Son of doctoral student
accepts degree for deceased father
By Keith Thomas
Editor
in Chief
When 18-year-old Emilio Vargas is handed a diploma
on the stage of the Elliott Hall of Music during Saturday morning's
graduation ceremony, holding back his emotions won't be easy.
This doctorate degree he is receiving, however,
isn't his. He is accepting a Ph.D. in education on behalf of his father,
Andrès who died of cancer on Oct. 16, 1999.
Andrès died just before finishing the final
steps required to finish his degree, but based on the efforts and determination
of Sydney Zentall, professor of special education, Emilio will be donning
his father's doctoral gown and hood to receive the diploma from Purdue
president Martin Jischke.
Zentall, who was working on collaborative research
with Andrès, finished the final steps of his work so that he
would be presented the degree posthumously.
Andrès' widow, Tara Vargas, couldn't be
more pleased.
"It is truly an incredible feeling for all of us
in his family," said Tara, who along with Emillio, will be traveling
from Portland, Ore., for the ceremony. "It'll be a very emotional time."
Tara is also thrilled with the opportunity to fulfill
a promise she made to Andrès.
"We told him before he passed away that we would
try everything we could to get this for him and he was really excited
about that," said Tara, who still gets choked up thinking about what
this means to the Andrès' family. "I promised him that if he
earned his Ph.D. I would put it on his headstone."
As excited as Tara and her family are for this
degree presentation, she said it is accompanied by an element of sorrow
as well.
"I'm so thrilled but at the same time I'm so sad
that he's not here to be a part of it," she said. "It's also hard because
it brings some closure and there's some bittersweetness with that, but
I'm glad it's not left undone."
This was a goal that Tara said Andrès had
placed higher than any others. His true dream was to finish this degree
and he was so proud of his accomplishments before he lost his fight
with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.
Come Saturday morning, when Andrès can officially
be remembered as Dr. Vargas, his goal will have been reached.
This dream of continuing education for Andrès,
however, began a long time ago.
"Its quite an amazing story," said Zentall. "He
pulled himself up along way."
Raised in a relatively low-income farming community
in Texas, Andrès was familiar with hard work while growing up..
But as hard as Andrès' family worked in
the fields during his youth, it was his struggles in the classroom that
would be what provided him with the motivation to pursue this dream.
Even though Andrès was diagnosed with, and
beat, the same form of lymphoma cancer in 1990, which Tara said was
a direct result of the kind of pesticides his family used on their farm,
he never gave up his endless pursuit of continual education.
His passion for working in multicultural and special
education would also be realized once he was introduced to the school
environment.
"He was, as a child, put into a special education
class so he had a great deal of identification with the misplacement
with culturally and linguistically diverse populations in society,"
said Zentall.
This, according to Tara, wasn't because he was
a slow learner.
"He was placed into a special education class because
he couldn't speak English," she said. "So, that was a huge misplacement."
Once Andrès made it through these trying
times, he became an advocate for all kinds of different people with
all kinds of different learning abilities and disabilities.
"He just wanted people to fulfill their potential
without the burdens of stereotypes," Tara said.
Once given the title of professor, that is exactly
what Andrès wanted to do. Now, although he won't have that opportunity,
he is still a 2001 Purdue doctorate graduate.
According to Purdue regulations, in order for this
to have been made possible, the deceased student must have still met
certain requirements prior to his or her death for the degree to be
presented.
According to Chris Leasure, administrative assistant
for the office of the registrar, to be approved for the posthumous degree,
students have to had completed 85 percent of their credit requirements,
and of those 85 percent, they must have finished most of the core and
major requirements met within the school.
For the posthumous degree requiring a thesis, as
in the case of Andrès, the research must have been completed
and the results must have been written in a form acceptable for deposit
in the Purdue library.
In the case of Andrès, where Purdue officials
are allowing Emilio, who will be earning his own high school diploma
two weeks after he accepts his father's doctorate, to walk through at
the end of the Ph.D. line during the ceremony, Tara has nothing but
nice things to say about the University.
"I think that Purdue is really wonderful," she
said. "I think it's above and beyond what many large universities would
do.
"It was a very kind and humane thing to do and
they have been very wonderful and supportive throughout the whole process."
While the hospitality and coordination from Purdue
has meant a lot to the Vargas family, the degree presentation is what
meant the most to Andrès.
"Andrès believed so much in education and
coming from a farming family … it's just really meaningful to have
that goal finished and have the circle complete," Tara said. "I think
that the Ph.D. was probably the most important step in his life."
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