that I did not quietly and serenely sign the severance papers. I said,  “now that I have done all of these things for your organization what can you do for me?”  I was given a full scholarship to attend a nursing college program of my choice and the severance package. I chose the University of Michigan and knew my grades were on par for that institution. I quickly forged my way into the admissions process just in time for the first second career program, ultimately graduating with 13 other pioneers of that new program.

During that time, I continued to work in the hospital part-time in the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation department as an ECMO specialist at the University of Michigan Hospital and the respiratory therapy department. Interestingly, I taught part-time in community colleges from 1989 until taking a tenure-track faculty position at a university in 2004. I have worked as a registered nurse at Mott Children’s Hospital in the Michigan Congenital Heart Center Intensive Care Unit and have many years of experience transporting neonatal and pediatric patients via Survival Flight. Later I worked as a registered nurse specialist in ECMO.  This is all part of who I am.

My uncle/godfather attended all of my college graduations and was a strong quiet presence to model over the years. Unlike my father, school came easy to Uncle Lou and he often commented on a job well done in reference to my grades and schoolwork. As a professor of Teacher Education at Eastern Michigan University, he successfully secured many government contracts setting up teacher colleges in Somalia, Swaziland, and Yemen. I miss him and his kind presence, especially now that I am completing my coursework and will be working on a dissertation for the doctorate of education in Educational Leadership.

The voice in my head is changing now 40 years later from “Who do you think you are?” to “This is who I am.”  Now being a wife, mother and grandmother, I am forever grateful for the kindness of others who have supported me along the way.