On Her Way

About a month ago, Kathleen Fockler was on the way to a Beaverton testing facility to sit for the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX), the exam each nursing student must pass before officially becoming a Registered Nurse.

She was ready. It had taken her 20 years to reach this point, but she felt confident that the rigorous coursework of the Clark College Nursing Program had prepared her for the exam. Finally, after years of struggle, she was going to achieve her long-held dream of becoming a nurse.

And then her car broke down.

In the middle of the Route 26 tunnel.

During morning rush hour.

It could have been a disaster. But Kathleen Fockler, age 47, is not someone to submit to defeat. When the tow truck arrived, she persuaded the driver to take both her car and herself to the testing site. She had driven there the week before just to be sure of the route—“I didn’t want to get lost,” she explains—so she was able to direct him there swiftly.

“I got there just a couple minutes after the exam began, and when I explained my situation, they let me go ahead and take the test,” Fockler recalls.

From the beginning, Fockler’s road to becoming a nurse has been beset by unexpected detours and daunting challenges. And each time, Fockler has been able to overcome these roadblocks with a combination of preparation, persistence, and support from those around her. During the 2015 Commencement ceremony, her persistence was rewarded when Clark College President Robert K. Knight announced that she was the recipient of this year’s Community College President’s Award in honor of Val Ogden. This scholarship provides full tuition and fees for two years to a Clark graduate completing their bachelor’s degree at Washington State University Vancouver.

“I still can’t believe it,” Fockler says. “This is an incredible opportunity. A door has just been opened right up for me.”

Fockler began taking pre-nursing courses at Clark in 1994. However, her plans were derailed when her then-newborn son, Gabe, began experiencing seizures and developmental delays. “The timing was not right,” Fockler says. She decided to leave school and concentrate on supporting her son and her daughter, MaKenzie, who was born three years after Gabe.

Fockler held onto her dream even while spending many years working as a paraprofessional assistant in the Evergreen School District Early Childhood Center, helping support children with developmental delays. It was only when Gabe entered Clark through the Running Start program that Fockler felt the time was right for her to return to school as well.

At first, the experience of returning to school after 20 years was intimidating. Courses required online registration—Fockler didn’t even own a computer. But she quickly found the support she needed at Clark.

“The resources that Clark has are tremendous,” she says. “There’s a math lab, there are computer labs, there’s a retention specialist in the nursing department. There’s just so much in place to help the student.”

Fockler is quick to point out another resource that helped her on her journey: the college’s scholarships office. “When I applied to nursing school, I thought, ‘How am I going to do this?’” she recalls. “At the time, I was working two jobs, and I’d heard how demanding the nursing curriculum was.”

But Clark’s scholarship specialists quickly went into action, finding Fockler potential scholarship opportunities and encouraging her to apply. “[Outreach/Scholarship Coordinator] Lizette Drennan was like my cheerleader,” she recalls. “There was a postcard of the scholarship staff that I found, and I stuck it in my binder to remind me about the people who were supporting me. I had a picture of my family, and Lizette’s smiling face.”

Fockler also found support from the nursing faculty, who encouraged her to keep going. Fockler gained confidence after working in the program’s state-of-the-art simulation lab, which helped her develop clinical skills before she even began her internship.

That internship proved to be another challenge. From the beginning, Fockler had set her sights on becoming a pediatric nurse working with medically fragile children, a goal formed through her experiences sitting in hospitals with Gabe early on. But Clark’s nursing program had only one pediatric internship opening per cohort.

A faculty member suggested Fockler volunteer at the Center for Medically Fragile Children (CMFC) at Providence in Portland to gain experience. Clark didn’t have an internship partnership set up with the CMFC; these agreements are labor-intensive and highly competitive. But Fockler so impressed the CMFC staff as a volunteer that they decided to create an internship partnership for her. Now, Clark has a regular internship opening at the center.

Throughout her studies, Fockler has shown a tireless work ethic. She went over notes while waiting in her children’s doctor offices. She reviewed cranial nerves while sitting beside her mother’s hospital bed after a surgery. And when Fockler herself had to undergo thyroid surgery, she didn’t skip a class, deciding to simply attend the evening lecture rather than her standard morning one.

“Each day, I try to learn everything I can,” she says.

On top of all that, Fockler found time to regularly volunteer with the Evergreen School District, the CFMC, SHARE House, and the Student Nurse Association of Clark College.

Despite her talent and perseverance, however, Fockler knew there was another huge hurdle standing between herself and her goal. In order to work in a specialized hospital setting like the CMFC, Fockler would need to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. Fockler—who lives in Vancouver with her children; husband, Bunnell; and mother-in-law, Beth LaViolette—has begun working with an in-home nursing care service for medically fragile children. Even so, she couldn’t see how she could afford university tuition for both herself and MaKenzie, who is entering the University of Washington in the fall. Receiving the Community College President’s Scholarship means her way is now clear to continue her education.

Fockler is effusive in her thanks to all the organizations who have provided scholarships to her, including the Clark College Foundation, Vancouver Rotary, and 40 et 8.

“I guess it really does take a village to raise a nurse,” says Fockler, who hopes one day to be able to fund her own nursing scholarship. “The community supported me tremendously, and working hard is my way of paying them back.”

Additional Scholarships

Through the support of the Clark College Foundation, two other finalists for the Community College President’s Scholarship were awarded $3,000 scholarships to continue their education. President Knight announced the scholarships to Julie Mercado and Melanie Brawley during the Commencement ceremony as well.

Photos: Clark College/Hannah Erickson (top) and Clark College/Jenny Shadley