Good morning, neighbor!
The Greenfield Recorder got word this weekend that our neighbor Regina Curtis has announced her retirement at the end of August. It’ll be a sad day for Greenfield Community College and the community as a whole — we will all miss her dearly — but I wish her all the best.
Regina has served as executive director of institutional advancement at GCC for the past decade. She said she’s giving plenty of notice so that the college can conduct a “robust search” for her replacement. She’s hoping there will be an overlap so that she can work with the new person to ensure a smooth transition.
“My tenure at GCC has been a long one with varied roles, beginning with that of which I am most proud: GCC alum,” she said. Regina graduated from GCC in 1986.
I know just how she feels, because I too am an alum. I graduated in 1978, and I must say that it gave me, as a young woman who had just graduated from Turners Falls High School, the foundation I needed for everything I would do in the following years, both professionally and personally.
In the early mid-1980s, like so many students before and since, Regina attended the college as a non-traditional student, taking night classes in the evening while working during the day.
“It took five years to obtain my associate’s degree,” she said, “but without GCC, that goal would never have been reached.”
In her retirement announcement, Regina said without that “win” and the confidence it gave her, her subsequent bachelor’s and master’s degrees — also obtained as a part-time student while working — would never have happened.
Regina is retiring from GCC after 35 years, only after the college “opened the doors to my future. My life’s work these past 20 years has been to pay that forward and help ensure that all who seek to change their lives through education have access to the same opportunities I had.”
Regina has been a member of the GCC Foundation’s board of directors (1999 to 2005), she was the college’s director of development from 2005 to 2010, and the executive director of institutional advancement and of the Foundation for the past 10 years.
We’ve all seen her at many GCC functions, as well as outside the walls of the college. I’ve always admired her energy and how much she cares.
“It has been a privilege to work in support of students and programs at GCC, and I will very much miss the caring community of donors and colleagues who made raising funds to further the mission of the college successful,” she wrote in her announcement. “I look forward to an equally successful transition to a new executive director who will have the pleasure of working with each of you.”
Over the next eight months, Regina expects the end of her tenure at GCC to be busy, but as she prepares to leave, the gatherings we’ve all come to expect to see her at will continue to be constrained by the pandemic, as they have been for the past 10 months. But she hopes to have a chance to talk with as many people as possible to express her appreciation for everyone and all they do to help GCC change lives.
Regina, we are sorry to see you go at the end of August, but I’m sure, like me, many others wish you the absolute best in whatever is next. You have been a big part of GCC changing people’s lives.
I’ll be contacting Regina this summer to talk more with her about just what is next, and I’ll share it with you. I’m sure whatever it is, it will be just as successful as everything she has accomplished at my beloved alma mater.
Senior Reporter Anita Fritz grew up in Franklin County after moving from Spokane, Wash., when she was just a few weeks old. She covers Greenfield and does regional and COVID-19 reporting for the Greenfield Recorder.