Lipscomb student named national 2008 Adult Learner of the Year

Six years ago, Kristopher Miller (’06) was sitting in a training session at his company, Paychex, when he heard a statement that changed his life and greatly improved his future career.

 

The session he was participating in that day could be used for college credit through a program offered by the American Council on Education (ACE).

 

For five years, Miller, of Spring Hill, had worked hard to support his wife Tabatha and son Daniel with only a high school diploma from Lighthouse Christian High School. But he recognized that his family “desperately needed a brighter future.”

 

The standard announcement at the training session that day was the spark that ignited his interest in going back to college to pursue an accounting degree, something he had been thinking about for a while.

 

Now he realized that many of the training sessions he completed at Paychex could also count for college credit. When he enrolled at Lipscomb University he received 14 credit hours for his professional training, a significant head start for a busy working man with an active son.

 

Four years and many sacrifices later, Miller graduated at the top of his Adult Degree Program class. He also received the Outstanding Achievement in Accounting Award.

 

“Of the accounting majors that I have taught in the past five years, I would rank him within the top 15 percent,” said Perry Glen Moore, professor of accounting and director of graduate business programs at Lipscomb.

 

Miller’s academic excellence has also been recognized far beyond Lipscomb’s campus, as he has been named the national 2008 ACE Adult Learner of the Year. In February 2009, he traveled to Washington D.C. where he met Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and accepted his award from Lipscomb’s President, L. Randolph Lowry at the ACE annual conference.

 

To be eligible for the national Adult Learner of the Year Award, graduates must have used ACE's College Credit Recommendation Service (CREDIT) to transfer in credits from employers, as Miller did with his Paychex trainings. CREDIT evaluates employers' formal learning nationwide and recommends that higher education institutions award credit when that learning is college level and appropriate to the student's field of study.

 

It’s a service that is currently making a bachelor’s degree more accessible for half a million adult learners nationwide, and could become even more valuable as the economy tightens and many employees are laid off or feel the need to complete their college education for job security.

 

Miller’s investment in education certainly paid off. He is now a certified public accountant and works in the tax services office at Lattimore Black Morgan & Cain.

 

“I definitely put a lot of time into my work,” he said of his studies. “I was trying to make that balance between work, family and school, constantly fighting fatigue. I set up a schedule where I didn’t do any school work until my son went to bed. That made for a long day, but it paid off in the end.”

 

In addition to classes, Miller wanted to be involved on campus, particularly in his major. So he placed membership in two academic honor societies and participated in an international trip to Switzerland.

 

Miller was impressed with the personal support Lipscomb’s Adult Degree Program provided him. He valued that he could take classes with full-time faculty and even the chair of the accounting department in the evening and that Lipscomb’s Career Development Center could help him network and make potential job contacts to use after he graduated.

 

“I was proud to see that my son saw what I went through to get my degree,” he said. “Hopefully, he will value college and go right after high school. He’ll see that the sacrifices I made are really going to pay out. I know I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for Lipscomb.”

 

Miller graduated summa cum laude and is now enjoying his new bright future working at one of Nashville’s leading CPA firms with an even larger family. He now has a second son Stephen.

 

“We continue to hold up Kris as an example of what an adult student can accomplish if they put their mind to their studies,” said Moore.

 

Lipscomb’s Adult Degree Program offers adult learners individualized academic counseling with the program’s professional advisors. Students’ busy work schedules are accommodated through night, weekend and online course offerings. Tuition is discounted approximately 30% for those enrolled in the program.