State college graduation becomes a family affair

Monday, Dec. 13, 2004 | 10:51 a.m.

When Metro Sgt. David Lewis steps across the stage Thursday to receive his diploma from Nevada State College, he won't just be thanking his wife for her support, he'll be graduating with her.

Both David, 41, and his wife Brandi, 40, a Metro administrator in the business office of the Clark County Detention Center, will receive bachelor's degrees in public administration with an emphasis in law enforcement.

And the couple's 21-year-old twin sons, Brandon and Casey, are already following in their footsteps, having enrolled in the program to aid their planned careers as police officers.

"I think it was a goal to beat the kids," Brandi Lewis said.

The Lewis couple are one-third of a December 2004 class of six scheduled to graduate Thursday at 5 p.m. at Green Valley Ranch Station. Joining them is fellow public administration graduate Shawna Thompson, a program officer for the college's vice president of finance, and three aspiring teachers, Randy Barr, Natalie Millis and Robyn Shipman II.

It's the second class of students for the start-up state college. The first 13 graduated in May and the college's first class of nursing students will graduate this spring.

David and Brandi Lewis said they enrolled the first day the college opened, in September 2002. At that time, the college only had 187 students. Now it has a headcount of 1,121 with another 200 admitted for the spring, college spokesman Spencer Stewart said.

The Lewises said they took a chance on the fledgling school because the degree in public administration, with its emphasis in law enforcement, was not offered anywhere else in Southern Nevada, and they wanted to take advantage of Nevada State's lower tuition, flexible scheduling and online courses.

After finishing associate's degrees at the Community College of Southern Nevada, they had to wait a year-and-a-half for the college to open.

"Nevada State College allowed us to take classes full time and work full time," David Lewis said.

They were able to take their classes "side by side," David Lewis said.

That not only made the coursework more doable, it also made it cheaper because they only bought one set of books for each class, Brandi Lewis said.

If one of them missed a class because of work or an illness, the other could take notes, she said. And often, with their opposite shifts at Metro, class was the only time they would see each other in the week.

Earning the degrees was a long-time personal goal for both, the couple said. They they wanted to show their sons and their 14-year-old daughter Elizabeth the importance of getting an education.

But they also wanted to do it for themselves.

"It's something I always wanted to do," David Lewis said of the degree. "I can move all the way up the rankings without a degree, but the degree will make a difference."

Brandi agreed, saying "Education is the trend more and more. Companies want to see the degree, even at Metro."

Now that the bachelor's degrees are almost in their grasp, they are looking at further education.

Brandi Lewis said she's looking at a master's degree program in public administration at UNLV, with the possibility of continuing in law enforcement, working on on terrorism or national security administrative issues, or even working for a nonprofit. David Lewis is considering going to UNLV's Boyd School of Law.

They also said they want to take what they've learned and give it back to the community.

The need for public service was a "thread" throughout all of her courses at Nevada State, Brandi Lewis said, and now she wants to "take 30 years of knowledge that you gather in a career and give it back."

The Lewises' first step of civic engagement, they said, has been recruiting coworkers from Metro to Nevada State College.

Fellow public administration graduate Thompson is also recruiting everyone she knows and is counting on her four kids, aged 12 to 7, to eventually be second-generation students at Nevada State.

Thompson enrolled and started working for the college when it first opened, and said her ultimate goal is to someday earn her boss's job as vice president of finance at the college.

"I want to watch this place grow," Thompson said.