 I'm Caitlin Collins. I'm one of the co-editor-in-chiefs of The Manor, which is Fairfield's yearbook and the other co-editors, Rebecca. And we created this event because this year at Fairfield, it's the 50th anniversary of women. And so we invited some of our past female editor-in-chiefs to come speak and talk about their experiences at Fairfield. So here's Rebecca. I'm Rebecca. Yeah, so we're just going to get rolling, I guess. So today we have Susan, Megan, and Julia, who are all kind enough to join us. And we can just, you know, start with each of you want to say a little bit about yourselves, tell us, you know, where you are now a little bit. And yeah, so Susan, do you want to start? Sure. I'm Susan Kuhn-Howard, and I am a psychotherapist, and I'm in private practice, and I've been doing that for about 37 years. After I left Fairfield, I went to Yukon School of Social Work and got an MSW and have been working in that field ever since. I live in Suddington, Connecticut with my husband. I have two grown children and three grandchildren. And I guess that's a synopsis. Awesome. Thank you. Megan, would you like to go next? Sure. Hi, everybody. So I'm Megan Amato. My maiden name is Palt, and I live in Norwalk, Connecticut with my husband and my two kids. They're toddlers, a boy and a girl. And I graduated from Fairfield in 2005. So 15 years I've been an accountant. And even more recently, I actually am a book lady. So kind of going back to my yearbook roots, but on the side I do sell children's books now. So it's just kind of like a fun little hob and jobby for me. But I'm actually originally from Seattle, Washington, and I came to Fairfield and then I guess I just never left Connecticut. So I'm really down the street. But I worked in public accounting for about seven years, and then I worked for Avon and most people know Avon and the ladies who sell door to door. And then more recently the last two years I've been working at PDC Brands, which is a small consumer products company and we sell beauty products and have some salt. So a bunch of bath and fragrance type of thing. So, but I've been doing accounting and finance my whole career. Excellent. Thank you. And Julia. My, I guess my maiden name that I graduated in 2005 with was Messina. I'm now married to my husband Jonathan Burns was also a graduate of the class of 2019. Since our class of 2009 sorry. I graduated in 2009 and since then I have completed medical school at Albany Medical College and now I am a physician at Mount Sinai Hospital with a specialty in geriatrics and my husband and I are currently living in New York City. Cool. So, our first question besides a little bit of background about you is what, what drew you to the manner and Julia since you just spoke do you want to speak to that. Sure. So, I was initially drawn to work or get involved with the manner because I had been involved in the creation of my middle school and high school yearbooks. So it was kind of just a natural kind of progression and I came to Fairfield. So it was also something kind of like a nice break from my academic life and particularly an academic life that focused on science. I was a biology major at Fairfield. So, yeah, it was kind of a little bit more creative. For me, I also really enjoy photography so it was a pretty natural fit and progression for me and to continue to work on yearbooks and publications in my college career. Great. Megan, do you want to tell us a little bit about what drew you to the manner. Sure. I think I also was thinking, you know, looking for something to do that was outside of just academics and I was in the business school studying accounting for really day one. But, you know, growing up, I really was like, my career aspiration was to be an author, a writer of some sort. So, this I felt like kind of balanced out. My career I was going to be taking to a little bit more of my creative side. I had actually never done the yearbook in high school or middle school I think I was just maybe too busy with sports and other things at the time. And so I joined right in when I was a freshman, got some of my friends to come as well. Yeah, I've always liked looking, writing, you know, doing things like with pictures and cropping them stuff so it was it was appealing to me. Tastic and Susan. Well, I have to say I was not drawn to the manner the manner was drawn to me. What wound up happening is, I didn't mention this in my introduction but I was in the first class that women were accepted for the full four years. And when we got to campus, all of the student activities were defunct, because there had been a strike and part of the, what happened as a result was all the student activities were canceled. So the publishers representative knew me from having just done my high school yearbook. I was the literary editor. And he and the director of alumni relations who was the faculty advisor came to me and asked me if I would help. So I did. You know, I'm not one to say no to a challenge. And I had entered saying it wasn't going to do the yearbook my freshman year because I wanted to focus on my academics. When I asked, I said, well, yes, I will do that. And then once I was the co editor, my freshman year, which was hard to do because I didn't know anybody, but you get to know people as you do it. Then the following three years, I was asked to do it again. We came in with absolutely no budget. So we had to, you know, find money to put the book out. And a lot of people were a little dismayed at the final product because it wasn't fancy dancing at all, because we weren't able to use color we weren't able to use some of the things at the time that made it so much more costly, but we put together a book. So for our next question, we're going to talk about what did you like