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Achieving the Dream of a Degree

Duke makes it possible for employees to earn their first bachelor’s degree

Duke employees have used a tuition benefit to attend colleges and universities, some receiving their first bachelor's degree in the process.
Duke employees have used a tuition benefit to attend colleges and universities, some receiving their first bachelor's degree in the process.

Trica Bates wasn’t supposed to go to college. In her family, the goal was to graduate high school and enter the workforce.

She did just that.

“Mine was a very old school, traditional family where you do whatever your parents do,” said Bates, a customer service associate with the Patient Revenue Management Organization. “My mother graduated from high school and became a cosmetologist, and my father dropped out of school in sixth grade to help his father farm.”

After Bates graduated high school in 1996, she worked for her mom at Hillsborough’s A&J’s Beauty Salon while attending cosmetology school and working at a local pharmacy.

“I had convinced myself that college wasn’t for me and my life was supposed to be as a cosmetologist because my mom owned that business and that’s what she did,” said Bates, 38 and mother to 18-year old son, Trevor. “I kept believing I didn’t need to go to school.”

Seeking steady work, Bates landed at Duke in 2001, starting as a clerk for the Duke Affiliated Physicians program. Eight years later with encouragement from supervisors, Bates enrolled at University of Mount Olive to get a bachelor’s degree using Duke’s Employee Tuition Assistance Program.

“We had many conversations on how a degree would open doors for her and how it was important for not only her but her son,” said Angela Ikner, Bates’ former manager and an emergency department service access manager at Duke Regional Hospital. “Making her family proud is the most important thing to Trica.”

In 2015-16, Duke reimbursed University and Health System employees nearly $3 million for tuition expenses for 2,776 courses across 70 institutions. The benefit, available for full-time employees with at least two years of continuous full-time service, provides up to $5,250 per calendar year in tuition.

“Support for our employees’ educational pursuits has many mutual benefits because it allows people to fulfill lifetime ambitions and continues to advance the knowledge and skillsets of our workforce,” said Kyle Cavanaugh, vice president for administration. “It is the proverbial win-win.”

A four-year college degree has never been more important to find footing in the workforce. According to a 2016 poll by CareerBuilder, nearly a third of 2,300 responding employers increased educational requirements since 2011 and 37 percent noted they now hire employees with college degrees for positions once held by those with high school diplomas. The need for a college-educated workforce was emphasized, with 60 percent of respondents saying companies require a higher skilled labor force. Getting a job and advancing a career increasingly relies on having a bachelor’s degree.

“Much like a high school diploma twenty years ago, the easiest way to communicate a candidate’s solid foundation is a college education, particularly one that includes experiential learning with classroom preparation,” said William Wright-Swadel, Fannie Mitchell Executive Director of Duke’s Career Center. “For most employers, college is the platform upon which experience becomes truly valuable.”

First in the family 


Trica Bates stands with her son, Trevor, after receiving a bachelor’s degree with the help of Duke’s Tuition Assistance Program.

Trica Bates’ road to her first college degree wasn’t an easy one, but to reach her professional goal of becoming a manager or team leader, a degree was necessary.

Not long after she started classes at University of Mount Olive in January 2009, her son’s father died in a fire. That put more responsibility on Bates to care for her son, Trevor, who was 12 years old at the time. 

Then her brother was killed in 2010, forcing Bates to take a semester off college to focus on family. She returned to Mount Olive that summer when her father died after suffering a stroke. She transferred course credits to Rocky Mount’s North Carolina Wesleyan College in 2011, where she could double major in psychology and business. A year later, her mother died after lifelong complications from lupus.

“All this happened within a five-year span,” Bates said. “It’s enough to make a person ask why they would continue doing this – function normally and go to school. But I promised my father I would do it.”

With help from family, friends and visits to Duke’s Personal Assistance Service and Duke HomeCare and Hospice, Bates persevered.

She earned a bachelor’s in psychology in May 2015 and is set to earn a bachelor’s in business in May 2017. Bates was the first college graduate in her family, which inspired her son, now a freshman at North Carolina A&T pursuing a degree in nursing.

“There is no way to explain the feeling of walking across a stage with my son seeing what I accomplished,” Bates said. “There are not too many places that give the kind of benefit that would have let me do that.”

Back to school after two decades


Adam Barnes, sourcing manager with Duke Procurement Services, does his homework with his high school-aged children. He’s working toward a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from Chowan University.

Adam Barnes has a competition with his son, Adam Reed, and daughter, Frankie: he’s trying to graduate college before they graduate high school. 

