UA News

Kathy Stollberg-Zagar was able to move up in the ranks in University Animal Care after she went back to school for her bachelor's degree.

Whatever their reasons for going back to school – whether it's to earn their first degree or simply to pursue a personal interest – many University of Arizona employees are heading straight from their desks into the classroom to pursue an education. For many of them, a degree represents the key to career advancement.

That was the case for Kathy Stollberg-Zagar, a 22-year employee of the UA who completed her Bachelor of Science degree in agricultural education in 2002.

It took Stollberg-Zagar 10 years to complete the degree that would allow her to apply for a position as a senior research specialist in University Animal Care. She held that position from 2002 to 2007 before assuming her current position of research specialist, principal.

Before finishing her degree, Stollberg-Zagar had already held several different positions within University Animal Care, working her way up from an entry-level job as an animal caretaker earning $9,000 a year in 1987. Since then, Stollberg-Zagar has been able to more than quadruple her salary. At a certain point, however, a baccalaureate degree became necessary to progress to the next level, something the former bartender and certified veterinary technician was determined to do.

Going back to school "was just something I felt I needed to do because I felt like it would make me a more well-rounded, educated person," she said. 

Stollberg-Zagar is the first to admit the decade-long path to a degree was not without its struggles.

"Some of the biggest challenges were finding enough time to do everything," said Stollberg-Zagar, who often would take classes during the workday, then work late to make up the hours. "Days got pretty long. The light at the end of the tunnel, for a while, was nowhere near."

But Stollberg-Zagar never gave up.

"I kept looking at what my end goal was. You just have to keep that in mind and work toward it," she said.

And while some older nontraditional students might feel uncomfortable with the age difference between them and their undergraduate classmates, the now 49-year-old Stollberg-Zagar embraced it with a positive attitude.

"It was really, really fun being the oldest person in class. They called me 'Mom.' They were all undergraduates and they were all 18 years old," she said.

Stollberg-Zagar now supervises University Animal Care's clinical and surgical areas and does some guest teaching for the UA's Research Animal Methods course.

As a founding member of the University Animal Care Mentoring Committee, designed to provide career advancement guidance to others in her field, she encourages her colleagues to pursue higher education.

Stollberg-Zagar said she's surprised more of her colleagues don't take advantage of educational opportunities at the UA and hopes the peer-mentoring program is helpful to those who do decide to tackle the challenge.

Tiernee Childers, a senior animal care technician and a mentor on the committee, is one colleague who is committed to furthering her education. She seems poised to follow in Stollberg-Zagar's scholastic footsteps, as she works toward a degree in animal sciences.

"It's going to be several years, but I'm OK with that," she said.

Of course, for some students, a bachelor's degree is just the beginning. Stollberg-Zagar, after completing her undergraduate degree, continued taking classes and says she's now about one-third of the way through a master's degree in information resources and library science, although she's taking a break from that pursuit for the time being.

Stollberg-Zagar says she's proof it's never too late to get an education.

"I like to learn and I think it's important," she said. "I started late, but I'm still going."