By Kyle Kern, Staff Writer
You may have noticed the change in scenery in the lower level of Degenstein Campus Center. The Residence Life office has found the former Degenstein lab space as its home. However, you may not have noticed another change that has happened. The office has a new director.
Colleen Bunn.
You may not know Colleen Bunn, but she wants to know you.
“I want to be a resource for people on this campus,” she said.
Bunn met with the Student Government Association on Sept. 24 to introduce herself, provide goals for the year and discuss the new housing selection process.
Dean of Students and Campus Life Christie Kracker, began working with Bunn as soon as she set foot on campus.
While you may think that Bunn has been interested in the Director of Residence Life position since birth, she may have more in common with Susquehanna students than you think. For us to fully know Bunn, we should start at the beginning.
Bunn grew up in the rural area of Honesdale, Pennsylvania. There she attended Wallenpaupack Area School District, a rather large school district. Bunn emphasized that the school district was a very large but rural area, saying that her best friend in middle school lived 45 minutes away from where Bunn lived.
There, the common thing to do was go to see a movie or wander the mall. Being from a rural area, Bunn said things were so spread out that there wasn’t much to do. In other words, they had to make their own fun.
In high school, Bunn was the president of three organizations including the Students Against Drunk Driving club. She was also involved in the theater, show choir, speech and debate, and the manager of the men’s soccer team and the women’s basketball team.
“As you can probably tell, I’m a workaholic,” Bunn said. Bunn carried that sentiment over into her collegiate career as well, where she attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Dickinson College had roughly 2,100 students when she went Bunn said, like Susquehanna. There Bunn dove headfirst into student extracurricular activities. She was a student manager of Dickinson’s after hours hang out spot, as well as becoming a resident assistant Bunn’s sophomore year at college.
In addition, she joined the speech and debate team and the mock trial team. “I majored in English and thought that I was going to go to Law School,” Bunn said. During her senior year Bunn prepared to take the LSAT, the entrance test to be accepted into Law School.
The first rejection letter from a law school came in the day after Bunn won best attorney at a mock trial state event. At first, she was discouraged but eagerly awaited the other decisions. The last rejection letter came in during mid-April. Bunn was in the Residence Life office at Dickinson venting to the other resident assistants about what she could possibly do next.
That’s when her boss Michael Malone, the director of residence life, came out to talk to her. He asked her, “Colleen, if you could do anything after college, what could it be?” She answered, “Michael, I would either be a camp counselor or a resident assistant.”
He said that she couldn’t be a camp counselor for the rest of her life, but that she could technically be a resident assistant. Bunn then turned toward student affairs as a career. One of her first decisions was to apply to the Shippensburg master’s program in Counseling and Student Affairs.
However, Bunn wanted to find a job before that. “I wanted to be back in the Central Pennsylvania area after graduating,” Bunn said. Bunn applied for and got hired as a residential night staff worker at the Hoffman’s Home for Youth after graduating in 2004.
Her schedule for her first year at grad school, was working early mornings and going to class in the evenings. Bunn continued this schedule for five months, until she applied for and received the Graduate Assistantship position at Shippensburg.
“In that Spring, my dad got diagnosed with [colon] cancer, and it was my sister’s first year at college at Dickinson,” Bunn said. Bunn shuttled between work and classes while also making sure she and her sister could be with family while her father was recovering.
Eventually, Bunn quit working at Hoffman’s Home for the Youth in May in order to be closer to home with her family when her father was going through treatment.
“He went through chemo and radiation,” Bunn said. It has been over a decade since this moment in time, and her father is still alive. “He lives with an ostomy bag for the rest of his life,” Bunn said.
“We are very happy he is here,” Bunn said, “He got to walk me down the aisle, dance with me at my wedding and has seen the births of all his grandchildren.”
Through of all this, Bunn started going to graduate school full time that September, where she was a graduate assistant handling mostly alcohol and a few drug judicial cases. The summer after Bunn started full time, she did a practicum at the University of Scranton with their orientation. Bunn also worked for Trail’s End Camp, like she had done throughout her high school career, and took two classes.
Bunn graduated May 2007 with her master’s degree.
The summer of 2007 held another first for Bunn: She was not working at Trail’s End Camp again which was a part of her motivation for going into student affairs. “The summer I spent from junior year to senior year at camp helped me to remember that I am a good leader,” Bunn said, “I am good at what I do and [it] was a huge confidence boost.”
Bunn said it gave her confidence to move forward with student affairs when she was dealing with the adversity of not getting into law school. “When people say you need real work experiences to camp counselors, I disagree,” Bunn said, “Camp counselors are typically the ones who know how to work in groups, mediate conflicts and how to be leaders, because they have been given those skills and trained in these skills while at camp.”
Next, Bunn was an assistant director of residence life at the Miami University of Ohio. “I had been the associate director of residence life in charge of hiring for the position,” said Vicka Bell-Robinson, the current director of residence life at Miami University of Ohio.
Bell-Robinson said she believes that Bunn has a tremendous amount of potential. “Not that she didn’t have the talent, but she had the characteristics of strong professionals I knew,” Bell-Robinson said, “She was thoughtful in her responses and had passion for the students.”
“When I first think of Colleen, I think of Colleen as a mother, because that is something that we share above all is our children,” Kracker said, “I think that she blends family and professional [life] in a very appropriate and meaningful way.”
