“If you really want something, you can do it. Follow your passions.”
This semester, I began working as a Student Assistant in the Dean’s Office of the communications building, and thought the Dean, Carolyn Ringer Lepre, would be perfect to interview.
HC: What is your official position in the school of communications?
CL: I am the Dean & Associate Professor of Communications at Marist College.
HC: What college(s) did you go to?
CL: For my bachelors in English Literature with a minor in Journalism, I attended Miami University in Ohio, followed by Ohio university for my Masters in Journalism. While I attended school in Ohio, I am actually from Westchester County, New York. Finally, my PHD is from the University of Florida for Mass Communications where I lived for four years.
HC: How did you decide to pursue a career in communications?
CL: Several different things. When I started at Miami, I entered as an Elementary Education Major. I thought I wanted to teach reading to Junior High School age kids. (At Miami), I had a really great professor who encouraged me to take Persuasion, Journalism, to look in that direction, and one I started taking those classes, I just fell in love with it. After, I declared an English major. At Miami, they did not have a Journalism major like we do here. The more I wrote, the more I realized I wanted to write for magazines. I took Magazine Journalism classes, and ultimately that’s why I went and got my Master’s degree, because I did not have a Journalism undergrad degree. I thought the Master’s degree would supplement what I had so I would be competitive in the market place and a better writer.
HC: Where did you do after you got your masters?
CL: I worked for magazine journalism including Martha Stewart Living, Modern Bride for a number of years, but because I had to write a thesis for my masters, I got the research bug. I thought “you know what, maybe the best of both words would be teaching about magazine journalism.” This way, so I could be a writer and a teacher, which is what I had wanted to be all along, so in some ways I came full-circle. I went back to school, got my PHD so I could teach college, and teach journalism, which is what I did for many years until I took the administrative job.
HC: How did you come into this position/were you a professor before?
CL: My first teacher job, I was an assistant professor at California State University of Chico, and then I moved and started working at the University of Tennessee, coordinated the magazine journalism program for four years, then I got the job here. I came into the communications program here and received tenure. During the duration of that, I became the coordinator of the Honors Program, became the Assistant Dean, and then this. I have been here for 9 years, was the interim dean for two years, and officially became the Dean a year ago this month.
HC: What about your college experience do you think helped you most to achieve your goals?
CL: I had really influential faculty. I was fortunate, I had a few professors who took me under their wing, encouraged me, saw ability in me. I owe it all to the professor of my Persuasion class, who convinced me to consider graduate school, and consider teaching for a living. It made a difference, and I never forgot. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I had not changed my major, because I still ended up in education, I ended up doing what I set out to do, just teaching older students. I wonder, with my kids, who are 14-year-old twin girls, what they will end up doing. One wants to be an illustrator for Marvel, and the other wants to do something in science, so it’ll be interesting to see what they end up doing.
HC: How do you think your job as a woman in higher education has positively impacted your girls?
CL: Theirs is always a tradeoff – every choice you make, you have to weigh the pros & cons. I am a big list maker. Being a dean is a much more 9-5 job, it’s an everyday kind of thing. As a faculty member, you have much more freedom (to select your schedule). When I moved from a faculty position to an administrative potion, one of the huge considerations I had was how is going to impact my ability to spend time with my kids. I knew I had to make sacrifices somewhere, and I had to decide if the tradeoff is worth it. I ultimately decided it (time spent with her children) is quality not quantity, and I make time for things that matter. The older they get, the harder it is to negotiate schedules, but by and large, when they need me I find a way to make it work. That’s the great thing about academics and higher education in general. I really hope they see that if you really want something, you can do it. It’s not easy, and you have to work hard for what your passions are and what you believe is the right thing. I hope that instead of telling them that, which I certainly do, I am showing them that hard work does pay off. That’s what I hope.
HC: Is there anything new and exciting going on soon in the school of communications?
CL: There’s lots of things, including several new curriculum proposals for Florence in the Fall 2017, and a new five-year program in Integrative Marketing Communication. There will be a new master’s degree for fashion/global fashion merchandising, which is exciting because of its new location. Fashion is moving to the Steel plant, we think, that’s really exciting. It’s going to be a terrific new building, not just for our art and fashion students, but it’s going to have a really nice garden, buffet, stand-alone emporium store, it’s going to be a place people will want to hang out. We have some new faculty coming in the fall, which will be lots of fun to bring some new people in. The sports center is doing tremendous work with their guest speakers, award ceremony that’s coming up next month. We have a social media center coming on, I’m working with Professor Jenny Donohue to build a center for Excellence in Social Media Engagement. This will have a whole slew of things attached to it, we hope a new curriculum piece as well as opportunities for interns to work there, outreach into the community, civic engagement, a whole bunch of different things. We are investigating having a new curriculum in social media. Additionally, the new assistant dean search is in progress, and we have not made any official decision yet.
HC: What are some of your favorite student ideas that have come through here? Who are students that have gone on to do cool things?
CL: There are a lot of cool things students have done here. I am not sure I could point to one specific student, as much as it’s really exciting to see someone you had a meaningful relationship with, whether as an advisor, teacher, write to you or reach out after they graduate. They reach out and say, “I’m so excited, look at what I have done, I am doing what I love, and that Marist is a big part of that.” I have multiple honors students who I have gotten close to through being the honors director, and hearing the amazing things that they are doing. A student wrote to me saying “I love my job, but I really want to get into screenplays. Will you read over what I have written?”. There is nothing more flattering than getting something like that sent to you. They not only trust your opinion, but that they thought of you as that research. Those are the stories I love.
HC: What would you suggest to students who want to work in education?
CL: Do it! Higher education is the best, I have never once regretted, ever, at all, making the change from a working journalist to going into higher education. It’s the most interesting, fulfilling job I can imagine, because you’re constantly surrounded by people who are interesting, smart, excited. Many of them will be, or are, our future. To see the new ideas is invigorating, so I love it.
HC: How do you think you have impacted the women of this school, in terms of being a female dean compared to if we have a male dean?
CL: I hope I’m a positive role model, maybe that’s something most people hope for. I think actions speak louder than words, and I figure if I am doing the best job that I know how, and that means something to somebody, great. That would be terrific, I would love to impact somebody in that way, that they can achieve their dreams.