photo by: Richard Gwin

Carol Painte Walker, left, gets some help from her daughter Kelly Walker as the pair prepare for their hooding ceremony at Kansas University's Lied Center on Friday, May 13, 2016. Mother and daughter are graduating together with master's degrees in social welfare. Both also are Haskell Indian Nations University alumnae, with Kelly earning her bachelor's degree from Haskell in 2014 and Carol earning an associate's degree there in 1975.

When Carol Painte Walker went back to school to complete her bachelor’s degree, she and her then-middle school aged daughter Kelly Walker did homework together at the kitchen table.

Neither one imagined that some 15 years later they’d be doing homework together again — as college roommates in the same master’s program at Kansas University.

The mother and daughter both completed that program this semester and donned caps and gowns to receive their master’s degrees in social welfare Friday. They plan to be among the expected 4,500 graduates walking down Campanile hill during KU’s all-school commencement ceremony Sunday.

Each woman cited the other as her inspiration.

“We were a support to each other,” Carol said.

The American Indian family comes from New Town, N.D., located on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

Carol, 62, is Arikara and Hidatsa Indian, and Kelly, 24, is Arikara, Hidatsa and Comanche.

Carol said generations of her family before her inspired her to pursue higher education. Her grandfather ran away from an Indian boarding school after receiving only a third-grade education but instilled in his descendants the importance of pursuing an education. Her mother went to college, worked on the reservation as a Head Start teacher and always stressed the importance of education, too.

After high school, Carol enrolled in Haskell Indian Nations University, earning first a dental assistant certificate in 1972 and then an associate’s degree in business education in 1975.

She recalls attending a KU football game with some friends her first year at Haskell, sitting on the hill instead of in the stands.

“As I was looking around KU,” she said, “I thought to myself then, maybe one of these days I would like to come to school here at KU.”

But her path to this graduation day was a long one.

She went back to North Dakota, worked as a dental assistant and secretary and had her two children. When Kelly was in middle school and older brother Steven Walker was in high school, Carol took time off work to complete her bachelor’s degree in social work from the University of Mary in Bismarck.

She was working as a counselor at a tribal college in North Dakota when her children both came to Lawrence to attend Haskell. Carol said she’d been dealing with students facing “complex” problems and thought, “I need to get more education myself.”

After talking it over with her children, Carol applied and was accepted into KU’s master of social welfare program. Kelly, who received her bachelor’s degree from Haskell in 2014, learned she was accepted into the same KU program shortly after.

‘Yes you can’

Carol, already with some fear about whether she’d be able to compete, headed to a graduate school orientation event at KU’s Edwards Campus, pen and paper in hand.

She was surrounded by younger students with iPads, laptop computers and smartphones, she recalled. She was confused by talk about American Psychological Association writing style, struggled through KU’s online Blackboard system and online enrollment process, and was the last to finish.

She went home to her children, discouraged.

“I was defeated. I told them, ‘You know, I don’t think I’m going to go back,'” Carol said. “Both of them said, ‘Yes you can.'”

Steven told her he could build her a computer with an operating system she knew but with the ability to do all the functions she would need for graduate school at KU. Kelly told her she knew APA writing style from using it at Haskell, and also told her about KU Writing Center classes that would be available to her on campus. They helped her learn new technology, and Carol now has her own iPad and smartphone.

At KU, Kelly and Carol roomed together to save money.

“I say I joined her sorority,” Kelly laughed. “My mom has always been involved in my life path… it wasn’t anything out of the norm.”

Carol said she usually declined, though, when Kelly and her friends invited her out.

“That was boundaries,” she said. “My daughter needed to have the full college experience — and besides that, I took longer to read.”

Once again, they did study together.

The two had three classes together over the past few semesters, but they didn’t tell anyone they were mother and daughter. However, Kelly said, they’d been sitting together and classmates weren’t shocked when they did share their relationship at the end of the year.

‘Remember your culture’

The Walker family members have a desire to use their degrees to give back to Indian Country.

“You get and complete your education, but you always remember your culture,” Carol said. “Combine the past with the present so we can have a better tomorrow.”

Kelly received an Indian Health Service Scholarship to pay for her graduate school and as part of the program will work as a counselor one to two years on a reservation or other Indian community. She’s waiting to hear where she’ll be assigned.

After that, Kelly said she’d like to return to KU to pursue a doctorate.

Carol said she is looking for counseling jobs now.

Steven, 31, graduated with his bachelor’s degree from Haskell last week and this fall will attend KU School of Law, where he hopes to specialize in tribal law.

“I just really want to do good with it,” he said.

Carol credits her children with enabling her to complete this educational milestone.

“It’s a culmination of my dream to get a master’s degree here at KU,” Carol said. “I never thought it would happen. It was a dream, but my dream is reality now.”

The younger generation credits her with inspiring them to complete their goals.

A lot of young Native people don’t have role models, and if they do they’re not Native, Steven said.

“For me it was directly from my mother saying you need to get your education,” he said. “She’s an inspiration to keep driving me, propelling me forward.”

KU Commencement

More than 4,500 members of the Kansas University class of 2016 are expected to participate in KU’s 144th Commencement Sunday at Memorial Stadium.

The ceremony kicks off at 10:30 a.m., when degree candidates begin their processional through KU’s Campanile, down the hill and into Memorial Stadium. The ceremony is expected to last about two hours.

Parking is free all over campus, and no tickets are required to attend the event. Find detailed commencement information online at commencement.ku.edu.