Alma Schrader principal earns doctorate

For some, a bucket list might include a trip to Paris, having coffee with famed folk singer Judy Collins, reaching the summit of Mount Everest, meeting Muhammad Ali or spending two weeks on a deserted beach.

But for Alma Schrader principal Ruth Ann Orr, finishing her doctorate made the cut.

The longtime Cape Girardeau educator completed her eight-year quest in October as part of a cooperative program between Southeast Missouri State University and University of Missouri. She earned her undergraduate degree in elementary education and a master's in guidance and counseling, both from Southeast. Her doctorate is in educational leadership and policy analysis and the issuing institution is the University of Missouri.

Rhonda Dunham at Franklin Elementary School and Sydney Herbst at Clippard Elementary went through the program with her, pushing her to complete it. In Missouri, Orr said, it's a requirement that once you become a principal, you finish a higher degree in a certain window of time.

"I would have done it anyway," Orr said. "It's a bucket item list for me. I really thought I would do a doctorate in educational psychology because that was my major as an undergrad. I was a psychology and an education double major. That's truly what I thought I would get my doctorate in, but Southeast had the program with Mizzou and it's a really well-known, well-thought-of program, so that's the program I went through with Dr. Herbst and Dr. Dunham."

Orr, who has been with the Cape Girardeau district since 1982, noted there are several principals with doctorates. Adding she was glad she had support from her peers, family and academic advisers, writing her dissertation still was a solitary task. Her stress reached the point where she lost 35 pounds.

"I would come up here to school because I needed a lot of room to spread out. Then you just have to discipline yourself to write, and I didn't realize how much stress I was under until I started losing weight," Orr said.

"I couldn't eat. I had this huge support group of people and sometimes I would just call and say I'm stuck. They would say, 'We're praying for you; keep on writing and the words will come to you.' They did. My adviser was great just to say 'You write and send it to me and I'll read it and we'll tell you if you're on track.' Just to stay with it was a discipline unto itself. I spent a lot of time in [her principal's office] just from July to October especially. It was my little home away from home," she said.

Orr said her doctorate is about looking at how organizations work together and how you can more effectively work with people.

"The coursework was really practical," she said. "I hope it's made me a better administrator."

Normally, it takes four to five years to finish a doctorate, but Orr took longer because different things popped up to delay her dissertation -- now housed in a beribboned white plastic three-ring binder.

Her dissertation material takes up four book shelves and 27 ringed binders in a cabinet in her office. Orr said she's keeping it all.

"That represents time," she said.

Although a doctorate sometimes means moving up to a superintendent's spot, that isn't where Orr wants to go. But now that she's completed her degree, Orr's world has opened up. She can now do things that weren't possible when she was in the middle of her studies -- exercise and teach Zumba classes and do things with her family and for her church, LaCroix Church.

Orr also is planning a mission trip to Belize in January.

"My daughter's fiance has a connection there and they're getting married, and while they're down there getting married we'll be at the mission church," Orr said. " ... Our church has several different missions. They do missions in Guatemala; they do missions in Africa; they do missions in Haiti. I've never been able to go on any of those trips, so I look forward to doing that."

It also ties in with her vocation.

"I think any good educator feels like they're on a mission anyway and that they're there to serve your students, your teachers and your parents, so to me it's just a ... natural progression from that to reach out to others. That's what God's laid on my heart to do," Orr said.

Being in education is something Orr couldn't have escaped if she tried -- the majority of her family is in the profession except for her stepfather, who is a doctor, and her husband, Cape Girardeau Police Department Sgt. Kevin Orr.

" ... My grandmother, my mom, my aunt, my uncle ... I had all four of those people as my teachers," Orr said.

Her mother was her elementary music teacher, her aunt was her third-grade teacher and her grandmother was the high school librarian. When she went to Southeast, her uncle was the head of the psychology department and her adviser.

"Looking back on it, it's kind of weird, but at the time it didn't seem that way because that's just the way it had been," Orr said.

Orr and her husband have three children: Heath, 28, Meghan, 26, and Elizabeth, 15; and one grandchild, 6-year-old Aiden.

"It is surreal to not have that [her dissertation] hanging over my head because I let it go on for so so long. It's been fun to just go home and be able to do things with my family and not feel pulled like I should be somewhere else," Orr said.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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