Retired Buffalo State professor creates award for nontraditional students

Ann Lupo was 23 and married with two children ages 3 and 18 months when she went back to school to get her bachelor’s degree in social studies education.

“I rode to Buffalo State College with my younger daughter on the back of my bike, worked part time at a doughnut shop and it took me 10 years to finish my degree,” she said. “No one else in any of my classes had concerns about child care, juggling family meal schedules and skipping classes to get sick kids to the pediatrician.”

Decades later, Lupo, who also holds a master’s degree in bilingual secondary social studies from SUNY Buffalo State, retired from a career that recently concluded with 26 years of teaching social studies education at her alma mater.

Over those years, she often admired and related to nontraditional students, a term not yet coined when she was living it. So, as her parting gift to Buffalo State, she decided to create an award to recognize an older student who has overcome the challenges of juggling school, work and family to pursue a college degree.

“The Ann K. Lupo award goes to a non-traditional Social Studies Education student who has shown great perseverance in pursuit of their academic goals while maintaining a healthy life balance,” according to the award description.

The first recipient, Peter Martin, 40, received his social studies 7-12 post baccalaureate certificate at Buffalo State in December and has been substitute teaching high school social studies at Nichols School, where he just earned a full-time position while planning to pursue his master’s degree.

Martin earned a journalism degree from Northeastern University in 2010 and worked as a sportswriter and editor in the Boston area until 2017, when he and his wife moved back to Buffalo. He was coaching rowing at Nichols while working as a freelance writer when he realized he wanted to be a teacher.

“It seemed like a…