THE
IRON BLADE
Vol. 60, No. 6
In This Issue:
Senior Art Show Page 2
Cuffs for Cancer Page 3
Sports Page 4 & 5
Fulbright Scholar Page 6
Spring Fling Page 4 See more stories including Jermaine Fowler and Janine Latus at ironbladeonline.
SINCE 1955
60 Years of Ferrum College News
April , 2016
President Braaten Steps Down by Patrick Duggan Jennifer Braaten announced her decision to retire earlier this January after fourteen years of service as Ferrum College’s first female president. Braaten, 68, decided to leave her post in light of severe medical issues within her family, but cherishes the time she spent at Ferrum. “It’s been an honor and a privilege being at Ferrum,” Braaten said. “The best part of my life has been at Ferrum, I’ve loved it. I don’t even know how to describe it, other than to say there’s no place like Ferrum, and you’ll never find a better faculty, staff, student body, or sense of community than you do here.” Braaten was in born in Minnesota but grew up in San Francisco, where she got her first job in education as an 8th grade middle school teacher. “Middle school was my first job in education and also the most important,” Braaten said. “I say this not facetiously. If you can teach 8th grade you can do anything, just because of all the levels of emotional development, all the levels of engagement, and all the issues you have there.” After middle school, Braaten spent a short time teaching high school before getting her master’s degree and teaching community college. Eventually she moved to Florida, where she worked as a history and sociology professor, a provost, an academic dean, and a vice president of student affairs in various universities. “Teaching middle school is very interesting and engaging, but I was really interested in the development of the mind, and I wanted to work a little bit more with college students,” Braaten said. “I like freshman and sophomores because they’re in that transitional phase. It’s a really transformative time. Just like in middle school, everything is happening, but middle schoolers can’t sort it all out. For me, college was the place where you have an opportunity to find a path and accompany students on a path. That can be very exciting. I love it. I love college teaching, I still may go back to teaching.” Braaten’s first job as a president was at Midland University in Nebraska, where she worked for three and a half years solely
Photo Courtesy of Ferrum College
Jennifer Braaten is Ferrum College's first female Presdient
as an administrator, her first time completely separated from the classroom. “I think having been in the classroom really helps when you’re an administrator,” Braaten said. “There’s a perception that you’re removed from it, or you don’t know it, and that’s why I think in higher education we’re seeing presidents who are coming from the corporate world, or business, or the political arena, or maybe they’re lawyers, and they all may be good, but they really don’t understand the classroom. They don’t understand students in a lot of the ways someone who’s been in the classroom understands students. If you come from the academic side of the house you’re more likely to understand what it means to be an administrator then if you come from the military or corporate, because it’s not like the military and it’s not like a business. It’s a people, a developmental process.” Braaten made the decision to take a job at Ferrum to be closer to her family, who were living along the east coast at time; her daughter in Florida, her husband in Washington D.C., and her son in Boston. “After 9/11, the direct flights from Omaha to DC stopped, and I needed to be closer to DC, so I started to look for colleges in Virginia,” Braaten said. “I didn’t know how far away Ferrum was from DC, but
I said ‘Oh, a Virginia college, I’ll be closer to my husband!’ That was part of why I wanted to come, but also I love the motto, and I love the history.” Braaten championed a great deal of progress and expansion throughout her time at Ferrum. Over the course of her presidency, approximately $45 million was raised in capital campaigns, the college endowment grew to $50 million, and around $30 million in facilities were added to campus. In addition, Braaten’s work with local businesses led to student facilities like the YMCA and the Tri-area clinic, both located on campus. “I’d say my biggest area of initiative that’s visible was in the physical plan of the facilities,” Braaten said. “When I first came here, we had not been keeping up with facilities, so I’ve been doing that for residence halls. We’ve completely redone Franklin Hall, completely redone the library, built Clark and Dyer, built Arthur and Moore, and built the Hank Norton Center. A lot of energy went into facility upgrades for students. It’s such a beautiful setting, and we have great staff who take a lot of pride in presentation, so that was important to me.” Aside from physical and financial upgrades, Braaten took Cont on Page 6