A Professor Who Changed Lives

Alumni Spotlight: From Shoreline to Japan and Back Again: A Life Shaped by Teaching, Travel, and Community

This is my travel blog, but this post isn’t about travel per se. This is about the woman who changed the course of my life. Professor Amy Mates of Shoreline College. Today an Alumni Spotlight was posted in the Shoreline College Daily Updates about Susan Henderson, Class of 1975, and her experience with Shoreline Community College (now Shoreline College). Susan has set up a new scholarship endowment in honor of Professor Amy Mates. Susan’s story mirrored my own in many ways, and as I may guess, many others as well.

I come from a family of college educated professionals. One grandfather was an electrical engineer who worked with Bonneville; the other was a dentist. My grandmother was a teacher, my father a research marine biologist. My parents met at college. My brother holds 3 master’s degrees, and my cousin a doctorate. It was just a part of life that I would go to college. However, I really disliked high school and wasn’t at all sure I wanted to go. My parents and I came to an agreement that I would go to a community college for a couple of years, then decide where I wanted to go from there.

Shoreline College was a game changer for me. And Professor Amy Mates was an instrumental part of that process. She was tough, and she challenged me to become my best. I loved her classes, and she honed my love of reading and writing into a disciplined art. She kindled my love of history into a passion and suggested extra reading which I inhaled. And in her classes, I met some of the best friends I’ve ever have – Laurel, Shannon and Robin. The four of us became inseparable and have been good friends ever since.

After graduating from Shoreline in 1982, I transferred to Western Washington University and went on to major in English Literature. When I transferred, I went right into 300 and 400 level seminars, with the majority of the major requirements waived because I had already had such an in-depth education at Shoreline. My advisor told me that I had a better grounding in the subject than if I had spent my first two years at the university. Because of Shoreline, I thrived at Western.

I had planned to go on for my master’s degree and teach at the college level, but life had other plans, and I ended up in the accounting field. However, I still see the connections – a financial statement is much like a novel format – both telling a story with a beginning, middle and end. Maybe that’s why I preferred novels to short stories and poetry!

And life has come full circle, as I now work as an Accounting Consultant specializing in forensic work, problem solving and developing procedures. And that led me to an assignment at Shoreline College. The writing skills that Amy Mates taught so diligently have stood me in good stead in every job I’ve ever had – writing policies, procedures, communications and the like. As soon as an employer finds out I’m a writer, they put it to work.

Susan Henderson talks about the European Summer trip she went on with Professor Mates. My best friend Laurel went on the trip, but I decided not to go. And honestly, I wasn’t ready. But Laurel and Amy’s stories about those trips stayed with me, and I began to travel widely in 2013. Although I’m not able to travel at the moment, I will get back to it, and will always remember Amy Mates and Shoreline College, who completely changed the course of my life.

So, no pictures on this blog, unusual for the photographer in me, but I feel the words are much more important today. Thank you, Amy Mates and Shoreline College.