Diana Roose has had a high profile as an indispensable assistant to College President Nancy Dye for the past 12 years. This week’s Off the Cuff looks at what it takes to work in one of the busiest and most important offices on campus.

Did you have any previous jobs before working at Oberlin?
Immediately before working here, I was a research director for a women’s organization called Nine-to-Five. There I did reports on all kinds of issues like family leave, pay discrimination and health hazards of office work.

How did you get your current job?
I had previously worked at the dean’s office as assistant dean, so I knew the ropes. Nancy [Dye] needed an assistant who could help navigate through the organizational bureaucracies at Oberlin. I also lived in Oberlin for a long time, so I knew a lot of people, and that was helpful to her in her new job.

Can you describe a typical day in the office?
There’s no typical day in the office. Every day poses a new challenge and new surprises. We get a ton of mail and we have people in and out of here all day long, so it helps to be adaptable. Today, I spent the morning answering letters from students and parents. Then I worked on the new graduate teacher education program for which we’re recruiting faculty now, and I talked to about ten different people about issues ranging from light bulbs to international study programs. Just about everything comes our way.

What is your favorite part of the job?
My favorite part of the job is the students, and I’m not just pandering here. The students are fun and creative and have so much energy. It makes my job a lot more interesting. Otherwise it would be mostly pushing paper.

What has kept you in Oberlin for over 25 years?
It’s a great place to raise a family. It’s diverse and cosmopolitan, and you certainly aren’t anonymous. When you walk down the street lots of people say hi. It sounds really weird, but I also like the landscape. I grew up in Ohio, so I am used to the land being flat and being able to see the horizon. When I was growing up in Ohio all I wanted to do was get out of Ohio, but here I am. This is home.

You have been one of Nancy Dye’s most trusted assistants for the past 12 years. What has most helped you create the level of trust that you both share?
Nancy and I are on similar wavelengths. We both come with a feminist perspective and, interestingly enough, we’ve both been involved in labor and labor history. We’re of the same era, we went to college at the same time and we were both student activists in college in the 1960s. Maybe that’s why we both enjoy working at Oberlin so much. I really like working with political activists of all kinds on campus because I was one of them once. I still am.

What is your favorite memory of your time so far at Oberlin?
I remember the 2004 election and going around to the polling places with one of the college attorneys watching to make sure that students could vote and seeing all the students in such long lines, even in the rain, entertaining themselves and educating each other about politics. That was really inspiring. That was such an important time, and it was striking how that election affected the campus. It was great to see that students really cared about such basic things as the right to vote, that we so often take for granted.