Welcome

Welcome to my webpage.  I am a psychologist, teacher, writer, and lover of nature.  My husband and I live happily on fifty five acres of woodland with our cat and border collie.  I have been teaching at the University of Minnesota Duluth for the past eighteen years, have taught at several other upper level universities, both graduate and undergraduate, have been a clinician, a consultant, have been involved in business and civic activities, and worked as a counselor for a number of years. 

My Personal Career/Life Path

A number of people have asked me to give an account of my personal career/life path since that is one of my interests — so here goes. I was born in Chicago, Illinois. My father was the son of Polish immigrants and my mother was a Wisconsin farm girl who had emigrated to the big city. My early years were spent living in a Polish neighborhood on the west side of Chicago. My grandparents owned a “two flat” and they lived downstairs and our family lived upstairs. My father was a commercial artist who spent most of his time illustrating catalogs — he and my mother had originally met working in a munitions factory during World War II. When I was six, we moved what was then “out in the country” but what is now a suburb.

I attended school there and was a junior in high school before I ever thought about going to college. I worked at a resort flipping burgers the summer before my senior year and became acquainted with college students who spent many evenings around a campfire on the beach discussing all things philosophical. No one in my family had ever attended college and I discovered that I had to improve my grades to get in. In my senior year, I did that and was given early admittance to the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. My parents were quite astonished that I was interested but, as the oldest of seven children, I could see that they did not have the financial wherewithal to pay for my attendance. Fortunately, costs were much less than they are now and I was able to save enough money from my summer job to fund the first semester at UI. I have to admit that I was also eager to leave home and have an adventure. Our town was quite small and everyone knew everyone else and I wanted something bigger.

I majored in English Literature and, after graduation, I married my husband, a veterinary student. I had many jobs throughout my college attendance years — the first was as a hostess in a restaurant, followed by addressing mailings and packing boxes in an encyclopedia company, working for a group of anesthesiologists, for a hydrology professor, and for the vice president of the university. After my husband graduated, he took a job in the Chicago area and I took a job working for The Telephone Company (Ma Bell) as a customer representative and supervisor trainee.

Several children later, I decided to get a Master’s degree at Governors State University in Illinois in counseling. After we moved to Minnesota, I worked for a non-profit agency as a counselor, then supervisor of counselors, then area director. After that, I ran several businesses and was involved in civic activities and in 1994 decided to pursue a doctorate. Since then, I have been teaching and writing.

This is an excerpt from my book where I discuss that we can usually find “themes” that dictate the kinds of jobs or employment that we have in our lives. A disadvantage of being young is that you have no history to rely on — but I do think that thinking about life themes is especially important in this time because jobs are being created as we speak and it is most likely not possible to know what you will be doing ten years from now. Here is the excerpt:

I think there are a number of overarching qualities that have guided my personal and occupational choices with perhaps a dash of serendipity here and there. I have functioned as a helper, giving advice, direction and counsel. The majority of settings in which I’ve worked fall into the social settings category – being with people and having an interest in them. Much of my work has centered on communicating ideas both verbally and in writing. I have been involved in developing human resources and maximizing human capital in workplace settings. I have been charged with generating and organizing information. In general, I have worked for organizations that are non-profit or public service oriented and I have had multiple situations where I have applied theoretical knowledge in practical settings.