Sandra Dahlberg

      For many years, I believed that a college education was out of my reach. After high school, I obtained secretarial training that would provide a “reliable job,” a valid goal for my inter-generationally poor and often unemployed family. Still, I wanted more for myself. Further constricting my goals was marriage at seventeen to a man who saw office work as my best option. Twelve years and two children later, I was so desperate that I literally begged the registrar at Highline College to let me enroll in a class, any class, although the term was already underway. I was grateful when he placed me in a developmental math class. Without an education (and a divorce), I could not hope to change the trajectory of my life or my children’s lives.
      Years of being told I was “stupid” had taken its toll. I was terrified that I would do poorly. The opposite occurred. I excelled in all of my courses, and grew intellectually and personally. My original goal was to teach elementary school. As the first person in my family to attend college, this was a lofty goal. I would have never considered graduate school much less a Ph.D. had it not been for my professors. Teachers and advisors at Highline College suggested I transfer to the University of Puget Sound. Once there, extraordinary mentors helped me navigate the graduate school application process. I did not discuss my poverty-class background or the obstacles I overcame to attend college until I became enraged by an affluent male student’s announcement in class that he intended to “experience homelessness” as a form of educational vacation. My reaction was visceral. I told him it was offensive and irresponsible for someone to pretend to be homeless and use scarce resources allocated for the truly needy. When middle- and upper-class students supported the social value of his pretended homelessness, I revealed my childhood homelessness that did not include a stable, middle-class life to return to in a matter of days. To their credit, my peers responded by asking how they could engage in meaningful encounters with poverty.
      That class was a turning point for me. I was finally honest with myself about who I was, where I came from, and what I could do with my education. That day, I rejected the shame associated with poverty. Through my scholarship, I continue to interrogate the negative and often erroneous representations of poverty. I am an Associate Professor at the University of Houston-Downtown, an open-admissions institution that serves first-generation-in-college, poverty- and working-class, non-white students. Every day, I remind myself of the impact my professors had on my life and on my educational outcome as I interact with my students. But I have also influenced those most dear to me, my children. Because my children went through my college experience with me, they saw college as the logical step after high school. My daughter Rebekah is in graduate school and my son Sean is a college freshman. I measure success by how well I honor a moral from my poverty-class background: we are in life together and we must help each other.

Photo Exhibit

A nationally touring exhibit of 50 framed, museum quality, color photographs coupled with narratives created by students who are welfare eligible, single parents changing their lives through the pathway of higher education.  The installation presents a unique view of poverty from insiders’ perspectives and reframes the cultural (de)valuations of poor single parents vis-à-vis family, work and higher education in the United States today. View the Gallery Guide.