Meet Our Department Secretary: Nancy Rothermel

Q: Where are you from?
N: Originally, I’m from Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, which is in Montgomery County.  It’s fifty miles northwest of Philadelphia.  That’s where I grew up.

Now I live in Klingerstown.  That’s an hour from Bloomsburg.

Q: Where did you graduate from?
N: I graduated from Boyertown high school for my high school diploma.  I went to Central Penn - then it was Business School, but now it’s Central Penn College.  I graduated there with an Associate’s Degree in Accounting. Then, I graduated from Kutztown University in 2012 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science.

Q: How long have you worked at Bloomsburg University?
N: Five years.

Q: What goes on in your typical day?
N: Well, I usually check my email first.  That’s where the bulk of my work comes from.  Like this morning, sometimes a faculty member will stop by - I had a member stop by today who was having trouble copying something.  Once in a while we’ll have maintenance issues - “this room’s too hot,” or “this room’s too cold,” or “we’re having a plumbing issue.” Sometimes I’ll have to call technology in about related issues if a projector isn’t working.

Students, of course, will stop by and ask about classes - or they might have advising-type questions -and I refer them to the department chair.

Q: What are your favorite kinds of books and genres?
N: I kind of like nonfiction a little bit better than fiction because I feel like you can read things that can help you as a person.  A few years ago I started reading Beverly Lewis, which is Amish fiction.  I like her books a lot.  I hate to say it, but I’m not too much of a reader.  [laughs] Oh, biographies.  I enjoy reading biographies about celebrities and things like that.

Q: If you did teach, what kind of English class would you teach?
N: Probably something basic, like grammar.  I might teach something like Dr. Costanzo or Dr. Durian on linguistics.  That would be something interesting.  Actually, I like writing, too.  So, maybe a writing course.

Q: What would the title of a book about you be?  Alternatively, what’s a book you could write?
N: What about - and this goes years back, when I was still in elementary school - a book that I read that I felt sounded a little bit like me and what I was going through was called Girl in Cotton Wool. It was about a British teenager and her parents wouldn’t let her go out or do anything. They got some neighbors - they were in a double house - and she became friends with the girl next door.  The parents didn’t want her hanging around this girl and thought she was a troublemaker, bad news, so what she ended up doing - she cut a hole in the wall and put her wardrobe up against it.  She would crawl through it and go out and go dancing.  My parents were a little like - not that bad, but they were a little bit like that.  I’d hear them go, “Are you reading that book again?”

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to share about yourself?
N: I thought you were going to ask me something about my career goals.  What I pulled up [on my computer] was - near the beginning of the year, when things are a little slow, I was trying to think of what I could do.  I went on Lynda.com... and I started looking at this stuff, and this Dave Crenshaw - he has his own website too - but he has all these courses on here, and I completed three of them.  This was around February.  [I completed] one on time management, achieving your goals, and improving your focus.  I felt like I needed to do a little more with continuing education.  I have some other ones that I started but haven’t finished yet.  It goes back to - I said how I like nonfiction books for improving myself, and I’m always interested in stuff like that. The time management one was very helpful.  I’ve got all of these folders now - my inbox folder and others.  Before I did [this course] I felt like I was organized, but I’d have - [pointing] a pile of papers here, a pile over here, and so on.  If there’s anything on my desk now, it’s what I’m currently working on.  It really helped. 

Q: What’s something you would like to see for the English Department in the future?
N: I would like to see us offer a master’s degree, but it would have to get approved through graduate studies, and we don’t have the faculty to teach the extra courses.  We’re a little short on faculty right now.  So, that would be something… I might even look into something like that [to take], depending on what it was about.  I don’t know if that’s the best thing, but I think about that every now and then.

Thanks so much for the interview, Nancy!