most about being an editor and working on the manner. So, Julia, what did you like best about being an editor. There are a few things I really enjoyed about it. One of which in particular in my senior year was that I was able to kind of chronicle and document, you know, our four years at Fairfield, which were very memorable for me, and my group of friends. So it was really nice to have that opportunity to document and kind of highlight, you know, everything that we've done for the past four years kind of put it, you know, to paper literally. And, you know, I had a lot of my friends, you know, involved with the, you know, production of the yearbook as well. So it was a nice activity for us to do together. And additionally, I had a really nice office in the BCC, which was nice. So that was a nice perk, but I think really just the opportunity to kind of document, you know, really for memorable years at Fairfield was probably the highlight for me, especially in my senior year, especially with senior week and, you know, that's a large part of the yearbook. So that was, that was really great for me. I really liked that part. Um, Megan, what did you like best about being an editor. Yeah, Julia said it pretty well to documenting, you know, your life at Fairfield. It probably also made me like go to a couple more things than I normally would have, that aren't like of my normal interest, but, you know, and then if I missed the event I got kind of caught up by, you know, reading about it and putting together the article that might have gone into the yearbook on it, but there were a lot of crazy things that happened when I was at Fairfield I was, you know, my sixth day I think at the school is when 911 happened. And then we had, you know, like a couple other scares, like bomb scare and so it was quite an eventful year just my freshman year and I was involved then and got to help, you know, put together at the stories that wrapped it all up into, you know, a page and those are very big things that will sit with people their whole lives, you know, so I'm glad I got a part of putting that together into the yearbook but but definitely senior year was a fun one to do. And, you know, I got, I have people reaching out to me and got to know a couple people just because they knew I was the yearbook editor and I could get them into the yearbook at their friends thing because that's what everybody wants their things. And it was the best I could do to not put me and my friends in a lot of pictures but you know you do what you got to do to get enough coverage in there of everything so I did really like the office as well because the, you know, Campus Center was, it was all brand new when I started as well and so that office also kind of was like my study area time if I had to get on my dorm room. I preferred it over the library so I don't know I spent a lot of time in the office. Where was that you guys keep talking about an office where was the office. The ground floor of the Campus Center so you know the big glass building in the middle of an office. There's like a few office down there. Yeah, okay, it was probably where the radio is now. Okay, the mailboxes and the bookstore was up there but I'm not sure. I know the bookstores now primarily in town so I'm not sure. Maybe it's still in the Campus Center too. Yeah, my office I think it was between basically where their mirror was located and where the radio is on the lower level of the BCC. And yeah, I agree I studied there a lot. You know it was a nice like hub but I lived off campus my senior years does a nice hub for me on campus and then also just a place like where people would just come and stop by because it was all glass. So a lot of people would just come by and say hi and I could see people. So yeah, that was that was a big perk. You guys don't have an office. Susan what did you like best about being an editor. I think getting to know people, you know I got to know way more people in that role than I would have, if I didn't have that role. So I think that was important, getting to know all the things that were going on. Because you know, there was before computers so we didn't have all of the things you have that, you know, I have to do is you know, log on and you see everything that's going on. We found out a lot of things through the campus newspaper or word of mouth or posters hanging up or whatever. So, lots of times I got to know things before they were advertised in those ways. So that was kind of fun. Being able to put a spin on the year. You know it was, you know, we worked as a group to do that, but I got final say in that and I kind of like that. Fantastic. So shifting away a little bit from specifically stuff about the manner. We wanted to ask you what advice you have for students concerning life at Fairfield. So this is just like anything from res life to go into stuff on campus. What advice would you give them. And Susan I'm going to give the mic to you first. Okay, this probably sounds like what all all old people say, but don't waste it. You know there's so many opportunities at Fairfield now. I always say to my friends that I went to Fairfield with. If they had then what they have now, none of us would have graduated because we would have been doing all these, you know, fun activities and, you know, playing with the computers and this and that. But don't waste it. And don't neglect some of the aspects of your life that it's easy to neglect when you're focused on your academics, like service, like spiritual life. And there's so much they're available to help you with those things. So that's my advice. Awesome. And just because you mentioned service and spiritual life were you involved in that on campus yourself. Well, yes. I forget what it was called but there was a