SOUTHEAST PM. PROMPTS SOME TO RETURN TO COLLEGE

Sgt. Carl Kinnison, training and community affairs officer at the Cape Girardeau Police Department, teaches a criminal justice class evenings at Southeast Missouri State University.

Terry Lynch's college degree had been on hold for about 20 years.

The Cape Girardeau man was two courses away from graduating when the demands of running his fire protection business prompted him to quit school.

Amy McIntosh and her mother, Marietta Reinagel, both have full-time jobs.

All three are enrolled this fall in night classes at Southeast Missouri State University.

They are among some 30 undergraduate students enrolled in the Southeast P.M. program, established this fall.

There are some 1,000 graduate and undergraduate students who take night classes but aren't enrolled in Southeast P.M.

Most graduate courses are night classes, but they aren't included in the P.M. program. Some undergraduate students pick up a few night classes but take the bulk of their classes during the day.

Dr. Sheila Caskey, dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Extended Learning, said the university wants to accommodate the needs of all students.

Most of the students in the Southeast P.M. program are older adults. "They dropped out for whatever reason and are coming back to finish up," she said.

Through Southeast P.M., students can earn degrees in management, marketing, criminal justice, general studies, mass communication, sociology and industrial technology entirely through evening and weekend classes.

"I work 8 to 5 and can't get away to take day classes," said McIntosh.

The 21-year-old Oran resident works as a receptionist at a Cape Girardeau business. Her mother is a secretary at the probation and parole office in Cape Girardeau.

Both women are pursuing criminal justice degrees. They want to be probation officers.

McIntosh is taking four classes this semester for 12 credit-hours.

She has classes three hours a night, four nights a week. One of those classes is held at the vocational-technical school at Sikeston.

Juggling a job and school isn't easy.

"It takes a lot of dedication," she said. "It is hard to keep up with the assignments and everything."

McIntosh said she studies a lot on the weekends.

"I have a very understanding husband," she said of her busy schedule.

She and her mother have the same criminal justice class on Tuesday nights. Lynch also is in that class.

McIntosh enjoys being in the same class with her mother. "It helps to have my mom in there because she takes better notes."

McIntosh spent a year at the University of Missouri-Columbia before transferring to Southeast 1 1/2 years ago.

She has taken night classes since coming to Southeast, but with Southeast P.M., she is assured of obtaining a degree without having to take a single day class.

Without the new program, she would have been forced to take some day classes or fall short of getting a degree.

McIntosh's mother, Marietta Reinagel, went to Southeast for three years before dropping out to raise a family.

She returned to Southeast in 1994, the year Amy started college.

"It was tough," the Kelso woman recalled. She had been away from the classroom for 20 years.

"My worst fear was what would kids say about an old lady in class," Reinagel said.

But her fears proved unfounded. She discovered there were many older students at Southeast.

Reinagel said her employer allows her to be away from the office three hours a week for a day class each semester.

The rest of her courses have been held at night.

She is taking a day class and a night class this semester and hopes to graduate by May 1998.

Reinagel said the university is offering more night classes. For people that work full time, night school is the only way to get a degree, she said.

Lynch went to Southeast for one year in the early 1970s. Short on money, he dropped out and joined the Army.

When he returned from the service, he went back to college on the GI Bill and ran the family business.

"I got married, had a family and the business kept growing," he said.

He later divorced. The pressures of being a single parent added to his busy life. He has a 14-year-old son and a 19-year-old daughter.

But when he learned of Southeast P.M., the 47-year-old Lynch decided it was time to go back to school.

His children welcomed the idea. His daughter is in her second year at Southeast. She is majoring in law enforcement.

He initially enrolled in two classes, but dropped one. "It is hard to find the time to study," said Lynch who is getting a general studies degree.

He is taking a criminal justice class that his daughter took last year.

Lynch said university staff made it easy to enroll.

He was surprised to find how computers have become an integral part of the campus.

"The first thing they did was give us a blank disk and an e-mail number," he said.

Lynch said going back to school wasn't as hard as he had imagined. "People don't have to be intimidated by it," he said.