When Paula Whissell completed a college certificate 34 years ago, it was the best she expected to achieve at the time. She was from a small northern Ontario town and had little family or financial support, so she quickly turned her mind to work, raising a family and supporting her husband as he pursued his career at Transport Canada.
When she and her family finally settled in Ottawa and Whissell joined Carleton as a temporary employee for what is now Carleton University OnLine, she had three young daughters under the age of 10.
Today, those three girls all have bachelor degrees from Carleton and Whissell herself nailed her own BA in Sociology on the wall beside the others when she graduated in February.
A graduate administrator in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton since 2007, Whissell is content with her job, her colleagues and her students.
“Completing my degree hasn’t really changed anything for me,” says Whissell. “It was a personal accomplishment.”
The road to that accomplishment began in 2003 with Carleton’s Bridging Program for Women, provided by the Centre for Initiatives in Education…