Katherine Harer, a long-time member of the faculty here Skyline College, plans to retire from full time teaching and from her position as the Honors Program Coordinator in order to focus on her own personal projects which range from novels to poem’s that she hopes to publish.
“I knew about five years that I was going to retire sooner or later so I started looking at the numbers to see if I could afford it” said Professor Harer.
“Every day is a highlight with the Honor’s Program because I like the students so much, I like helping them” she said “but there a certain things which are more highlighted. I think our tenth anniversary celebration was really fun, the student’s cooked all the food, they planned the whole event, we got cosmetology students to give massages to faculty members…We honored faculty members and it was just a really cool event and we made a movie of our honors faculty singing a Beatles’ song” said Professor Harer.
Another highlight for her is during Spring when every honors student graduates and come onto the stage at the recognition ceremony, where she had a chance to see all their hard work pay off by giving them their certificate. Another highlight for her is working with honors student and helping them develop a personal statement. Although it has been a hard task, she enjoys getting to know students and working with them.
“I didn’t really want to step down from the Honors Program but I really wanted to cut back on the amount of time I spent at school to work on some creative projects of my own” said Professor Katherine Harer “I just have a lot of creative energy that I’m not getting a lot of time to do anything with, I mean, as much as i love been here and all the difference things i do at Skyline. It doesn’t leave (me) a lot of time.”
She has a number of projects which she hopes to pursue. One of these projects is a novel which she wrote while she was in Chile for month, to learn more about Poet Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto or better known by his pen name Pablo Neruda. She also has a travel article and plenty of poetry which she hopes to gather into one whole book. She also wants to learn to play the piano. Speaking with a smile on her face, she said that she may be willing to try her hand at painting too.
