The Online Reflector

“I’m really doing this, because I love it. I have loved going back here to school,” said University of Indianapolis graduate student Robert Cooprider.

Cooprider works at the Physical Plant in maintenance during third shift, goes home, sleeps about three hours and then wakes up to hit the books.

“I’ve come to find about third shift, that nobody ever has an exact way of doing it,” Cooprider said. “You sort of just nap so I’m constantly in a state of sleep deprivation until the weekend.”

In addition to work and school, Robert also has a wife and three children, the oldest two residing in California, while his youngest is in seventh grade. Cooprider said that for as scattered as his family is, they remain really close.

Cooprider graduated from the School for Adult Learning program in 2010 and then decided to move on to a graduate degree in English. He has also done course work at Butler and Indiana University.

“I was trying to set a record to see how many colleges I could go to without getting a degree,” Cooprider said jokingly.

The fact that UIndy was going to accept his credit hours was one of the reasons Cooprider decided to attend the university.

“I found out what a wonderful place this was and also the professors here are so extraordinary,” Cooprider said. “You really develop a very nice relationship with professors and they really care about what you do in your work.”

Cooprider is interested in getting his doctorate after he finishes the graduate program.
He said one of the most important things to have is a strong base, a family who understands, which he luckily does.

“The hardest balance for me is working third shift, sleeping and still trying to get everything I need to do done in an orderly manner without losing my mind,” he said.

Director of the Woodrow Wilson Program and professor Jennifer Drake speaks highly of Cooprider.

“Robert is a fantastic student to have. When we have conversations in seminar he’s incredibly informed and incredibly engaged and he knows a lot about literature and asks fantastic questions,” she said.

“From a professor’s perspective he’s really a fun person to teach, because it’s like I’m not teaching him; we’re having these fun conversations.”

She also said that he always does more than what is asked of him for assignments, because he is really here to educate himself and not just get a degree.

Director of the Physical Plant, Brenda Pedigo said, “Robert is really impressive in that he goes to school and takes on the course load he has while working also. Housekeeping is a hard job to keep, but he shows up and is enthusiastic and just a really great guy. I couldn’t ask for a better employee and I’m sure his work ethic carries through to his school work.”

Drake believes that the doors will be wide open for Cooprider after he leaves UIndy.

“I’ll be interested to see what he does, whether intellectual work will always be who he is and not necessarily what he does for cash,” Drake said. “I don’t know where he’ll go. He could go into academia if he wanted to.”

Cooprider has big plans too.

“I want to write the great America novel,” Cooprider said. “I work in the physical plant now; maybe one of these days I’ll work in the metaphysical plant.”