Barnes, sourcing manager with Duke’s Procurement Services, completed an associate’s degree in print communications from Murfreesboro, North Carolina’s Chowan Junior College in 1991 and went to work. Twenty-five years later, he’s back at Chowan – now a four-year university – seeking a bachelor’s degree in social sciences, which he expects to earn in May 2018. He estimates he pays 10 to 15 percent in tuition each semester because Duke’s tuition assistance benefit covers the rest.

“Now there’s not just two kids at our table doing homework, there’s two kids and a dad,” said Barnes, 45, who started at Duke in 2010. “I like to bounce ideas off them and involve them in my homework because it’s a very proud moment for us to all sit together and have a discussion about what’s going on at school.”

Barnes said taking classes makes him more thoughtful. Psychology classes help him deal with interactions with coworkers, while a class about the Middle East provided context around culture and stereotypes, teaching him about diversity and inclusion.

In addition to 10 hours of weekly schoolwork, Barnes makes a three-hour round trip drive Tuesdays and Thursdays to Weldon, where his Chowan classes are taught.

“If I want to further my career at Duke, I need a bachelor’s degree,” Barnes said. “I’ve worked for over 25 years, but when everybody wants you to have a degree plus experience, I felt this was good motivation.”

Sasha Calden is in a similar situation. 

She graduated from Burlington, Vermont’s Champlain College in 1996 with a paralegal degree, but realized she didn’t care for law. Instead, she pursued computers and programming. After working 10 years at Middlebury College, she came to Duke in 2008.

Calden, 40, IT manager and systems administrator in the Department of Biology, oversees IT staff who provide desktop support, configure servers and more. She recently reassessed career goals and realized that to become a top-level IT administrator, she needed to sharpen professional skills.

Five days a week after work, Calden sits at home in Cary, where she reads, writes notes and takes online quizzes as part of work toward a bachelor’s degree in information systems management from East Carolina University. She takes five classes a semester through an online program and plans to graduate in 2018.

Her dachshund, Mac, plays with toys at Calden’s feet as she takes classes in algebra, biology and computer science from 6:30 to 11:30 p.m.


Sasha Calden’s dog, Mac, joins her every night at home while she works to complete coursework toward a degree from East Carolina University.

“I’ve got 18 years of experience, but sometimes you have to go back to your roots and extend your education so you can give yourself opportunities to move forward,” Calden said. “Duke is great at letting people know what their career progression can be, so it’s up to me to put my education at the forefront.”

Without the help of Duke’s tuition benefit, she wouldn’t have been able to enroll at ECU – the $5,250 allotment covers annual tuition costs. She’s relearning math skills and gaining new ones in business and information management. Calden is already planning for a master’s degree.

“It’s opened my eyes to where I’d like to be in five years,” Calden said.

For her, like Trica Bates and Adam Barnes, the promise of what a bachelor’s degree means for a career acts as strong motivation for long-term goals.

“Some things you have to prioritize,” Calden said. “An education will help move my career in the right direction.”

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Seeking a Master’s Degree at Duke 


Master’s degree student Barry Varela, left, talks with Donna Zapf, director of Duke’s Graduate Liberal Studies program.

When Barry Varela graduated college, “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” was a number one hit and The Cosby Show was the most popular show on TV. 

It was 1985 when he earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Grinnell College. 

About 30 years later, Varela’s desire for intellectual development brought him back into the classroom, where he’s using Duke’s Employee Tuition Assistance benefit to help cover costs toward a master’s degree in Liberal Studies from Duke.

“It’s a goal for general self-improvement,” said Varela, 53, who works in donor relations with University Development. “There’s something to be said about the structure of a classroom that requires you to read books you wouldn’t otherwise read and think about topics you might not think about.”

He’s on track to earn a master’s degree in liberal studies in the summer of 2017 after taking courses on science and ethics, inequality and education. He’s enjoyed the philosophical quandaries presented in class discussions. There’s no particular end game for career advancement; the classes simply challenge his mind and expand his interdisciplinary knowledge.

“I have two children in college now, so if I didn’t get any assistance from Duke, I wouldn’t be doing it,” he said. “It’s very satisfying.”

Learn more about Duke’s graduate liberal studies degree at liberalstudies.duke.edu.


During the past five years, Duke employees have used the Tuition Assistance Program to help cover about $14 million in higher education courses. In 2015-2016, nearly 900 employees participated in the program. Source: Duke Human Resources