Woman gets second chance at graduation she missed 36 years ago

By Kelly Meyerhofer

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    MADISON, Wisconsin (madison.com/Wisconsin State Journal) — Dawn Proctor made a request in March that she considered to be bold and unusual and unlike her.

The UW-Madison alumna graduated in 1986 but circumstances beyond her control prevented her from participating in the commencement ceremony. Now 67 and auditing a full load of courses this semester, being back on campus reminded her over and over again of the missed opportunity.

Could she join the Class of 2022 in Saturday’s ceremony? Proctor asked in an email to the Chancellor’s Office. She didn’t expect a reply but found the physical act of typing out her life story cathartic.

It’s a story punctuated with pride. If you’ve ever enjoyed a walk around Olbrich Botanical Gardens, know that Proctor played a significant role in building the gardens into the place it is today.

But Proctor’s professional accomplishments also mask a lifetime of hardship.

The oldest girl in a family of eight that struggled to put food on the table, she said her home in Twin Lakes was not a supportive environment. She threw herself into school and stayed there as long as she could to avoid heading home. Her kindergarten teacher, for example, was known as “Dawn’s mom,” she said.

When Proctor told her dad she wanted to go to college, he said there was no need. She would get married.

“So I knew if I was going to do this, it was on my own,” she said.

Proctor said she was one of three in her graduating class of 130 students to be college-bound in the fall of 1973.

It was night when the 18-year-old Proctor got her first glimpse of Madison’s skyline from the backseat of her parents’ blue station wagon. The family cruised down John Nolen Drive to drop her off at UW-Madison. The Capitol was lit up, the lights reflected onto Lake Monona and an overwhelming feeling of freedom came over her.

“I realized I was finally in control of my life,” she said.

Reality soon set in.

Even though she had scrimped and saved since she started working at 13, even though she received Pell grants from the federal government that paid part of her tuition, even though she lived in Zoe Bayliss Cooperative, the cheapest on-campus housing option, it still wasn’t enough to pay all the bills.

Proctor landed a job at Paisan’s, a Downtown Italian restaurant, where she logged about 30 hours of waitressing per week. She tacked on another 10 hours per week through odd jobs posted on a campus bulletin board.

The full-time work dragged down her GPA, so Proctor switched to part-time status. The strained schedule affected her social life, too. There were no football Saturdays for Proctor. No basketball games nor late-night parties because the early morning work shifts beckoned.

“I felt a little removed from the student experience,” she said. “I did always feel cheated in a way.”

Algebra was all that separated Proctor from her horticulture degree. She had tried two times already and failed. At that point, eight years into juggling full-time work with part-time studies, she was exhausted, and her binge-drinking had expanded into alcoholism.

So she dropped out and took a job at Madison Gas and Electric. There, she met the man of her dreams. The two married and moved to Arizona.

Proctor put her horticulture knowledge to good use, working at a resort’s nursery and retail garden center. She advised customers about landscaping and started her own side business as a garden consultant.

At home, however, Proctor said she was trapped in an emotionally and physically abusive relationship with her husband.

“I was very trusting,” she said of the marriage. “I came from a small town where none of these things happened. I was naïve.”

An opportunity arose when police arrested her husband for driving under the influence and officers realized his criminal history extended much further.

Proctor’s husband was convicted on felony drug and sexual misconduct charges and sentenced to prison time as well as lifetime probation. He was also previously incarcerated in Minnesota for an aggravated assault offense.

A police officer told Proctor at the time of her husband’s arrest that this was her chance to escape. She packed a single box with her baby boy’s belongings and used her last paycheck to buy plane tickets. They fled the next day.

Welfare checks, clothing drives and free food giveaways helped the single mom and her son survive two years of living in the Truax Park Apartments on Madison’s North Side. Proctor joined Alcoholics Anonymous and committed to turning her life around.

“There’s a real stigma attached to being a welfare mother that doesn’t recognize the fact that no one wants to be a welfare mother,” Proctor said. “It’s not your ambition or dream to be a welfare mother. You’re trying to get out of that situation every moment that you’re in it.”

A local women’s organization offered Proctor a $1,000 scholarship, enough for her to finish the UW-Madison degree she abandoned nearly a decade earlier. She found a way around algebra by taking a more advanced trigonometry course.

But she couldn’t find a way around her son needing supervision on that graduation day in May 1986. Proctor had lost touch with her family and her neighbors weren’t available on the day of the ceremony. She didn’t have enough money to hire a babysitter and rent a cap and gown. There was also the lonely fact that she didn’t really have anyone in her life to celebrate with her.

She felt sad and a bit resentful on commencement day. But life went on, and hers took her to Olbrich Botanical Gardens. Proctor’s degree paved the way to a summer job there, which morphed into a full-time position at Olbrich Botanical Society, the nonprofit that supports the gardens.

She started in 1985 as the society’s sole employee, managing fundraising, marketing and special events. Over a 17-year career, she increased society membership from 250 to more than 3,000 members, coordinated the grand opening of the Thai Pavilion and raised $10 million for capital projects, including the Bolz Conservatory.

She never imagined a career as a fundraiser, and in any other setting she would have found it unfulfilling. But her work helped ensure free admission to the outdoor gardens, a cause for which she was happy to drum up dollars.

Proctor’s email earlier this year asking to walk in Saturday’s ceremony landed in Carrie Olson’s inbox. The UW-Madison employee has organized 18 commencement ceremonies since she started managing special events for the Chancellor’s Office in 2015.

About 70 alumni who graduated in 2020 or 2021 asked to participate in this year’s ceremony, an unusually high number that Olson attributed to the pandemic.

But requests from people like Proctor asking to walk decades after earning their degree? Those are few and far between. Probably fewer than five in her six years on the job, and each of them has been honored, Olson said.

“It’s healing a wound,” Proctor said of the closure she will soon receive. “It’s validating the fact that I wanted an education my family did not support. It recognizes an accomplishment of mine that I never got to celebrate. As you get older, you realize how important it is to celebrate moments in your life.”

Proctor ordered a new dress for the ceremony weeks ago. She mailed announcement cards to friends, many of whom sent flowers or gifts or asked to join her at Camp Randall Stadium. One of the cards went to her granddaughter, who is graduating from high school this spring and still weighing whether to go to college this fall.

“I’m hoping it will inspire her,” Proctor said.

When Proctor drives down John Nolen nowadays, she is reminded of her first trip along that scenic road. She feels even more free now than she did at 18.

It was not an easy life, but it was hers and she was well on her way to reclaiming it.

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