Sitting in Professor Vickie Sullivan's Western Political Thought class, Kathryn Sutton knew she had a plan.
"Kathryn sat in the front row and she made her presence known," Sullivan said of the 2004 alumna. "She was a courageous and dogged learner; she simply would not let go of an issue until she mastered it."
Sutton, who has two sons, is now in Zanzibar - a pair of islands off the Tanzanian coast - working to fight HIV and AIDS. She was part of the Resumed Education for Adult Learners (REAL) program, which she entered at the age of 49.
The program - which currently consists 45 students - was started in the 1970s by Antonia Chayes, now a visiting professor at the Fletcher School. It offers a college education to adults who have not previously attended college. In Sutton's case, her children took precedence.
"There are many state colleges and universities but there are very few selective, top-notch institutions with adult programs," Associate Dean Jean Herbert, who runs the REAL program, said.
Sutton works with a non-governmental organization called the Zanzibar Association of People Living With HIV/AIDS (ZAPHA+). The organization gives essential drugs to people in Africa. Sutton represents the organization to the local government and to international donors.
Former President Bill Clinton visited Zanzibar in July to help jumpstart the distribution of free anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), funded by the Clinton Foundation. "Because of the Clinton Foundation, people are living," Sutton said. "The ARVs have given people a chance to stay alive and live a productive life."
If donors back out of the project, however, the drugs will be prohibitively expensive. "Everyone is absolutely terrified because they know that in reality they are pretty powerless over their own fate when it comes to international aid," Sutton said.
A political science major at Tufts, Sutton knew little about HIV and AIDS before arriving in Zanzibar.
"It wasn't important for me to be an expert," she said. "Once the people started getting the ARVs they came to me and said, 'Now that I am living, where can I get a job? How can we feed our families?' Now my job is to guide them in the right direction."
Sutton's interest in Africa started in 1974 when she took a road trip from Cairo to Cape Town, South Africa with her former husband. On the way, they stopped in numerous countries, attending a wedding in Sudan, passing through Ethiopia during its civil war and staying with a tribe in Kenya.
"It was on this trip that I fell in love with the continent and with the people," Sutton said.
Twenty-five years later she decided it was time to get her college degree. "It had become hard to find a good job," Sutton said. "No one would interview me at the big corporations."
History Professor Jeanne Penvenne, who taught Sutton in two courses, said REAL program students often face difficulties when placed into a classroom setting. "She had some trouble at the beginning," Penvenne said of Sutton. "But then she rolled up her sleeves, didn't get discouraged, and worked very hard."
Sutton applied for a Fulbright Scholarship after graduation but was turned down. "It was a good thing in the end because now I am not tied down to do research," she said. "I can really focus on what I want to do."
Sutton visits the United States often but has no plans to return permanently. She keeps her family and friends updated with a monthly e-mail newsletter.
She spoke to an introductory English class taught by Herbert two weeks ago about her experiences in Africa and at Tufts.
"She has been an inspiration to the adults and also to the younger students," Herbert said. "She has impacted so many lives here on campus. She always wanted to give back. She has an innate and noble character, and she shared some of it with my class."
Sutton said Tufts improved her research skills and instincts. "I got very excited during lectures," she said. "Then I would go out and find more information about the subject."
She credited the University's international diversity as a major asset. "The intensely cool thing about Tufts is I could be taking a history course on Uganda and then I could find a friend on campus from Uganda and talk to him," she said.
REAL program students contribute equally to her classes, Sullivan said. "I can't think of one instance in which they were not real assets to the courses in which they enrolled," she said.
