Arland Wallace’s first stint at Wichita State didn’t go well. He enrolled in 1970 and bailed after one semester.
“I quickly realized I was in over my head,” he said.
Fifty-five years later, he’s about to graduate. Wallace is finishing his degree despite undergoing surgery for a cancerous brain tumor last fall, and he plans to pursue a master’s degree even though his prognosis is terminal.
“I just made the decision that cancer was not going to define me,” he said.
After dropping out of WSU the first time, Wallace studied to be an X-ray technician at St. Joseph Hospital and spent 10 years in the medical field. He then spent 40 years working for his brother’s printing company, which merged with Printing, Inc., in the 1990s.
Despite his first experience at WSU, he’d always enjoyed learning. While still employed, he earned a theological degree and became an ordained deacon in the Episcopal church. But his departure from WSU all those years earlier nagged at him.
“I just wanted that undergraduate degree,” Wallace said. “I thought, well, I’m retired, I have nothing but time, so why not?”
In the summer of 2019, he met with an advisor at WSU, who asked him how many courses he wanted to take. “I said I haven’t been for 50 years and I’m just going to take one. If it doesn’t work, no harm, no foul.”
He had no particular class in mind. As they started looking through courses, he spotted one near the top of the list — Introduction to Archaeology — and said “stop right there.”
The class had a new instructor, Crystal Dozier, whom Wallace found inspiring. “She just has a passion for the subject matter. She is a teacher’s teacher.”
Wallace had found his major — anthropology, with an emphasis on archaeology. Taking several classes per semester, Wallace completed the necessary prerequisites for his major, then set about tackling the required general education courses.
“I kind of did it backwards,” he said. “I couldn’t get enough of those anthropology classes.”
In 2021, for instance, he took a class from Dozier called Archaeology of Food in which they replicated pumpkin leather mats called “cucurbita” that were used by Native Americans of the Great Plains. The mats, made of dried pumpkin strips, offered a method of preservation and were used to flavor soups and other foods.
“It had a consistency like beef jerky, but you could add it during the boiling process, and it would add flavor to it,” he said.
Wallace’s fascination with the subject was evident as he went on to relate how the women in Native American tribes with diets high in protein would trade for such mats to get more carbohydrates into their diets during pregnancy. “It was funny how they knew what kinds of foods they needed to have successful birthing rates,” he said.
Under Dozier’s supervision, Wallace and other students used bone and stone tools to cut the pumpkin intro strips, wove the strips into mats and hung them up to dry. The mats were tested after a year and found to be edible.
Dozier invited Wallace to make a presentation about their research to a conference in Oklahoma, which went over so well that they compiled their data into a research paper published in the Society for Experimental Archaeology’s journal last November (available online at exarc.net/journal). More recently, Wallace had the online article printed in book form. He’s an undergraduate research assistant the Archaeology of Food Laboratory.
Wallace found school had changed since the pencil-and-paper era.
“The computerization of school was quite challenging for me, but slowly and sure I got accustomed to it.”
To get through a statistics class, he hired a fellow student to tutor him. He said he met the student’s parents and told them what a wonderful teacher their daughter is.
But the biggest challenge came on Oct. 5, when he suffered 10 to 15 events in which he seemed to lose touch with reality. He went to the hospital, had a MRI performed and was told he had a brain tumor. He underwent surgery five days later. The tumor tested malignant, and Wallace was told his cancer was terminal. He began radiation therapy and chemotherapy and returned to school as soon as possible.
“I was bound and determined to continue with my studies,” he said. “I ended up getting all As last semester.”
He’s on the Dean’s list and last month was named the university’s Adult Learner of the Year.
“Arland is a superstar on so many different levels,” Dozier said. “One of the things that is most remarkable is how welcoming he is to everyone. It’s been amazing to not only watch him grow as a student, but to watch the other students absolutely adopt him.”
Wallace said he’s maintained a 4.0 grade point average since 2019, but the grades he earned in 1970 drag that number down some. Wallace attributes his success this time around to working ahead and giving himself plenty of time to complete assignments.
He studies in a home office that in some respects resembles a dorm room from 1970, complete with WSU paraphernalia, a record player and albums. His filing system consists of papers neatly piled on the floor. A small forest of pill bottles sitting on a kitchen counter attests to the precarious state of his health. He’s suffered a minor stroke and made several trips to the emergency room since his surgery. Getting aross campus has not always been easy.
But he has been accepted into graduate school and hopes to start in August with the intent of teaching one day. “The one class that started me — Intro to Archaeology — I’d like teach so it would go full circle.”
Asked if Wallace’s undergraduate career is the longest on record at WSU, the school pointed to a student who first enrolled in 1934 and received his degree 69 years later. However, that student was given credit toward his degree for “life experiences.”
In addition to Dozier, Wallace praises his advisor and fellow students, whom he says have shown no ageism towards him. “This is what was really amazing. When I work in the lab with grad students, they do not see age as age.”
Wallace will have his sixth round of chemotherapy this month. He’s been told he has about 17 months to live, or maybe a little longer. He says he’ll keep pursuing his studies for however much time that turns out to be.
This article was produced by The Active Age as part of the Wichita Journalism Collaborative (WJC). The WJC is a partnership of 11 media and community partners, including KMUW.