SPRING 2008 Community College Magazine - Northampton ...

ALumNi prOFiLe
from adult student to
COLLEGE DEAN
Jane Hudak ’89 feels a special tie to students at the Wescoe School. By Myra Saturen
LIKE MANY ADULT
students at NCC, students at
Muhlenberg College’s Wescoe
School come to class after
working a job, after checking
the kids’ homework, after
putting the baby to bed. Their
average age is 38.
Wescoe’s dean, Jane
Hudak, ’89, knows what it’s
like to juggle family, work and
school; she did so herself. A
woman with a warm smile and
bubbly, down-to-earth manner,
she feels a natural kinship with
Wescoe’s adult learners.
Hudak began her own
higher education 20 years ago
An Affinity For Adult Students
Dean Hudak and class of the Wescoe School.
at NCC. She was 24, married,
employed and scared. No
one in her family had gone to
college. Her mother, raised
in rural North Carolina, did
not have the opportunity to
progress beyond the eighth
grade. Her father, a Korean
War veteran and journeyman
at Bethlehem Steel, had
a high school diploma, but
not a college degree. None of
the adults Hudak knew in her
center city Bethlehem neighborhood
had attended college.
College, Hudak thought, was
for “other people.”
Still, at Liberty High
School, she always did well.
After graduation, she stayed
on as the produce manager
at Bethlehem’s Schoenen’s
Market, where she had worked
for several years. Meanwhile,
Hudak’s college-going friends
kept coming to her for help
with their assignments. Finally,
Hudak asked herself: If I can
help my friends with their
college work, why can’t I go to
college myself?
With this glimmer of
confidence, Hudak enrolled at
NCC, continuing, part-time, at
Schoenen’s. College seemed
daunting at first. But Hudak
quickly found a supportive
environment. “The people at
NCC were welcoming. They
made me feel that I could do it.
The professors had great dedication,
worked so hard, and
they instilled a love of learning,”
Hudak says. “College
was difficult, but so exciting.
I was exposed to things I had
never seen or heard about. It
set me on fire.
“Much of my approach
to serving an adult student
population is modeled after my
experience as a young adult
student at NCC,” she says.
Professors she found
particularly inspiring included
Douglas Heath, geography and
geology; Earl Page, history/
sociology; Craig Kilpatrick,
psychology; and James Von
Schilling, English.
After graduating from
NCC with an associate degree
in education, Hudak earned a
bachelor’s degree in political
science and a master’s degree
from Kutztown University in
student affairs. During busy
years of work and study (she
worked and interned at many
schools, including NCC’s
financial aid office), she gave
birth to two sons, now 7 and
11. She often registered for
classes, baby on hip.
Eager to work with adult
students, Hudak joined the
Wescoe School as a part-time
academic advisor in 1998.
Mentored by Dr. Samuel
Laposata, Hudak advanced to
assistant, associate and interim
dean. In 2007, she was appointed
dean. In this role, she
creates course schedules, hires
faculty, develops programs,
oversees the college’s summer
courses, does community
outreach and – her favorite
activity of all – counsels students.
Associate dean during
Hurricane Katrina, Hudak led
the Muhlenberg College community
in opening classes,
dormitories and their lives to
displaced students from Tulane
University, in Louisiana. “It
was the proudest moment
of my life,” she says of the
campus-wide endeavor.
She is also proud that
42 NCC ● SPRING 2008 PHOTO COURTESY OF MUHLENBERG COLLEGE