After high school, she attended the Cumnock Oratorical School, 1914–1916. After graduation, she taught
elocution and girls' athletics in high schools in Colorado and Springfield, Missouri. Northwestern forced her to retire in 1961, but in the face of alumni protest they let her stay on for two years as a part-time
lecturer. In 1963 she retired as
professor emeritus. Despite Karuse's accolades, some of her former students have been critical of her methodology, including former student
Karen Black, who reported in a 2013
HuffPost interview, "Alvina Krause would not validate and would not allow. I think she had favorites, and you could never figure out why you weren't a favorite, and it never made any sense." ==Students==