service organization to go into Bridgeport and help tutor kids. I was involved in that. Oh, I'm trying to think what else. I didn't think about this as far as the spiritual life. The chapel was in the basement of Loyola. And, you know, we were there the year after it was mandatory to go to mass every week. And it was like a pendulum swing to the other side where most students did not go. I was one who did because I always valued my Catholic self. But it was a little harder to find that aspect at that time. Thank you. Megan, what advice would you give to students concerning life at Fairfield? Yeah, well I would say definitely go out of your comfort zone. You're not the same. You're not going to be the same person when you graduate that you are when you start your freshman year so it's kind of a good time to define yourself. You know, try all kinds of new things. I definitely did. Studying is important and doing well in school but like definitely make friends. So hopefully you guys are all able to do that. It's, you know, some of my closest friends now are my friends I met at Fairfield. So, and they're just a big part of my life. They've helped shape me. So, you know, and take advantage of all the things that are offered at you at school. I took a weekend trip to Indianapolis once with one of my accounting professors and two other girls to compete in this competition. Sounds a little bit dorky maybe but it was fun experience. I got to see the Speedway. But, you know, Fairfield has a lot to offer. You know, I used to go to the concerts that were on campus. I did some FUSA events and then if you have the opportunity to study abroad because Fairfield has amazing programs, definitely do that too. And that opens your eyes up to so many great experiences. So I did the Florence program. So if you guys can do that, do it. It's like you read my mind, Megan. I was going to ask you where you studied. I was dying to go to Florence as soon as I heard about it when I started. So, did it. It was amazing. My junior year. Spring or fall. I did the spring. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you, Julia. If you had, what advice do you have for students concerning life at Fairfield? Well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I just pretty much echo what Susan and Megan were saying is that definitely take advantage. I know I may be a little bit more challenging these days with COVID, you know, to take advantage of all the stuff that's going on at Fairfield outside of academics. But I do think that's a huge, huge part of what college life is about. You know, yes, your academics again are really important in terms of, you know, careers afterwards and what happens afterwards. Susan and Megan were saying also the friendships that you make at Fairfield are extremely formative. At least for me, they have been and just like Megan said, you know, a lot of my Fairfield friends are still some of my closest friends at my husband and I's wedding. It was the vast majority of people there were from Fairfield. They outnumbered our family. So, Fairfield is like our family. So, I really, really encourage people if they are able to even like with COVID to go out explore the other things outside of academics if you can get out of your dorm room and explore and meet new people. And, you know, there's also, you know, your professors are really approachable you're really lucky to go to a relatively small school. You know, again, COVID makes a little bit different these days but, you know, your professors are really there for you and available to you if you need it. I've had some I had some great mentors while I was there so always take care, take advantage of that, especially when looking for jobs or anything afterwards they can be a great resource to you. Megan can probably attest to that in the business school more than I can. So, yeah, really, you know, take the opportunity take advantage of like the beautiful area to Fairfield is a beautiful place to that we miss. So, yeah, just make the most of it with the warm mother if you can. Thank you. I have said really like what you just said about professors because I think a lot of students don't necessarily take advantage of the professors who are there like I'm close with several of my psychology professors and they've written me letters of recommendation left and right because of it so I think that's fantastic advice. I'm really glad that you said that. Okay, so now we're going to be talking about life after college so Susan what advice do you have for students after Fairfield and the adjustment from like college to the real world. I think it's important to have a focus, you know, to know what you want to do next, not necessarily exactly because I don't think it hardly ever works where you say okay I'm going to do X, and X happens and it's a straight line. It's usually, you know, life, God, the universe come together and push you in the direction somewhere. I always tell the story of when I was a senior at Fairfield. I was a research assistant to a social psychologist, Professor Dorothea Berginski, and she was on sabbatical. Now picture this your research assistant to someone who's on sabbatical. They're not there. So she would call in and have me do certain things or whatever and I did them and so right before graduation she came on campus and she said to me so what are you going to do next year. She said well I applied for PhD programs. And she said, but what do you want to do. And I said, I was kind of taken aback because I never really thought about it I was just on this train, going to get a PhD in clinical psych, but never thought about why. It sounds like I was not a thoughtful person which isn't true but it's just the train I got on. So she asked me, and I said well I guess