Denise Williams

Denise Williams

“Very Interesting”: Denise Williams (1996) on Memorable Characters and Fascinating Episodes in Her Three Decades in the Department of History -- Memory #49 of 100  

Today’s Project 100 memory comes from Denise Bateman Williams.  She was born in Philadelphia.  Her mother was a nurse who worked at Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia.  Her father had served in the United States Navy during World War II and fought during the Battle of Midway.  After leaving the service, he took a blue-collar job in Gloucester City on the waterfront.  After many years there, he started his own trucking company, where his primary contract was with a hobby shop distributor, so he delivered goods to various hobby shops throughout the Northeastern United States.  When she was two years old, she moved to Elk Township where her grandmother lived.  Her mother’s parents were very well known in the Glassboro area, as they owned a restaurant.  She went to public schools and graduated from Delsea Regional High School in 1980.  In the Fall of 1980, she began studying nursing at the Atlantic Christian College (now Barton College) in Wilson, North Carolina.  After two years, she came back to New Jersey and began at Bloomfield College, where she continued studying nursing.  While at Bloomfield, her mother became ill, and she had to leave this second college and return home to care for her mother.  While tending to her ailing mother, she got a job at Traveler’s Insurance Company in Voorhees, New Jersey.  In July of 1988, after four or five years at Traveler’s where she had become a manager, she left for a job at Glassboro State in Accounts Payable.  The job at Glassboro State was a demotion in a way, but the job advertised free tuition, and she had promised her mother, who passed away in 1988, that she would complete her degree.  She began taking classes as soon as she could, now studying sociology, and she graduated with that degree in 1993.  Three years later, after not receiving a promised promotion, she transferred to the Department of History, replacing Mona Johnston as Administrative Assistant.

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After I didn’t get the promotion in Accounts Payable, I began looking to get out.  I had a job offer from the New Jersey Division of Probations, which I considered. However, there was also a position in History open. I knew the chair, Gary Hunter.  History as a field had always been interesting to me, but Gary being the chair certainly made the position very appealing.  After he interviewed me, during which he told me that I definitely didn’t want to work in Probations, I decided to take the job.

Gary was a really good chair, treating everybody fairly.  He got many concessions from the administration for the Department, including approval for lines that led to the hiring of Bill Carrigan and Pat McDevitt.  I remember that Dean Pearl Bartelt liked to smoke, as did Gary.  They would both come to each other’s offices to chat and smoke cigarettes.  Even after the University forbade smoking inside, they continued their old pattern, adding only the spraying of a can of Lysol to their routine.  After Gary stepped down as chair, Edward Wang became the chair.  I enjoyed working with Edward, though he would always yell when he needed me.  I remember one day that I did the same thing to him when he was on the phone, after which we agreed that we not yell for each other anymore.  Shortly after this, I got my own office, in part due to my role as Union president.  During Edward’s time, we hired several faculty members, including Jim Heinzen.  I remember Jim’s first day in the office.  When Jim opened his window, he discovered a bat, which soon landed in the middle of his office.  I retreated away from the bat, but another recent hire, Bill Carrigan, stepped in.  He stirred the bat to life to the point it flew around, scaring me and Jim. He eventually successfully removed the bat.

Working in the History Department was very interesting, as it was filled with various characters beyond Gary, such as Dick Porterfield, Robert Hewsen, Herbert Richardson, David Applebaum, and Lee Kress.  Hewsen always picked up the mail for me.  I was also one of the few people that really go to know Herb Richardson.  Herb was very quiet, but I would just go up to him and start talking.  Eventually, he became comfortable with me, to the point that I was the only one from the Department that he invited to his second marriage, which followed the death of his first wife.  Another person that I got along with very well was Cory Blake.  We laughed over so many things over the years before she left for the Dean’s Office.  I remember that she would help me out with various things, including one time even dropping off my choir robe with a seamstress!

Porterfield was a great professor.  He was energetic and outgoing (though a bit scatter-brained from the perspective of his administrative assistant).  In addition, there was a small scandal as the widowed Porterfield romanced and then married a student.  This had been common earlier in the history of Glassboro State, but this was when such things were becoming less frequent. 

One of the ongoing battles in the Department was between Lee and David.  One memorable flare up took place when the Department moved from the third floor to the second floor of Robinson Hall.  Both of them wanted the largest office downstairs.  The chair at the time was Jim Heinzen, serving as an Interim while Edward was on sabbatical. They both submitted paperwork that they had been hired first or otherwise had the right to the office.  In the end, I suggested that the office go to Joy Wiltenburg as she was the advisor for seniors.  They agreed to give the office to Joy, which was just about the only thing that I remember they ever agreed upon during my time in the Department.  I should say that the conflicts between these two were almost always in the background and never impacted the functioning or the collegiality of the Department.  As the administrative assistant, however, tension between the two was apparent to me.  In any event, I got along well with both of them.

Dr. Corann Okorodudu asked me to sit on the Steering Committee of Africana Studies, which led to my involvement in the Rosa Parks luncheon.  After Corann retired, I agreed to step up and take one of the lead roles for the luncheon.  In my mind, this was one of the ways that I could honor Corann, as I wanted this event she began to continue.  We succeeded, and the luncheon has grown over the years and is now a well-attended and much-anticipated event every February.  I also helped out with advising and mentoring students.  I was involved in the Harley Flack Mentoring program, which began when Donald Farish was President.  His wife, Maia, partnered with Julie Peterson, and they were very important in getting this program started.

 Rowan University allowed staff to take courses as one of our benefits. I began just taking classes that were of interest.  I always liked history as a topic, especially the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  In any event, one day I was advising a student, who was struggling with Historical Methods. I decided that I needed to take that class in order to be a better advisor.  I took it with Dr. Scott Morschauser, and I wrote my paper on Hubert Humphrey’s failed election campaign in 1968.  I ended up presenting that paper at the regional Phi Alpha Theta conference, and that was the moment I decided to pursue the full history degree (even though I already had a sociology degree).  I ended up taking two more classes with Dr. Morschasuer as well as classes with Drs. Carrigan, Duke Bryant, and Hunter.  I had a great ally in helping me do the research for these classes.  Lee Kress always took an interest in whatever I was researching, and he would go to the Library and find books and articles for me.  Lee and I had many conversations over the years.  We always talked about travel experiences.  I even joined the history honors society during this time. 

In 2017, I became President of the Rowan University branch of the Communication Workers of America (CWA), the largest union on campus.  I had been a shop steward for about ten years before this, during which I had helped organize a couple of strikes and various marches.  The greatest challenges I have faced as President have been related to the rapid transformation of the University and the resulting increasing bureaucracy.

I plan to retire in 2024.  My time in the Department has been wonderful.  I have gotten to know so many people and to have so many different experiences that I would be a very different person if I had worked somewhere else. I saw the Department as one big family.  In fact, we were even better than most families, as we had only a couple of folks that didn’t really fit in.  For the most part, the faculty have been remarkable, very supportive of me and easy to work with. 

In addition to working with the faculty, being able to help students was a really important part of my time in the Department.  I loved being there for students, helping them through their issues, advising them on how to go about their studies, and even advising them on their non-academic life when it impinged on their classes.  One of my favorite groups of students included Al Beaver, Dawn O’Leary, and Andrew Hodslofksi. 

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This is part of the Department of History’s “Project 100,” the collection and sharing of one hundred memories by Glassboro State College and Rowan University alumni and staff in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of Glassboro Normal School, later Glassboro State College, and now Rowan University.