Kate (Kathy) Krider Satchwill

MBA Xavier University (1985)

Early career: Part time English teacher, community volunteer, work at home mother, super bleacher-sitter & sports fan, and 7 years as Field Staff and Director of Education for Great Rivers Girl Scouts, Cincinnati.

Then, 30+ Years in Hospitals & Senior Living: Marketing, Human Resources Development & Administration; 4 Years SMWC Vice President of External Affairs; 3 Years English & Social Studies Teacher, Mecklenburg County Jail.

We've lived & worked in IN, WV, OH, NJ, MI, GA, SC, TN, and moved to Charlotte, NC in 1998. Since 1965 there have been serendipitous adventures, Providential opportunities, many completed tasks, and many an uncompleted household chore as I've 'gone those miles and kept those promises.' I've also met challenges, overcome my share of miseries, wallowed occasionally in self-pity, and absolutely positively enjoyed learning and laughing with family, friends and career colleagues from around the world.

Since 2009 (when I left that grand finale career-culminating, full-time employment experience as a teacher of high school boys in jail), I've been earning a few welcome dollars as a free lance writer/instructional designer/collaborator for online undergraduate and graduate courses.

I also spend more than a few freebie hours working and trying to change the world one relationship at a time with people who are passionate about politics, social justice, workforce development and multicultural learning.

With my busy international family (8 living of 11 children of Bill & Georgia Krider '38)and Bill's Satchwill also large extended family, their spouses, their children and now grandchildren, & great grandchildren, I also spend lots of time keeping up with what's happening on facebook. Hooray for this new way of connecting and re-connecting in 2010 and beyond!

Finally, I continue to get all mushy and sentimental about all these looking back memories, so I look forward. I imagine peace, watch new episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm and get a daily dose of anynews but Glenn Beck. I open many a magazine, rarely finish anything but the cartoons and fiction in the New Yorker, love trash novels that I get to read at the beach, re-reading all the words of Emily Dickinson, Hopkins, Sedaris, Ephron, the Brontes and more than a few textbooks, anthologies and dusty beloved books that I just cannot seem to throw away no matter how many times we've moved.

I love music & lyrics from Streisand, Maura O'Connell, Judy Collins, the brilliance of a soprano or the mellow sounds of an alto. I still listen and also love Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd & Led Zeppelin; John Lennon, Mozart and Brahms, Gilbert & Sullivan, sounds from any cello, French horn, oboe, tenor sax--and drums.

I also enjoy ALL kinds (and too often too much) red wine, smooth Scotch, Champagne bubbles, foods that others cook, and best of all now I find more time to wonder where you all are, what each of you has been up and where you've been since 1965. And, oh YES! I find time to take naps and savor the time to do absolutely nothing. Do you?

I came and left the Woods three times. In each decade, the Woods meant learning to learn what defines a genuine, 100% authentic private woman's college liberal arts catholic education. Each time there was time--for long talks, and walks, or quick bridge games, sharing secrets, making many memories, life long friends and making some monumental life changing decisions. My first time at the Woods was for two years, four semesters with the Class of 65.

The second time I came, in the spring of 1972, the Woods meant a unique opportunity, finally, to earn my Onyx; as a pioneer in the distance education program that would become the enrollment-saving innovation that has become the reason, I think, that the Woods has survived into the 21st Century. And, that second time culminated with graduation, Class of '74, with my sister Janie, whose ring I wear since her oh so untimely death in 2001 from mesothelioma cancer.

The third time I came, S. Barbara Doherty hired me away from a Corporate Hospital Administration job in Michigan. As a Vice President, the Woods meant giving up a much more lucrative job for yet another opportunity to serve and be served by all that the Woods means to all who come there--to work, to teach, to learn or simply to walk the Woods' sacred grounds.

The Woods with the Class of 65 meant: Audrey Volasky's English Class, French class with S. Georgiana, being in awe Sacred Scripture class with S. Alexa, working late nights or in the darkroom for Fagots, the Aurora, News & Propaganda Analysis with S.Mary Gregory; and S. Rosalie's theology final exam--which I wrote totally inebriated because I had slugged a hot toddy of straight Seagram 7 Crown to alleviate horribly debilitating cramps from the curse. The bottle for 'medicinal purposes only', was stashed in a tall blue box, giving forever memorable meaning to the branding of Moddess Because...

The Woods in the 70's meant completing my WED assignments at home, writing papers on Asian Literature to linguistics to Shakespeare and Zelda, gathering research or reading a text while watching the oven or washer/dryer-timers, stopping at the UC Public library on the way home from work, or sitting on the bleachers at a Little League game, then finally presenting a senior project, and getting my Woods Ring. WED was learning to meet the incredibly extraordinary academic standards of Jim Wynn, Patrick Harkins, S. (now) Jeanne Knoerle, S. Marie Denise my WED advisers and of course, graduating with Janie.

In the 90's the Woods meant knowing and admiring Alice Quinlan, fun zips across campus in Connie Bauer's red Miata convertible, and learning from and with Henry Diamant, S. Ruth Eileen, Jean Harrison, Mary Margaret Bowles, Kathi, Karen, Jackie, Melissa, Gwen, students I learned to love and count as life-long friends. The Woods meant meeting more women and men whose efforts re-awakened my passion for the quality of a SMWC education that every Woods faculty, staff and board member gives with endless generosity to literally thousands of students--because we love the Woods.

Oh--and that third time at the Woods meant helping to write and win the Lily Grant with S. Suzanne Daley to increase on-campus diversity, the initiation of the Single Mothers With Children program and the gloriously wonderful exchange program with Providence University in Taiwan. What a trip, right Mary Helen?

The abrupt end of that third journey back to the Woods left lasting scars, but I drove through the gates then, and return whenever I can, with an even greater understanding of the healing power of the 'place', the holy grounds that Woods women (and some really fine men!) have walked. Providence never fails!

With the Class of 65--Meeting Eileen Janssens and her dad at that recruitment event disguised as Journalism Workshop. I WAS NOT GOING TO SMWC--but Eileen was so cool, I thought it just might be fun anyway! Some flashbacks of the fun I could never have anticipated: A spring cookout/hike adventure Saturday escape-escapade complete with s'mores, probably some beer, ransacking files and breaking windows at that abandoned coal mine. (Whose finger got slashed and needed stitches?) The Woods winter ski trip to Eileen's family cabin in MI, made oh so much more dramatic by Carolyn's swerve and subsequent scary-because-the-musical-diva's 'possible injuries' in the other car meant a long, nervous stopover at the hospital in Kentland, IN. ND football weekends (especially the Navy game--forever thanks, Nance); The memorable Spring Break train ride to NYC, NJ and dancing on that pin-ball machine at that crowded bar in Connecticut; introducing dates to Annie B in Guerin and to whomever was the fully-habited, male-intimidating SisterWhomever on duty in LeFer; The Woods meant and still means friends, the confidence occasionally bordering on arrogance that comes from choosing a women's college, living my freshman year with 'girls' who delight me even now when I try to remember all their names and then, as a sophomore, sharing the sun-parlor suite with my two Kathy roommates, Ineman & Thursby. It was grand to live and learn at the Woods in those halcyon high-enrollment 60's. When I 'changed my mind about the convent' and wanted to come back--no rooms in LeFer, maybe second semester? The rest, as Providence would have it, is history.

Have I gotten all the best? Forgotten more than I can remember? Favorite Woods stories?--to be continued.