Nancy Williams: I'm back and riding off into Sunset No. 1 after 37 years at UNCA

Hello from the sunset. The one ridden off into at the end.

I’m putting together Sunset Scenarios and Protocols. I always picture the ride-away is on a horse. But it can be in a car or train or even walking on down the road for that matter. It can be alone or with fellow riders. With a big recessional parade and lobster dinner or quietly out the back door.

For me, it’s not the end of working, merely the end of one chapter. A pause before I start the next job. Feels like being a college freshman. So many options. I’ve accepted it’s true that because of age, there are some things I’ll never do. Won’t birth another baby, won’t work as a lineman and won’t be a homecoming queen. However rethinking that last one since I found out about a nursing home which has a prom for the older residents once a year. Could still be crowned a queen.

So many jobs I’d enjoy. From organizing and managing big projects to being a greeter/receptionist in an office or lobby. Could work full time or 10 hours a week. I’ve thought about being a phlebotomist, pharmacy tech, or hospital administrator. (They need me.) I like to work and always have. I’ll land somewhere new doing something new. And bring the gifted mess that I am to my job.

Before I spin the Wheel of Employment, though, the first order of business is to get a couple of body parts refurbished. The internals (brain, heart, spleen and such) work almost as well as ever, but the container needs axle repair and replacement. After I get re-jointed (I’m thinking of the Tin Man saying, “Oil can …”), I’ll be back. Retirement Version One isn’t an end to work, it’s a pause for the body shop.

This concluding work chapter was long — 37 years. And what a grand adventure! Saw a lot during those years and covered a lot of ground. Sometimes a borderline workaholic, but didn’t feel like it because I loved what I did.

My university work obituary includes: Worked for eight of the nine chancellors in the school’s history. Developed systems to register (literally) over a million people for rooms, meals, and activities.

Supervised and managed large budgets, large staffs and projects. Developed initiatives to save big chunks of money and other enterprises to make big chunks of money. Fearlessly faced things that needed to be fixed and worked on solutions.

On the side, I served as adjunct faculty in the Education Department for 12 years; taught classes in the UNCA Correctional program for eight years, teaching at a maximum security prison for men. Taught CPR and First Aid on campus.

Developed extensive expertise in academic study skills, teaching classes on how to study the liberal arts as well as providing individual diagnostic study skills counseling. Initiated and led UNCA's professional test proctoring, administering high stakes group and individual exams to thousands of students and professionals. Directed UNCA's popular test prep program, providing high-quality test-taking instruction to hundreds of local high school and college students.

Served on nearly every campus committee from finance committees to institutional effectiveness. Developed the model for the UNCA Care and Crisis Team. Charter member of the first campus Chancellor's Staff Advisory Board and member of the state-wide UNC system staff senate for years.

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Directed the UNCA Advanced Placement Summer Institute, a complex program with many stakeholders, trained up to 250 high school teachers to teach the advanced curriculum and prepare students for the AP exams.

Became administrator of the university’s community writing program. Grew enrollment in classes from about 50 a semester to 220. Founded a youth summer writing program and coordinated the Thomas Wolfe Prize contest, developing a system to evaluate over 120 entries and 20 readers.

Received N.C. Housing Officers Lifetime Achievement Award and the N.C. Governor's Award for Excellence, the highest award a state employee can receive.

A fun highlight is I won the community-wide "name the mascot contest" (Rocky), and also started several campus activities that are still cherished traditions.

However, the most important thing isn’t what I did — it’s what happened to me. I learned the meaning of "The Velveteen Rabbit" story. Didn’t understand it so much when I was young. But as I became the older, kinda weathered version of my earlier self, I started to know. Became less flashy, less commanding, less intense. More sensitive, kinder, more inclined to notice the folks overlooked. A painfully slow, gradual, but profound change in understanding what matters. Emphasis on pain.

In my youth, I was extremely task-oriented, results-focused, with an incredibly high volume and quality of work. Over time, I redefined ‘work.’ It’s not just about the tasks, but the people, too. To be clear, I still don’t have much interest in management that is “let’s just hug, back-pat and praise each other for our importance.” But I know for certain now, down to my very bone marrow, what you do is no more important than how you do it. And every single person in the machine matters.

I look in the mirror now and think about the velveteen rabbit that grew shabby and was tossed in the dumpster, and I like it. I’m different because of the journey … the peaks and especially the hard times. I’m scruffier, less perfect, less tidier … and better.

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I could spend the rest of my life writing thank you letters and apologies. Grateful for the people I worked with during the first formative years of my career. Learned so much from early supervisors and administrators at the university. As I look back, Young Me was a handful. Energetic, passionate, smart and relentless. Saw things as black and white. Principles and policies were important and needed to be followed. At once.

The colleagues around me were just as bright as me and more so. Yet they saw a bigger picture. All of them retired long before me, but I hope they know I eventually I caught on and then passed on the life lessons I got from them. I hope they forgot or forgave me for being such a forceful whippersnapper.

Thank you, Pete, Yav, Maggie, Carol, Cathy, Keith, Sharon, Tom, Steve, Elaine, Sandra, Mike, Marilyn and dozens more. For putting up with me. For shaping my spirit. For showing me what matters. For long ago planting seeds and teaching me what’s real.

As that worn out velveteen rabbit discovered, “Real isn’t a way you are made … it’s what happens to you.”

Nancy Williams retired after 37 years at UNC Asheville. She can be reached at NancyLCWilliams@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Nancy Williams: Riding off into Sunset No. 1 after 37 years at UNCA