In terms of family, Bunn’s husband, Matt, and daughter, Amelia, are here at Susquehanna. “They are a part of her identity as a director of residence life, and I think that is important for students to see,” Kracker said, “I also think that she is a fierce woman and she has strong passionate beliefs about gender and equity and opportunity.”
“Matt and I met in Carlisle, Pennsylvania,” Bunn said. Bunn will be happy to tell anyone about how they met. Bunn had taken up work at Target in 2007 to earn more money for school. Matt had come to the Carlisle store for its opening and then was hired to stay at that location.
“The first memory of him is me trying to break down a box with my keys and Matt coming into the back with a knife and saying, ‘stop ruining your keys’,” Bunn said laughing.
Later on, Matt had challenged Bunn not to receive a negative score for taking too long to check someone out at the register. “Target used to rate their employees on check-out time, green and red, and you were supposed to have majority green,” Bunn said, “Matt said that if I didn’t have another red score all night, he’d buy me a drink.”
True to his word, the two went to the local bar, Alibi’s. “We talked and stayed until 4 a.m.,” Bunn said.
Bunn almost had a different career path. The Target executives offered her to take part in their executive training and would be offered a store within the next year or so. “I decided to hold off and wait to get a job in student affairs and then I got the job at William and Jefferson College,” Bunn said.
Bunn has had a lot of growth and experience with gender equity and social justice in various positions. “At Miami I was the advisor to F-word, Feminist Working on Revolutionary Democracy,” Bunn said, “That group of students continued to challenge me.”
“They continued to help me think about the ways we think about gender and how students are affected by our policies,” Bunn said, “I want to continue to help out on this campus as well.”
Bunn is currently assisting Dena Salerno, the interim Title IX coordinator, with Title IX work. “I am assisting Dena because she is the only person working on that, and I am making sure I continue in that way,” Bunn said.
Bunn had worked with similar situations at previous institutions. “I ended up advising the William and Jefferson Vagina Monologues in my second year,” Bunn said, “At Connecticut College, the dean of students asked me to advise the student women’s center.”
“It helped to inform and change how I thought about gender and sexuality, grow as a professional and how to understand our students in a better way,” Bunn said.
At Miami University of Ohio, she chaired the Diversity and Inclusion Committee as well as helping to rewrite the gender-neutral housing policy according to Bell-Robinson.
Currently, Bunn has opened the office in support of the Speak Against Hate campaign that is on Susquehanna’s campus, as well as encouraging the office of Residence Life to support SU Coming Out Day for the LGBT community on Oct. 8.
Sowers thinks that Bunn is going to be able to drive the office in the right direction. “Colleen listens to each area coordinator’s input and incorporates them into her ideas and approaches to things the office has done and will be doing in the future,” she said.
Sowers said that the office had been trying to shift to a more student-centered approach in the last year. “We could tell that she did care about student experiences, that she would be student-centered and had a very student-centered undergraduate experience.” Sowers said, “Typically, people who have those experiences tend to pass them along.”
On a personal note, Bunn would love to get out and exercise more. “I would love to be able to go hiking again,” Bunn said. “I have goals for October, have a successful focus group for the housing selection and to exercise.”
“I used to go for a run over lunch at Connecticut College, but it got thrown off because of Amelia.”
Bunn’s priorities have shifted since Amelia had been born just over a year ago. “I have been making a habit of leaving work at 5:30 p.m. every day because Amelia is in bed by 8 p.m.,” Bunn said, “It is important for me to have time with her and Matt.”
Now, Bunn includes more in the big picture of life. “How is my career going to affect my daughter or my husband?” Bunn asks herself routinely, “Matt has been with me as long as I have been a professional.”
“We looked at Susquehanna and decided that there were more opportunities in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania than Oxford, Ohio for Matt when he decides to work again,” Bunn said, “and being closer to family.”
“This is what pushed me towards getting my Ph.D, even when being pregnant,” Bunn said, “I would have had that drive and focus even without Amelia, but Amelia helped motivate me to do it.”
Bell-Robinson noted that the work Bunn did at the Miami University of Ohio never wavered during the time Bunn was pregnant, maintaining her responsibilities at her work and pursuing her doctorate. “Colleen put as much work into Amelia as she did her work,” Bell-Robinson said, “Amelia and Matt are the most important [things] in her life.”
Looking forward, Bunn has some goals in mind. “I am excited to make our housing process more student-centered, and I want to be seen as a resource on campus,” Bunn said, “That is something I was seen as by other students at previous institutions.”
With her Ph.D fresh in mind, Bunn introduces herself as Doctor Bunn. In response to joking from Jonathan D. Green, the president of Susquehanna, “The thrill hasn’t worn off yet,” Bunn exclaimed.
Bunn is incredibly proud of challenging herself to finish her doctorate. “It has given me fantastic opportunities and fantastic connections with faculty,” Bunn said.
“I spent four years of my four and a half years at Miami University of Ohio, so I had to balance work and [being] away from the office when I was in class,” Bunn said, “But my supervisors were incredibly supportive.”
Kracker added that Bunn aspires to do as much as she can. “I admire that in her. She’s caring and has a big heart where she wants the best for others,” she said.
