Lucy Mason

Lucy Mason is a long-time supporter of higher education, with an upbringing that stressed schooling and a promise to herself at 18 that she would earn her college degree.

Yet for a variety of reasons, that college degree proved elusive.

Now, the respected Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives and married mother of three grown children, Mason is finally receiving her hard-earned bachelor's degree.

"Gaining an education is about creating life opportunities and opening options," Mason said. "Whether in the public or private sector, running a business or an agency, the business, writing, analytical and communication skills learned at the university level are invaluable for life."

Mason will be one of more than 1,900 graduates who will receive their degrees from Northern Arizona University during ceremonies at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Dec. 14 in the Walkup Skydome.

Mason will receive her bachelor of arts in liberal studies, with an emphasis in arts and letters. "I promised myself as an 18-year-old that someday I would complete a college degree," she recalled. "In those days it wasn't considered a priority for a young woman to have a degree. However, I began my university schooling at (Arizona State University) at a time when young women were just beginning to think that a college education was important. For me, I simply loved school."

After 30 years of taking college-level courses at two Arizona community colleges and three state universities, "I was absolutely thrilled to learn that NAU could wrap the lion's share of my college coursework into a degree program," she said. "I could finally see that my lifelong dream to complete a university degree program was possible. There were two reasons for this: Internet courses and the BAILS degree."

Living in Prescott and working in Phoenix as an Arizona state representative for District 1 meant that Mason had difficulty taking traditional classroom courses. Any coursework would have to be over the Internet, and NAU provided the opportunity. "They had the most accessible program with classes that I could continue to apply toward my degree," she said. "Each semester the variety of classes and availability of classes even increased."

Mason, a fourth-generation Arizonan from Prescott, has a fondness for Northern Arizona University that dates back to when her grandmother attended the university while living in Flagstaff. Her grandmother, a widow with five children, attained her goal of becoming a schoolteacher and taught every K-12 grade for 40 years throughout northeastern Arizona.

Mason's mother attended NAU with a music scholarship.

Now that Mason's decades-long march toward a bachelor's degree is nearly over, she is not content to stop her formal education. "Every course was fascinating to me and still is," she said. "That is why I will continue my education with NAU into a master's program either in political science or public administration."

She also maintains a sense of gratitude to Northern Arizona University for providing her with an opportunity to fulfill her dream.

"I can only speak in the most positive terms of the high quality of education that I have received through NAU," she said. "Each class I have taken has been with a full professor who clearly had the best interests of the student's quality education as their professional focus. I am proud of my hard work to accomplish this degree and I will cherish my NAU education forever."