50 years in 400 words

Many of you may remember that I struggled to learn to swim at Hunter and am lucky to have met the graduation requirement; I suspect it was just one length of the pool. I did, however, learn to dive and loved the diving. That’s been my life story. I like to dive in and my career has been the same. I dove into educational administration in 1980 and have been in that role ever since. Early childhood is where my heart is and though much in the world has changed young children still come with the potential for extraordinary curiosity and humanity. They are making a noble effort to adjust to all the craziness around them: technology, intense parenting, distracted and vulnerable adults, child-targeted marketing schemes and highly scheduled lives.

I met my lifetime partner in my second year of college, only one year after graduating from Hunter, and we squeezed out 45 years together before he passed away in 2013. We were given the gift of three remarkable children and the families they have grown. We now span 97 years from my 98-year-old father, who is my children’s last surviving grandparent, to my granddaughters, five-year-old Ruby and Felicity who just turned one.

A big part of our family life has been travelling, something we encouraged our children to continue to do as they were able to travel on their own. No surprise that one grandchild lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and the other lives in Auckland, New Zealand. We came to NYC for jobs right after college, lived overseas, returned to NYC and then moved to Rochester, NY in 1980. One daughter still lives there. In 1997 we couldn’t resist the draw of new job opportunities in NYC and have been here ever since.

Work-life balance can be as challenging today as it was in the years when my children were young. Just balancing different things: making time to travel to see grandchildren; visiting my dad upstate; keeping in touch with family and friends; staying focused at work and teaching as an adjunct at Hunter College. And though it sometimes feels like I am constantly on the road to somewhere else I still love having access to NYC, time to learn to play the violin and a small garden to mess around in.