Photos by Ralph Freso / Wednesday morning slideshow / Livestream
During a Sunday family Zoom session, Bern and Margo Roberts of Mesa, Arizona, asked daughter Andelyne Rogers how school was going. She was a single mother then, living near Salt Lake City, and they knew she had picked up some college courses.
Bern quickly offered his news.
“We decided to go back to school and become counselors,” he told her.
“Where are you going?” Adelyne asked.
“GCU.”
“That’s where I am! What’s your degree?”
“Clinical mental health counseling.”
“Right on!”
To their surprise, they were taking the same online graduate program from the same place, Grand Canyon University.
Though Andelyne was ahead of them by a few classes, they finished at the same time, and on Wednesday morning, all crossed the stage at Global Credit Union Arena during fall commencement for online and cohort students.
Sixty-five-year-old dad, 63-year-old mom and 39-year-old daughter – a trifecta of help to the world through counseling.
“It increases our ability to connect with each other,” Margo said. “If I can be vulnerable with myself, then I can help others to be vulnerable and our connection is deeper.”
They were standing together in their gowns outside the arena, trying to describe how they all came to be there, when none of it was planned.
Bern volunteered to take it.
“We’ve all had issues. We had an issue with addiction, we had an issue of an affair, those kind of significant challenges that needed counseling for ourselves,” Bern said. “Having gone through that, both of us, it was a counselor that pulled us out of it to be together and face the world.”
Margo, a 35-year nurse at Banner Health, decided it was how she wanted to help others, too. She wanted to pay it forward, even at an age when many people are retiring, even when she had to give up part of her good nursing pay.
“And she kept kind of nudging me and dragging me along and saying I should do this, too,” Bern said. “I finally said let’s do this together. So every Monday we would drive from Mesa here to campus for three years for our evening cohort.”
Meanwhile, Andelyne had made the same decision, independent of her parents.
“I ran from it for a while, but I’ve known that I wanted to be a therapist since I took psychology in high school,” she said. “So after avoiding and avoiding, I finally got to the point where the universe kind of screamed at me enough that I realized it was time.”
She liked GCU’s flexibility and spiritual grounding because at a time of crisis in her life, it was nice to have that element, she said.
Andelyn worked in a private practice in Utah while taking courses online, and she remarried. Margo continued her job as a nurse, but part time, and Bern operated the residential cleaning business he owns, Maids on the Spot, while studying.
“That we finished at the same time and are walking together is amazing to us,” Margo said.
Now she hopes all three can support other people in times of crisis. They already did so in internships, and Bern and Andelyn have counseling jobs lined up.
“Working with clients to help them to unveil the mysteries of their own minds has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life,” Andelyn said.
The three said they took a lot from GCU that helped them in their lives, such as compassion without judgment with family members, which also include another son and two daughters.
“And our favorite professor (Kristan Farley) helped us really look inside ourselves,” Margo said.
Bern and Margot, grandparents to eight, got misty eyed outside the arena talking about it.
“Being a human is hard, so we shouldn’t be doing it alone,” Margot said. “We need to help each other through it.
“They don’t know or are afraid; coming to counseling is scary. You are coming to be real and learn about yourself. It’s scary, but if you can get in with a good counselor that can help you through that, the whole world opens up.”
Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at [email protected]
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