the answer to that question is I want to help people. So she said, you know, you can do that with a PhD in clinical psych but you're more likely to be able to do that with an MSW. And it was the first time I heard about that we discussed it whatever. And I feel like she helped guide my direction, because she was right in which she was saying about what that had to offer versus what a clinical psych degree had to offer, and I switched gears right then and there. Okay fast forward after I got out of grad school. And I said there were two things I was not going to do. I wasn't going to work with drug addicts, and I wasn't going to work with alcoholics. Now I know now, and have known for many years, it was because I was afraid of it. So in those days the way you've got a job is you opened up the newspaper and looked and see what was available with your credentials. So there was one job available with my credentials. And it was for a drug and alcohol specialist. I got the job. I loved the job, and the job was exactly what I needed to do to get me where I eventually wanted to go, which was to be in private practice. I feel like, you know, stay open to the opportunities, even if it's not what you think is going to be the best thing for you, because you will be guided somehow by life. And that's my best advice for after school, stay open to the possibilities. Don't tell yourself no I'm not going to do that, because maybe that's exactly what you need to do. Thank you for that. Megan, what's your advice for life after Fairfield? I love Susan, so I'm just trying to think on another thing about life after Fairfield is, you know, you're going to have your career, you're becoming an adult, you're independent for the first time, you're going to be paying rent. You're going to be doing all these things that you may still be having fun and acting like you're in college that definitely happened a lot in the beginning, you know, you're 22, 23 years old. And not much tying you down but you're going to be focused on your career, but don't forget about kind of the other parts of your life, you know, keeping in touch with your family, and your friends that may not be working with you because you're not going to see them as much anymore. You know, you're not going to have them next door all the time like you used to be, but keep in touch with them and other alumni by going to the events or, you know, just making time in your life. But also always put yourself and not just your job as high importance because I know one thing I didn't do is, you know, stay active. I worked and worked and worked and worked in public accounting at the beginning a lot of hours. And then I thought I would, and, you know, but take the time to do your hobbies, if it's going to the gym or just finding something else that you really love instead of just your job because it's not the only thing that defines you in life. So, I would say it's taken me many years to figure that out. And probably having kids was the thing that finally reset my life a little bit to think about those other things. So, it's just, it's really important. So, yeah, I think that's just another thing to add on to what, what Susan said. Thank you. Julia, last but not least, but what's your advice for life after Fairfield. I agree with everything Susan and Megan said and I'll kind of I guess speak to a little bit more uniquely about my career path, my career path has been quite long to get to become a physician it's been a lot of you know postgraduate training, and so forth. So, kind of along the same lines is what Susan and Megan were saying that, you know, even if the road to like the quote unquote ideal job seems long and hard, you know, stick with it. Again, it may not be that perfect again linear path that you were hoping for there may be lots of bumps in the road unexpected delays, you know, whether it's for personal or whatever reasons, you know, things happen. But not to get discouraged by that to kind of if you really have a clear sense of what you want to do and that goal to keep working towards it. You know, life is very, very uncertain. And I think just remain open as well to various experiences or various job opportunities or life experiences that you may not think are may be that great or that helpful but please stay open to them at least for a little bit and see they can turn out to be, you know, some of the most helpful and formative things for you. And I think that's really, really important. So, even if the path to whatever goal you have after college is not perfect. Just realize it eventually comes, you eventually get there. Don't be discouraged and keep working towards it. And again, what I think what Megan said is also just very really important, you know, rely on your family and those who support you and are with you. Your friends from Fairfield will likely be part of or hopefully will be part of that support system for you so really relying on them I think is a huge thing as well. So, yeah, and you can always go back to the Fairfield community if there's something, you know, career wise, you know, go back to the people that helped you during your time at Fairfield they're very open to that the Alumni Association is helpful with that as well. So, don't forget about that. Great. Okay, so our next question kind of takes the best of both worlds. It involves being editor but also involves life after Fairfield. So it's how do the skills you learned while being editor of the manner help you in your career today. And Megan, do you want to take it away. Sure. Um, you know, I would say being editor helped me manage a team. Even some who are friends and that could be hard to try to make sure that your friends are doing and staying on task. You know, I dealt with a lot of, you