Never Too Late

Degree completion program helps students finish what they started

By Douglas Hoagland (’74)

Christine Gromis achieved professional success without a college degree, and yet she felt somehow incomplete. Then in her 60s, she found a path to a diploma through the Liberal Arts Degree program at Fresno State.

The program allows former Fresno State students of any age who left the university in good standing to complete their degrees.

Gromis worked in the movie and television industries in Hollywood and then forged a sales and marketing career in Fresno. “But in the back of my mind, my personal goal was always to finish my degree,” she says.

In 2022, she did, walking in the graduation ceremony with tears of joy. Family members watched with their own tears of love and pride in a journey completed.

That journey began 47 years earlier in 1975. Gromis started college as a recent high school graduate but soon left to work full time. She moved from Sacramento to Los Angeles, where she started in the temporary secretarial pool at Universal Pictures and eventually became assistant to Universal’s president. Gromis worked behind the scenes on such films as “Out of Africa” starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, and “Back to the Future” with Michael J. Fox.

Then the legendary Dick Clark entered her life. He hired Gromis as a creative director for his television production company. “Dick gave you opportunities if you showed interest and were good at what you did,” she says. Gromis worked on such Clark productions as “Friday Night Surprise” and “TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes,” and she also helped on “The Golden Globes,” “MTV Video Music Awards,” and the “American Music Awards.”

Excitement came with the work, and the money was good. “But at that point, I was a single mom raising a daughter, and I was away from her more than I wanted to be,” Gromis says.

So she moved to Fresno to be close to her sister and started a 26-year career in sales and marketing at The Fresno Bee.

With a fresh start came the thought of finishing college. In 2000, she enrolled at Fresno State, fitting in a class or two each semester. Then, in 2005, work circumstances changed, and Gromis had no choice but to stop taking classes.

“I always had a sense of incompleteness.
My degree was the last piece of my life’s puzzle.”
– Christine Gromis
Alumna, liberal arts

Fast forward more than a decade, and she read a magazine article about the Liberal Arts Degree program that was starting in the Division of Continuing and Global Education in cooperation with the College of Arts and Humanities. The program – also known as Reconnect – leads to a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts. Geared to working professionals, the flexible online program is a set of specially designed interdisciplinary courses that focus on critical thinking, writing, communication, diversity and ethics.

Gromis started the program two and a half years away from retirement. “I said, ‘I can do this. I can go back and finish my degree.’”

As she worked through courses, she would retreat with her laptop to her Fresno home’s quiet second-floor study, its windows overlooking birch trees and its walls filled with family photos. “My professors were always accessible via email or Zoom during office hours. I really feel I walked away from every class having learned something.” Her capstone project was a PowerPoint and poster about teaching young people how to detect fake news.

Gromis finished the program in two years, also earning a minor in Deaf education and graduating summa cum laude. Her journey touched something in friends who’ve made a good living but never earned a college degree.
“They’ve told me what an inspiration I am.” But for Gromis, the greatest reward is self satisfaction. “I always had a sense of incompleteness. My degree was the last piece of my life’s puzzle.”

– Douglas Hoagland is a freelance writer for the Division of Continuing and Global Education.

Did you leave Fresno State without graduating?

 
With Reconnect, you can earn an interdisciplinary liberal arts degree, fully online, within two years, without sacrificing your work or family life. See more online: bit.ly/3Bxft2T
 

Photo caption: Christine Gromis graduated from Fresno State in 2022, 47 years after she first began college. After successful careers in show business and later at The Fresno Bee, Gromis read a magazine article about the Liberal Arts Degree program at Fresno State. The program allows former students of any age to take those final steps toward completing their degrees.