One of Extension's Rising Stars

Laura Gowen — Extension education catapults student from small school to higher education

UCR Extension has helped Laura Gowen complete her bachelor’s degree, earn two certificates and land a new job filled with future opportunities.

What next?

She’s using her completed coursework in the Chief Business Officials certificate program at UCR Extension to earn a master’s degree at La Sierra University.

"Because of the courses I took at UCR Extension, I can knock off a whole bunch of credits toward my master’s degree," Laura explained. "(La Sierra) waived the thesis in lieu of our practicum experience. It might be doable in a year."

Laura can do this because UCR Extension and La Sierra established a Memorandum of Understanding that enables students who earn education certificates through Extension to apply those credits toward specialized master’s degrees.

In 1996, Laura was working on her bachelor’s degree and holding a job as an office assistant at the California School for the Deaf in Riverside. She needed money. Not for herself, but for the school.

"I was interested in grant writing. Someone told me there was a class at UCR Extension that would help me," Laura said. She signed up, and one year later, she earned her certificate in Nonprofit Organization Management. She used what she learned in those classes to acquire grant funding for her office.

"Being in that grant program, I met other professionals from other agencies, other schools," Laura said. "The certificate programs are intimate. You go through the certificate program with the same group of people. You get to know each other. You become friends."

When she finished that certificate program, she learned that University of Redlands would accept credit for taking field study courses at Extension toward her science requirements for her bachelor’s degree. She took classes in wildflowers, plant identification and ecology, a field study of the San Andreas Fault and a venture into the Mojave National Preserve.

"Where else can you go into the wild and pull wild carrots and eat them," Laura said. "We went out at night with a black light looking for scorpions. I got to hold a bat. It was awesome. It crawled up my arm and nestled in my hair. You’re not going to get that from a book."

In 2004, she started on the road to earn the Chief Business Officials certificate. She learned about the business of administering a school and the ins and outs of the California Educational Code. As she grew, she realized the opportunities and her job were not expanding with her.

"It’s a small school," Laura said. "I would have had to move to Sacramento and I was not willing to do that."

She landed a job as administrative assistant to the vice president of Instructional Support at San Bernardino Valley College.

"My education at Extension was the only reason I got that job," Laura said. "Without the bachelor’s, I couldn’t have even applied." And she wowed interviewers with her knowledge from the Chief Business Officials certificate program.

Laura, who is married, accomplished all this while raising two children, who are now 15 and 17.

"I’ve been going to school since they were in elementary school," she said.

Laura raves about Dr. Sue Teele, director of the Education Department at Extension, and her right-hand person, Mary Ellen Gruendyke. "They’re there when we need them. They are totally hands on. They are both so wonderful," said Laura.

Laura is now preparing to take her GRE and gathering letters of support for admission into the graduate program at La Sierra. The future is bright. The opportunities are broad. Laura has built a firm foundation with her time spent at Extension.