STUDENT TRUSTEE TRYING TO SEE COLLEGE THROUGH HER MOTHER'S EYES

4/23/09

by Shannon Woodworth

ULLIN - As the newly elected student trustee at Shawnee Community College, Sumer Helton represents all students, including, as it turns out, her own mother.

"At first, I thought it would be weird going to the same college as my mother," Helton said. "But I was wrong. It is actually pretty cool. We even study together." Helton won the student trustee election at the college last week defeating two opponents. Her mother was one of the first in line to vote for her.

"I can't begin to tell you how proud I am of Sumer," said Peggy Casper, Sumer's mother. "She is more than a daughter to me now, she is a fellow student, and now a trustee who represents me and other students on the college's board of trustees. To me, that is outstanding." Helton explained that one of her priorities as student trustee will be to get a greater understanding of the obstacles faced by non-traditional students at the college. Her mother is one such student. In fact, 52 percent of students at Shawnee Community College (2,236 in all) are considered non-traditional students.

Non-traditional students are defined at the college as students who are older than the historically typical undergraduate student (18 to 25).

At age 19, Sumer is considered a traditional student; her mother, at age 34, a non-traditional student.

"I know my mother faces a number of obstacles," Sumer said. "First, just returning to school after working for as many years as she did has to be difficult. I also have a two-year-old, little brother, along with a 10-year-old brother, and 16-year-old sister." Casper, who dropped out of high school after giving birth to Sumer, later earned her GED. She worked until last year as the annuity coordinator for the Laborers International Union in Cairo, that's when she decided to embark on a new career.

"For many years now, I have wanted to be a nurse,' Casper said. "I decided that if I was going to achieve that dream, now was the time to do it. With the support of my husband, and Sumer, I am a college student, in my first semester, trying to realize that dream." Casper noted that being a wife and mother is demanding, and adding college courses to those demands was not an easy choice. But, she said, for anyone seeking to fulfill a dream, going to college is sometimes a choice that has to be made.

"I just never thought I would be going to college with my daughter, or that my daughter would be serving as the student trustee interested in the problems students like me face," Casper said.

Helton will be officially seated on the board May 4. Once she graduates from Shawnee Community College, she plans to attend Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

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