When Sarah came to Carleton in the summer of 1996, she wasn’t much older than the students. She’d just gotten married and “wanted to get [her] foot in the door at Carleton,” so she took a 20-hour-a-week job at the Wellness Center (which became SHAC in 2011). While admitting to some concern about having summers off with that position, she notes she needn’t have worried as then-Associate Dean of Students “Hudlin Wagner scooped me up and hired me full-time” in the Dean of Students office before that “summer off” ever came.
She worked in DOS for a number of years until she had two small children, so Sarah and husband Joel decided it would be best for the family for her to switch back to part-time. She spent two years in Geo and “got to work with some really great faculty.” But, she notes, “after those two years, I realized I’m not stay-at-home mom material and I longed for a full-time challenging position again.” That led to a four-year stint in the Dean of the College office. After than, she found “a longing for working with the student population again. Our faculty are awesome, but I love the student energy at Carleton.” Luckily, Student Life wanted to add a position to support the Career Center’s director and she gladly accepted.
“Working in the Career Center has given me the opportunity to grow in ways that I hadn’t before and I love to come in to work every day,” she shares. Some of her main tasks in addition to supporting the director include budgets, co-supervising the Student Career Assistants, and supporting all staff in their everyday work.
In her spare time, she gets to hang out with two “very cool teenagers”. Luke (19) just finished his first year of college and Emaily (17) will be a high school senior next year. Sarah and Joel are figuring what to do in their spare time as “the next is starting to be empty most days. My many years of watching football, wrestling, baseball and volleyball are coming to an end.”
