Opportunity and Responsibility
Paul M. Oliaro
Vice President for Student Affairs/Dean of Students
I was born in Chicago at a very early age! My dad was a first-generation U.S. citizen whose parents were born in Italy and, as adults, came to the United States through Ellis Island. My mother was born in Chicago. Neither of my parents went to college, although my mother did go to a secretarial school for a short period. We lived in a modest home on Chicago’s south side. My dad worked in Chicago’s downtown area as a buyer in an Athletic Club and my mom was a stay-at-home mother. We never had a lot of money but my parents valued education and found a way to send me and my sister to Catholic elementary school and high school.
Those two mentors, along with my parents' sacrifices and blind faith in a higher education system that they were not privileged to participate in, have made all the difference in my life.
As I look back on it, I don’t think there was any time when my parents did not expect that I would go to college. However, there was no one I could look to in my family who had actually been to college. There were no examples of any success stories. So, I really didn’t think about getting an education beyond high school until one of my cousins went away to college. She was four years older than me. By the time I was ready to go to college, she had graduated with a degree and her teaching certificate. Someone I knew could get into college and graduate. She became my role model. My hero!
Unfortunately, my parents did not have the same expectation of higher education for my sister—an unfair and unfortunate by-product of the times and their traditional values. I have always felt guilty that my sister was not offered the same chance for education that I was given. I felt a great sense of responsibility to not only be a good student, but also to complete my degree in four years, because of the cost. I still don’t know how my parents were able to pay for my attendance at a Catholic college, but somehow they did.
The college I attended was 300 miles away from Chicago. Fortunately for me, it was small (about 1000 students) and there were friends from my high school who attended. That reduced some of my fears about being away from home and provided an instant group of friends, which I needed in my first semester. It was also during my first semester that I met the woman who later became my wife. The first time we saw each other was at a dance about five weeks into the semester. We were both shy, but we soon realized that we were both the first in our family to go to college and both felt the same responsibility to not disappoint our parents and get good grades and complete our degree in the “normal” time (for that era) of four years.
With my friends from high school and my new girlfriend, my first semester became more manageable. A Psychology faculty member became my advisor and mentor and created my interest in the field of psychology. He had more faith in me and in my abilities than I had in myself and he saw qualities in me that I did not know I had. He is the one who encouraged me to think about graduate school and to work in higher education. It was this faculty member and the Dean of Students who interested me in thinking about a master’s degree and possibly working in student affairs administration.
Those two mentors, along with my parents' sacrifices and blind faith in a higher education system that they were not privileged to participate in, have made all the difference in my life. The mentorship of that faculty member and the Dean of Students, the support of my parents and my wife, who I married right after graduation, were the primary motivation for me to ensure the same opportunities for our children. Even more, they have driven my values and sense of responsibility to help students succeed at each campus where I have worked.
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