Carol has lived for most of her life in New Jersey. She was born in Rahway and lived there until age three when her family moved to Linden.
After returning to New Jersey, she decided on a teaching career. She returned to school, took graduate classes and earned her teaching licenses in French and English. Later, she earned an MA in English with a writing specialty.
They moved to Hackensack, initially, and then to Fair Lawn, where they purchased their first home. With their two young daughters in tow, they moved eight years later to Pines Lake in Wayne, a lovely lake community, where they stayed for eighteen years.
Carol enjoyed 20+ years in education, with thirteen of them on the college level, teaching English and serving in administrative capacities. She worked her way up to being Co-Director of Freshman English at William Paterson College (now a university) before moving over to Caldwell College, where she was Assistant Director of the Learning Center (Academic Support Services), and, later, Director.
Carol was missing classroom interaction with students, so she left the college world and returned to high school teaching at Hawthorne High School. This was her favorite job because she enjoyed the students, who were very respectful, fun to teach, and just plain nice; she liked the fact that she could know the students for longer than just a semester, and for that reason her favorite level was Grade 9.
After Bruce sold the family wholesale / import floral supply business, they moved to Vermont, where they lived for a little over three years. Carol taught high school classes there, and she learned a lot about using computer technology in teaching, which has come in very handy here in New Mexico.
Carol and Bruce found Placitas from friends, who told them they had to check out the area. They fell in love with it in October 2005, so they put in an offer on their house that was in the framing stage and closed on it in March 2006. Now in Placitas, Carol has been telecommuting as an Educational Consultant for a variety of clients. Recently, she has become involved with digital education for the virtual classroom for students across New Mexico and has been hired to develop an online course for the high school level. It is amazing how this will help bring an increase in learning opportunities to more children in remote areas of the state and those being home-schooled.
Carol's hobbies include creative writing, learning about the native flowers and birds, trying new regional recipes, and going to art galleries.
Carol's fifteen minutes of fame happened when she co-authored a college-level textbook in 1995 that was featured at the Conference on College Composition in Washington, DC. It took four years to complete the project that was published by HarperCollins.
If she won the lottery, she would help her daughters financially and then donate heavily to Alzheimers research. She would also like to create a scholarship for a Hawthorne High School student interested in a writing career.
The people that Carol most admires are women of strong character who set a good example for younger women and convey the message that they should remain intellectually engaged all through their later years.
Carol has two memorable trips: One was in the 1980s when the family went to Dinant, Belgium, which is on the Meuse River. The village was charming, welcoming, and romantic with its people, French language and cuisine. Her other favorite journey was a mother-daughter trip in the late 90s to the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Although it was extremely windy, she and Eva hiked and enjoyed the breathtaking mountain scenery.
Her one wish that hasn't happened is to ride the Orient Express from London to Istanbul. It still might happen.
Carol's favorite things are listening to music, flowers, her laptop with high speed, coffee, and chocolate. Her favorite TV program was Leave it to Beaver.
Carol's two pet peeves are dishonest people and disrespectful people; she doesn't like being in the company of either.
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