This spring, several Eastern Mennonite University faculty and staff, among them David Glanzer, are moving into retirement after many years of service. To acknowledge their deep commitment to our community, we’ve offered the opportunity for them to share favorite memories of their time here.
Please stay tuned as we feature retiring faculty and staff (at least those were agreeable to our idea) in the coming weeks. A complete list of 2016 retirees concludes each article. The comment box is open below for those of you who wish to share greetings and memories with David. He can also be reached at david.glanzer@emu.edu or (540) 432-4244.
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One senses a yearning for contemplative time in nature from David Glanzer’s emailed remarks about his future plans. “Go sailing more and camping in the desert” on the list. He hasn’t had much time to do either in these favorite environments, having spent much of his professional life in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, far from both the high seas and the high desert.
In November 2015, David received the prestigious William H. Van Hoose Career Service Award from the Virginia Counselors Association (VCA). It was a fitting award to celebrate a noted career, most of which was spent at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU).
A 1971 graduate, David joined the faculty in 1978 after earning his doctorate at the University of Utah and conducting research on Navajo reservations in Arizona.
Returning to Virginia, David provided leadership as psychology department chair for the next 10 years. He and Professor Helen Benoit Anderson began talking in the 1980s about the possibility of a graduate program in counseling, and in 1993 it became a reality. David was director for two stints, from 1993-1999 and from 2003-2010.
He was graduate dean from 2008-2013.
A highlight of his time at EMU has been “relationships with students, opportunities to collaborate with colleagues and the privilege of participating in leadership roles for the university at large.”
“Over the past several years,” he adds, “I have been delighted to see the MA in Counseling program develop into an even stronger program under the leadership of Dr. Annmarie Early and her founding of the Institute for Experiential Psychotherapies, and now the capable leadership of Dr. Teresa Haase who excels in connecting the program and our students to the larger mental health counseling community in the region.”
Among his fond memories are some pivotal moments in EMC/EMU history :
- In the early ’70s, Galen Lehman and I introduced the first personal computers to campus — the first generation of Apple computers, complete with 16k of memory (no hard drive, a TV for a monitor)! Together we used the computer to control lab equipment and published a psychology lab software program called PsychLearn.
- In the early ’80s, inspired in large part by Professor Helen Benoit’s vision, I was enabled by the college to develop the first non-seminary graduate program at Eastern Mennonite College, which led of course to us becoming Eastern Mennonite University. The years in the nationally accredited MA in Counseling program have been richly challenging and rewarding. The pictures of our graduates that line our program hallway are continually inspiring.
- In the past 20 years, I have also been privileged with a leadership role in growing graduate programs at EMU, leading to the establishment of the current School of Graduate and Professional Studies.
In addition to camping and sailing, David anticipates eagerly “the time to give more focused attention to some writing projects, with gratitude for the grounding provided me over all these years as a member of this community.”
His Southwest travels will include many favorite places, sights and people: he particularly enjoys “the mix of cultures in Santa Fe, the high country around Flagstaff and the drop into the red pinnacles of Sedona, the people of the Navajo Nation (including my brother Dennis’ family), the birding in southeast Arizona, rockhounding in southwest New Mexico, the nights so clear and dark that you can see to walk by starlight.”
And the boat? “Sailing is on the boat that my daughter Katrina and I built when she was in high school. For now at least the plan is to continue to sail on the Chesapeake Bay, and a dream is to sail on the St. Lawrence Seaway through the Thousand Islands.”
Other retiring faculty and staff
Also retiring are the following faculty and staff (position listed is most recent held): Linda Alley, administrative assistant for events, director of the Summer Institute for Spiritual Formation and of the Congregational Resource Center, Eastern Mennonite Seminary, 27 years; Professor Don Clymer, Department of Language and Literature, 17 years; Professor Spencer Cowles, Department of Business, 27 years; Jan Gerber, information officer, 23 years; Professor Ted Grimsrud, Department of Bible and Religion, 20 years; Betty Hertzler, postal supervisor, 41 years; Eldon Kurtz, director of the physical plant, 28 years; Professor Roman Miller, Master’s in Biomedicine graduate program, 31 years; Jack Rutt, special projects support, 17 years; and Pamela Rutt, assistant director of the education graduate program at EMU Lancaster, 18 years.