GONZAGA FACULTY AND STAFF NEWSLETTER
DECEMBER 2023
VOL. 25 | #4
› ROTC Rockin’ Holidays
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› Campfire Conversations
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› Where the River Flows
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› Positive Outlooks Shine
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Finding the Light “I have always found it interesting that as we prepare for Christmas – one of the most hopeful seasons for Christians – we are heading toward the darkest night of the year. These past few years – plagued by political strife, social unrest, and, well, an actual plague – many of us have struggled to escape dark moods even briefly. We need light. We need joy. We need to be reminded that God is with us. When my kids were little, we used to take “moonlight” walks in December.
and look for the light. We always found a sliver of the moon, a glimpse of a star or a satellite moving across the black sky. Our walks usually ended in a comfortable silence, resting in the assurance that we found light in the dark.
As we bundled up, their anticipation was contagious, and their awe became my awe. We would walk around the block
With love, Rev. Janeen Steer, Mission & Ministry
‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it’ (John 1:4-5, NLT). Friends, may you be surprised with light this season and may you experience joy even in the hard times.”
ONE OF A KIND Masingale Spreads Joy
Nancy Masingale saw an ad in the newspaper for an offset press operator at Gonzaga University in 1977. She had no idea what the job entailed, nor what an offset press was. But she applied and was selected for the job. “Ginny Moeller was my boss. When she showed me the offset press and asked if I had ever operated one, I said ‘No. But I can learn.’ Apparently, she liked my positive attitude. And I learned quick,” says Masingale, who will be stepping down in February after serving 47-and-a-half years in the same office, her desk on either side of the hallway window in College Hall, “where I can be readily available to help anyone who needs it, or just have a conversation.” It is hard to imagine Campus Printing without Masingale, but she has instilled her passion for quality customer service on those left in place to carry on after Nancy retires to her Loon Lake cabin deck to ponder life’s mysteries every morning with a cup of coffee and a pristine view of the water, along with spending more time with her family. But she won’t be fully retired. She will still manage her Poor Boys Tire & Automotive shop at 2501 N. Division, a business she has owned and operated for many years. “Like here, customer service is key at my other business,” she says.
Campus Printing’s Nancy Masingale is retiring in February after serving GU for 47 years. She has seen a remarkable evolution in the printing business. From ditto machines and an offset press to magstripe typewriters and the IBM Selectric, “which I loved because it had a correcting button,” Masingale recalls. In the early days she oversaw the switchboard through which all incoming calls to Gonzaga were patched. Staff employees manned the board during the days, but students took the evening and overnight shifts, which meant “most of the time they were sleeping on the floor or taking a night off.” Masingale would fill in overnight, buzz home for a quick shower and a new set of clothes and be back at the crack of dawn to begin her regular shift. Of course, her regular shift was always early to complete any last-minute jobs for faculty who
needed something more before their 8 a.m. class. “If you are instilled with an ethic of providing good customer service, you want to help people have a very good day. My staff has always epitomized this ethic,” Masingale says. There was a point at Gonzaga where the University considered outsourcing all printing services. Masingale fought “tooth and nail” to convince the University that it made best financial and good common sense to keep those services in house. She won out. Nancy and her colleagues did a lot of work for retired History Professor Betsy Downey for 40 years. And Downey couldn’t be more appreciative.
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