know, tight deadlines while working on the manner, especially towards the end when I was trying to wrap up everything Fairfield and you're trying to get your yearbook out and not have a drag on. So, as an accountant. Now you think I'm mainly just doing numbers and stuff but you know I look here too but so I kind of like your books right so what I did at Avon was financial reporting so you're reporting on the financials of the year and the quarter. I get some actually pretty books, definitely not as interesting as our yearbook but very important things that go out so I did use some of my writing skills and editing skills from the yearbook to put those things together. This is mine. And, you know, I would say that even now on this new side job I have I get to work with graphics again a little bit like I talked about books and summarizing them for people that want to buy books for their children and it's pretty cool because I remember I really used the programs that I would use and I'm putting the yearbook together you know hand pictures and cropping them and and I'm kind of doing some of that now so you may use those skills again in your job even if you're not doing anything that seems like it's a yearbook. I'm not I'm not a writer, but I definitely am using those skills but I would say that the team management was a big one for me because they have managed some teams, you know, throughout my career, and, and, you know, I really never acted as a leader in high school I was always introvert and didn't really take the plunge of doing things like that so somehow I became editor and I was driven and I helped me learn how to lead other people. Awesome, thank you. Julia do you want to speak to what skills you've learned that's helped you in your career today. I do agree. I mean definitely having a prominent role in the yearbook of being an editor is super great in terms of developing leadership skills which I think are important and with no matter what career you go into and you know learning how to you know manage a team, like Megan was saying. And also it just the process of like having an ultimate goal of producing something and seeing something through to the end what I think was really really important. Because it really is a labor of love to put like a whole book together you start off with like, you know just a couple things you know a few pictures if you pieces of text and you really have to, you know, work on it for months. And it takes a lot of time and effort and I think really that process of like this, as I call it labor of love where you have to work on something for a very prolonged period of time and you're like, when is this going to end like when am I going to see the final product and you don't, you don't see the final product immediately it's you know like a year later. I think really that kind of perseverance towards a goal. I think was really really important for me, even though you may not have that instant gratification when you're doing something, you know, as it's a little bit more of a delayed gratification I think that was really important for me in terms of you know my career path and so forth. That was really really valuable. So yeah not everything is instantaneous but when it does happen and when it is finished it's really great and super rewarding. Awesome. So would you say just because I'm thinking about what you just said about delay gratification would you say that's something you learned from doing the yearbook and that's kind of helped you get through all this schooling you've had to do to get where you are today. Yeah, it's been a lot of a lot of delayed gratification in terms of my career. You know going through four years of college you know there's delayed gratification with that you have to go through it for four years before you get your degree you get your first job or your first internship. You know postgraduate education you have to usually do that for at least a couple years and then you finally get that. So I think it just teaches you also about, you know, personal things you know you may not have like the fanciest car the fanciest department or the be the first person to buy a house, you know, in your group of friends but that's you know like you just, if you keep working at it slowly and chipping away at it slowly I think that's, that was a good lesson for me, and something that I've carried through for multiple aspects of my life so. So yeah learning to kind of take the reins back and say hey it's okay if I don't have like that immediate gratification it will come eventually. Thank you so much. And last but not least Susan. For me, I think I definitely agree with Megan and Julian the things they said, but for me it was more. I learned not to be intimidated by lots of things like one example is going into New York City to the publishers office and talking to what I thought at the time are these big publishers and I grew up some in the process of having to deal with all of that. Also, so not to be intimidated by some of the things I hadn't done yet or some of the kinds of people I hadn't interacted with. I'm definitely cooperation with people who have quite a few different ideas than I did, and having to negotiate all that and, you know as a psychotherapist I'm helping people negotiate different ideas all the time. So it was a good springboard for a lot of what I do. Thank you. And this was just another little question I thought of when you're all talking because you all talk at some point about you know like being like over the book and like putting down pictures and stuff and you look at so many memories as a member of the staff or a member, or one of the editors I was just curious as to what your favorite fairfield memory was. Yeah, it's a tough question. That's a big question. I