{"id":77900,"date":"2026-04-29T13:53:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=77900"},"modified":"2026-04-29T13:53:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:53:26","slug":"oldham-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/oldham-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"50 years after starting college, NAU Online grad receiving her diploma"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 9 is a big day for Vicky Oldham<\/strong>. She graduates with her bachelor\u2019s degree, 54 years after enrolling in college for the first time. And she turns 71.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Oldham\u2019s journey started as a teenage art student in Pennsylvania and has wound\u00a0throughout the United States and into different media. Her world\u00a0has, unsurprisingly, always\u00a0been filled\u00a0with art, but in recent years\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0found ways to combine her love of art and biology and untold inspiration in the vistas of the world that surrounds her.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI never expected to finish school,\u201d she said. \u201cI was one of those people who said, \u2018I don\u2019t need a college degree. I have a job.\u2019\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now on the cusp of graduation, as the Distinguished Senior for NAU Online, she reflected on the lessons\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0learned in school, on the road and in her career and how each\u00a0has defined and refined her artistry.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Miles and models<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"VickyAfter getting married and leaving school,\u00a0Oldham\u00a0and her husband worked for different porcelain companies like Franklin Mint\u00a0and Lenox Collections, creating porcelain prototypes. For the next 30 years,\u00a0they sculpted. Oldham\u00a0eventually\u00a0moved\u00a0into making resin sculptures while\u00a0her husband\u00a0switched to bronze\u00a0sculpture. She and her husband started their married life and careers in the Philadelphia\u00a0suburbs, moving to Sedona, Santa Fe, Seattle,\u00a0Georgia\u00a0and\u00a0Florida\u00a0creating art. They even spent\u00a018 months\u00a0in Central America after her husband was diagnosed with a terminal lung disease.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided to go to Belize\u2014he always wanted to go to Belize,\u201d she said. \u201cHe died there in 2014.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After his death,\u00a0she returned to Sedona, where she met her second husband, Tim. She was\u00a0kinda-sorta\u00a0retired from her career in sculpture, though still creating art, and decided to go back to school. Oldham was nervous, though, remembering the challenges\u00a0of\u00a0the first time. While\u00a0she\u2019d\u00a0loved and excelled in her art classes,\u00a0she\u2019d\u00a0wanted to double-major in\u00a0biology but found herself stymied by the\u00a0math and\u00a0chemistry\u00a0classes that\u00a0accompanied\u00a0a\u00a0biology\u00a0degree.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat was one reason I thought I could never\u00a0go\u00a0back,\u201d Oldham said. \u201cI\u2019m never going to pass math and science.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When she enrolled in NAU Online\u2019s liberal arts program, she was still nervous about the math and science classes. She tried to channel teenage Vicky\u2019s love of science\u2014she\u2019d dreamed of being a science illustrator when she was younger. One of her first jobs was with the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University of Philadelphia, illustrating images of mollusks for research publications and designing seashell-related exhibits for the museum.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Those classes still\u00a0weren\u2019t\u00a0easy, 50-odd years later. Oldham remembers opening the book for her first science course\u2014astronomy. The first thing she saw was\u00a0a slew of\u00a0equations.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI started to cry,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know how to make sense of any of it. I thought right off, I\u2019m never going to be able to do this. By the time I was done, I went back to that first course that scared the dickens out of me, and I was able to do it.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This time around, she had the\u00a0internet, which enabled her to\u00a0easily do research,\u00a0ask for explanations of concepts, walk her through those\u00a0formulas\u00a0and break down the complicated parts into manageable pieces. Before,\u00a0she\u2019d\u00a0get increasingly lost\u00a0as the concepts she\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0understand piled up.\u00a0This time\u00a0around, she used\u00a0the available resources to make sure she understood the basics before moving on.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t move forward if you don\u2019t understand the\u00a0building blocks of\u00a0topics,\u201d Oldham said. \u201cI was so proud of what I was able to finish.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why NAU Online?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Becoming a Lumberjack was\u00a0a no-brainer.\u00a0Her second husband and\u00a0all of\u00a0his children were NAU grads; she wanted to be one,\u00a0too.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Online education made sense for her; she lives in Prescott, and she and Tim like to travel. NAU\u00a0Online\u2019s\u00a0asynchronous model allowed her to move at her own pace and study wherever she was, which often was in their RV somewhere in the Arizona desert.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI did a lot of my schoolwork at the Grand Canyon,\u201d she said with a laugh. \u201cI look outside and there\u2019s an elk right there as I\u2019m typing away.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s next for the young-at-heart\u00a0grad<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Oldham\u2019s not actually retired;\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0not in her bones. She takes commissions for paintings and sculptures, she leads art activities for the Heritage Park Zoo in Prescott,\u00a0she\u2019ll\u00a0be teaching a six-week adult learning course\u00a0at\u00a0Osher Lifelong Learning Institute\u00a0on the Yavapai College\u00a0campus,\u00a0and she created a\u00a0sculpture program\u00a0that lives on her\u00a0<\/span>DIY sculpting website<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0One of her latest projects is sculpting with polymer\u00a0clay\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0doing livestreams that\u00a0demonstrate\u00a0how to sculpt.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so fortunate,\u201d she said, reflecting on her upcoming big day. \u201cIt\u2019s surreal; it really is surreal.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 9 is a big day for Vicky Oldham. She graduates with her bachelor\u2019s degree, 54 years after enrolling in college for the first time. And she turns 71.\u00a0\u00a0 Oldham\u2019s journey started as a teenage art student in Pennsylvania and has wound\u00a0throughout the United States and into different media. Her world\u00a0has, unsurprisingly, always\u00a0been filled\u00a0with art,…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":77902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}