saved that question. But Susan, do you, is there one that comes to mind. Not one big thing comes to mind what comes to mind are all the small things, you know the hanging out in the dorm with your friends, the, you know, laughs, the, you know, times when you would you know meet somebody, you know the cafeteria or something. Those are the kinds of things that stick out most for me. There was one, something just to come to mind. My roommate and I had a lot of the same classes, and she and I would get up early in the morning and go to breakfast, nobody was there. Then we would study, and then go about her day have our classes whatever. And then at night, we didn't really do a lot of studying because we had already done it. And all these guys that used to come to our room to try to get us to not study, because they didn't want us to break the curve of the test that was coming out. And they couldn't figure out how we were doing it, because while they saw as we weren't studying. So, you know, at the end of the year, we took great pleasure in sharing our secret with them that we got up early and went to breakfast and did our studying in the morning. That's funny. Megan is there a memory that comes to mind for you. There was a lot of little things as well. You know, one of the traditions that some of my friends and I started was a friend's giving and friends giving is like such a big thing now I remember. And he felt like we started it. I'm sure he didn't, but we also used to watch friends all the time on TV is, you know, on when I was there, followed by Will and Grace so just even little moments like that watching, you know, TV shows, you know, weekly with the same group was always really fun or playing Nintendo and my friends, you know, dorm room, just finding out new things about my friends. Friends giving is something we still do to this day. We have decided this is the first year we have to do a virtual zoom and giving. And we're going to see how that works, but I would say it's, yeah, it's really just so many fun moments and not one really stands out more than others. I do remember senior week being a blast, but it does. This does not mean that that's going to be your best time at Fairfield, but definitely a lot of good memories as you kind of like wrap up everything from your Fairfield experience together and you're all preparing to say goodbye to your life and you have a lot of fun. So thank you. And Julia. Yeah, I would agree. I don't think, you know, there's ever going to be like one moment. It's more as, you know, you can, you kind of have this insight as your book editor is that it's not like ever one moment it's a collection of moments that really make your time at Fairfield memorable. I, like I said, you know, I think most importantly for me was like the friendships that I made the girls that I, you know, started out freshman year with on my floor we all stayed together. You know, sophomore year we moved to the same dorm floor. And really, you know, we ended up having a house at the beach together, which was, you know, amazing. And we loved and we had a very close knit group of people that we were friends with at the beach who we were neighbors with, and we're still friends to this day. And really, you know, I kind of all those collection of memories together were terrific but yeah I mean it's just I think maybe one of the best memories for me was actually after Fairfield was when my husband and I got married and the fact that all these people who we went to school at Fairfield actually showed up like literally every single one of them that we were friends with that we spent four years with the fact that everybody, you know, took the time to travel and to come and to celebrate it with us I think that was, if I had to pick a moment that was really really great for us because that made us feel really great to have all those people there with us who were so formative for us so I guess that would be the moment. Thank you all for sharing your memories. So, I know we have a few minutes left so we can open it up and see if anyone who was listening in has any questions for any of you. So if anyone has questions you can, you know, if you want raise your hand you can throw them in the chat box you can unmute yourself. Just wait a second and see if anyone has any questions. It's always tough to be that first person asked a question. Well you're waiting for a question to have another story that came to my mind, which was a calculus professor who did not want Fairfield to go coed, and he refused to call us anything other than. So, you know, it's kind of a fresh person so I missed sister. And he got very upset about that. But as a result, we became very good friends and he finally accepted that there were women at Fairfield. Hugh and Dr Brigham ski must have gotten along very well I. We did. A very similar manner to her so we do have one question from Elise. And she's wondering, do you have a favorite memory or challenge in working on the manner for a particular for your particular year. And Elise correct me if I'm not understanding your question so I think what Elise is asking is, is there a moment you can think of where you like, it was your favorite, like moment working on it like something finally click something looked great or something challenging that you had to overcome to do your yearbook that year. Julia would you like to go first anything come to mind. Um, I mean, thankfully I had the years prior to kind of work out like some of the kinks. But I think probably the most challenging thing for me in my last year as an editor was actually kind of passing the baton and having to train someone to then subsequently take on the role. And then making sure that I chose someone who I felt, you know, would be, you know, a good person for the job, and then also making sure that I taught them everything that they needed to know like what tidbits that I've learned, kind of like along the way. Thankfully, I had been on the yearbook staff, you know, the three years prior and I actually served as editor the year prior so I was able to get a lot of the kinks out before my senior year, but really having to pick someone and you know, teach them how to do the job is tough. Not as easy as you think. Yeah, awesome. Megan. I was just glancing at mine to see if it made anything stand out. But I feel like a lot of the kinks, like and had it put it together I had worked out in the other years a little bit but I do remember like feeling relieved that I was staying, you know, local, because you know you graduate and you're waiting on the graduation pictures to put in the yearbook so I think I finished it up at some point. I remember because I had some, you know, classmates reaching out to me hey do you know when we're going to get the yearbooks and I'm like, well we just finished it like, you know, there's a couple things to wrap it up, you know, even after you graduate. But I would say it was really rewarding when the yearbooks actually started getting delivered and people would, you know, say thank you for doing a good job and you know, being happy to see themselves in there and having everything look good so it was really rewarding it doing it for your own year because people largely knew who you were and I really appreciated how you wrapped up their four years of college into a book so I guess that that's kind of my favorite memories when it was all done. So your favorite memory then was like receiving like, like calls or checks or whatever from people saying they, they got and they were happy with it. Yes, exactly. Susan hard time with this one I nothing big sticks out for me. I think one of the challenges for the yearbooks I did prior to my year was not knowing people and when it came to doing the, you know, looking over the copy after it was all finished before it went to print. Some of the things I couldn't figure out if they were accurate like the names under the seniors pictures, because I didn't know who they were so and there were a couple of mistakes with that because I didn't know and they mixed them up and so there are some people who have their picture and somebody else's name underneath it. But I think that's the biggest challenge I found. And I guess that kind of leads us into another question at least had about how the change of technology has affected working on the book, because Susan you have you have a very different experience of working with the book versus. I know Caitlin and I, and so maybe you can speak to with the names how you would even go about doing that. Well, we had to as I was saying before we got started on this. We didn't have any computers. You know the computer at Fairfield was the size of one of the buildings, and all of the input was key punch. You know so we didn't have that technology to work with so everything was done on paper. Everything was done you know you had a photo, you have these little wax sticks that you marked the photos with to crop them, then you had to have graph paper to figure out the proportions of the pictures and where you wanted them laid out. It was very time consuming and very manual. And as far as, you know when you got the proofs, you had to make sure that everything was correct before it went to print now you would just see it on your screen. But, you know, some mistakes happened because it was all human. None of it was machine, you know what I mean. I think that the proofs would come out everybody was gone, because they come out in the summer. So unless you got some of your staff together to look at the proofs together, which I did do, but even that some things slept slipped under the rug you know, mm hmm. So, Megan and Julia, I know you two are only a few years apart and when you graduated so did you two have a very similar experience with how you created the book. I mean, we, so I graduated 15 years ago and luckily we were using laptops and I think we had a computer, a desktop computer in the office that we would do all the work from so not sure how much it's changed from today but it was pretty modern and pretty easy cropping and I completely forgot about the proofing part of it but yes we would. I think in the summer get those proofs back and and have to do that part. So I did not have any help. So that was all me and yeah you're trying to make sure that you haven't made any major mistakes. I hate spelling names wrong my name's been spelled wrong the most my whole life. Most people, the unique way of spelling so getting the people's majors in there but I think at least things were given to me in a pretty organized way with technology how it is so I had a lot of it figured out but it's definitely a challenge of your looking over paper proofs all by yourself, you know, you're bound to miss something but nobody ever told me I messed up anything big that I've heard. And Julia similar experience. The course was all digital. I didn't have to do any, you know, anything by hand in terms of cropping or anything like that. It was, you know, a little bit easier definitely I did have to do like the cropping and the graphing paper like back in like middle school and high school and I did your book but so definitely having the digital version was better. I imagine it's even easier now to do it. I remember we just had the one computer in the office and that was the sole computer we could do the work on I'm sure now like with things like Google Drive and the cloud and you know VPN and stuff like that you can work remotely on it and things like that you don't all have to be on one device which probably makes things a lot easier. I was also the first class where like Facebook was present like starting our freshman years so we were like the first class to have Facebook. So we kind of got a little bit of, I don't know like not so much pushback but everybody was like oh why the heck do we need a yearbook now because all of our like all photos from all our years were all on Facebook. Now obviously there's other social media platforms that you know photos are documented on and so forth. So, you know we really had to kind of, you know, I guess sell it a little bit more I guess for people to want to buy the things like that, everybody was like oh I just download everything from Facebook. But another way that made things easier was you know we didn't have to have physical photos like we started now having digital photos so that was like the first year we instituted using an app where people could upload their photos to and it made things really easy for us in terms of obtaining photos from various people. So not just our friend group or harassing people in person for photos. So I think you know and technology is changing rapidly and I'm sure you guys are experiencing your own set of challenges and perks as a result of technology but yeah it can be a blessing and a curse. Yeah, so I can only imagine what you guys are going through these days with technology and such. Yeah, we're so you were saying Julia and you're right that we don't all have to crowd around one computer to get work done anymore. We actually have an online portal where we can all have separate logins and login and do our pages and I have a Google doc that we have going with what pages are and who's assigned to the pages so you know that certainly makes it a little smoother. We do still have to hunt people down for photos. So that's still a thing but yeah so things have changed, certainly from Susan when you were working on the book it's changed a lot. Yeah. We have only a couple minutes left and we have one more question and it's describe your leadership style as an editor. So, yeah. Julia would you like to go first. Well, I have most of the people on the staff were my friends so which can be you know make things easier but it can also make things challenging. You have to be a little bit more just about establishing deadlines and so forth but they are very helpful in utilizing them as like your network of people to kind of reach out to the various organizations and other people on campus to get them involved. And I think you kind of just as a, I don't know if this is a style but you kind of just have to adapt to your staff, you know and kind of play up each of their strengths to help you like some of my friends and other members of the staff really like social butterflies so they could go out and harass people for things so I think you're really my leadership style was you know just an overall supervisor and then kind of play up the strengths of my colleagues to hopefully get the job done. I don't know if that's really a style but what I did and it worked. So, Susan, do you have thoughts on that. Yeah, I would call my style democratic, you know we voted on everything, especially when there was controversy over, you know what style or what theme or those kind of issues. So, you know, I tried to make sure everybody had a voice and when it was not in agreement we voted. Fantastic and Megan. Yeah, I would say, you know, it was hard sometimes to get other people to focus, you know they had other responsibilities. Now in the real world with a job it's a little bit different once you're getting paid for these things that you're doing but some my leadership styles probably evolved but I was always really organized so I did, you know, we didn't have it in Google Docs but we probably had a printed out paper or an Excel spreadsheet or something that I kept track of, you know, what are what were all the things to be done and who was going to do it and by deciding who's going to do it. You know, wasn't necessarily even it was, I think it was a bit democratic as well like, well, how much do you want to give, you know, what are you interested in doing and let people kind of work on the things they wanted so definitely we had meetings to check on status and, you know, just making sure everybody was happy I think was always important to me too. So, and then we were all kind of making some decisions together but then, you know, I did feel the need some time with people. We couldn't decide on something they kind of looked to me and I usually felt comfortable making that ultimate decision. Well, thank you all so much I know we're just about at time so thank you for joining us today and thank you for being willing to talk with us about your experience as your book editors. We really appreciate it. My question is, is Mr Fitz still doing the yearbook is he still a big part of it because I think as I mentioned that when I heard about this at the same time I got fear filled magazine with him on the cover about retiring and I was like this is a sign. I got to talk to these I got to talk to the manner people so he was always so great. Yeah, he's our advisor still. He's great. We love it. Tell him to give you an office back before he leaves. We'll have to put that on the list, Caitlin. He's close to retire last year because it was exactly 50 years, but COVID happened and he didn't want to leave everyone in a scramble. So now he's retiring. I think it's February 17 because it's exactly 51 years now. He hasn't changed. He may still push it back. Honestly, I know. I don't think he'll ever leave. So yeah, thank you all for joining us. And have a great rest of your Sunday and enjoy your week. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Yeah. Enjoy fear filled everybody.