Monmouth College

Staying power: Rooted in the field she loves, Ogorzalek is in her 36th year at Monmouth College

by Barry McNamara

Monmouth, Ill. (01/05/2026) — If her life had taken a different course, Monmouth College administrator Karen Ogorzalek might be in the midst of her 36th year at an elementary school in New England, transitioning a few years ago from her time as a beloved second-grade teacher to the school's warm, caring principal and leader.

But while majoring in elementary education at Eastern Connecticut State University in the 1980s, the former Karen Macarthy realized that her newfound resolution to be an involved student was opening a new world.

"I was going to be a teacher," said Ogorzalek, the college's vice president for student affairs and dean of students, who was recently honored for 35 years of service to Monmouth. "During the semester I was doing my student teaching, I remember thinking, 'I love this, but I really love student activities.'"

Entering college, Ogorzalek had made a conscious effort to transform from the "mildly involved" marching band student she was in high school.

"I thought, 'I'm going to be something. I'm going to do something," said Ogorzalek, who was class president for two years before spending the next two years as president of ECSU's equivalent to Monmouth's Association for Student Activity Programming, better known as ASAP.

Her career shift was aided by a trip to a National Association for Campus Activities conference.

"I learned this can be a job," she recalled. "I can do something I love for the rest of my life."

The next step was two years of graduate school, which Ogorzalek completed at Framingham State University, just a state away in Massachusetts. But once that was completed, where would her new career take her?

A mentor from Day One

Enter Jackie Condon, who held Ogorzalek's current position for 23 of the 37 years she worked at Monmouth.

"I went to Chicago for a job fair, met Jackie Condon, got a job interview, and the rest is history," said Ogorzalek, who's married to campus electrician Mark Ogorzalek.

Much of that history is closely intertwined with Condon, who retired in 2017.

"Sitting in her office is a little surreal for me," said Ogorzalek, seated behind her desk in the southeast corner of Poling Hall's main floor. "So much learning and mentoring happened here. I've always been a pretty good problem solver, but I feel like she really helped me take that to another level."

In particular, Ogorzalek remembers Condon helping her level up by using the short, simple word "or."

"She'd say 'or' a lot," said Ogorzalek. "You'd present your solution, and she'd say, 'Or .' It was her way to get you to broaden your horizons - to think about the students and what's best for them. She just challenged you to think bigger. She'd hold up her hands (at two heights) and say, 'You're here, but you need to be here.' She was very good at pushing you out of your comfort zone."

And, in doing so, she helped foster a protege who could do the opposite - make students comfortable and secure in their home away from home at Monmouth.

"At first, I was their friend," said Ogorzalek, who was just two years older than Monmouth's seniors on her first on the job on July 1, 1990, when she was tasked with, among other things, serving as director of the Stockdale Center. "Then I was like an older sister, and then an aunt, and then a mom. I don't even want to think of what I am right now."

Another lesson Condon taught Ogorzalek was, "You've got to allow people to see something in you that you don't even see yourself." That, too, is a lesson she's paid forward, as she's often a sounding board for a student who says, "I don't know want I want to do. What am I doing? What's my purpose?"

"It's seeing that something in them that they don't see in themselves - that's part of what we do," said Ogorzalek. "I remember a student we had who was struggling. He was a good kid. He just needed some help. I hired him, and he worked for me as a student manager and an orientation leader. He ended up graduating and being successful. I remember that we asked our student managers to dress professionally, but he never could iron a shirt. I gave him an iron for graduation. That day, his mother gave me a hug. She said, 'Thank you for being who you were to my son.'"

Some bumps in the road

The job is not without its challenges. Two of the hardest ones came one after the other.

"COVID was hard for the students," she said. Students simply didn't return to Monmouth's campus from spring break in 2020, which was especially hard for that year's seniors. Even when students did return in the fall of 2020, it was a completely different vibe, with masks, hybrid classes and daily email reports on the number of active cases, which Ogorzalek was in charge of distributing.

"The students couldn't socialize in the way they wanted," she said. "It took away a whole part of the college experience that happens outside the classroom. We didn't want to wear a mask, but we had to wear a mask."

Such restrictions are in the past, but Ogorzalek is fairly certain that the COVID effect has not yet worn off.

"I don't know if all of the students - and I'm talking everywhere, not just Monmouth - are ready to be at school," she said. "In the last three to five years, students are just so much different than they were before. They're thirsty for somebody to talk with them. Maybe that's a result of COVID. It's to the point where I'll ask them, 'Do you need a hug?' Or they'll say, 'Can I have a hug?' Sorry, I'm getting a little emotional right now just talking about it."

Just when campus life seemed to be getting back to normal in the fall of 2022, there was a fire in the Stockdale Center. It wasn't enough to destroy the building, but everything inside had some degree of smoke damage, so the hub of campus activity - the facility where Ogorzalek had spent most of her career - was shut down, and the closure lasted nearly two years.

"I've had a few fires on campus during my time here, but Stockdale was definitely the worst," she said. "I'd been pretty much in that space for 30 years. The first chance I had to go in and look around, I walked around and then came out the back door. Mark was there in his truck. I just went up to him and started crying. I felt like that was my home. It was so devastating to go through and see it, thinking about all the things I'd done in that building, all the students I'd worked with in that building. Mark was my release. Then I walked back here to Poling and just came into my office and shut the door. The rest of the staff was like, 'Something's wrong with her.' But when you're at a place so long, you become one with it."

'I'm exactly where I need to be'

Those were some tough times, but it's stories like the one about "the iron guy" that keep Ogorzalek coming back to the job, day after day, year after year.

"We're the 'people people' for our students," she said. "We're here for them. You spend so much time with students that they do feel like family."

They feel comfortable, and Ogorzalek does, too.

"I'm exactly where I need to be, doing exactly what I want to do," she said. "You don't come into this professional side of higher ed if you don't care about students. My husband knew I'd be talking about my career today, and he said, 'Nobody stays in a place for 35 years unless they believe in the mission.'"

It's a belief that grew within Ogorzalek the longer she stayed.

"I really thought this would be a steppingstone - get my feet wet, gain some experience and move on," she said. "I didn't go to a small school. This would've been a perfect fit for me because of the small school environment. Early on, I said to Jackie, I'd really like to have some experience with fraternity and sorority life, and she gave it to me. Every opportunity I could take, I took."

We're a long way from Karen Macarthy's first day on the job in 1990, but the administrator now known affectionately to most students as "Dean O" still believes in Monmouth's mission - perhaps now more than ever - and she's not done yet.

Media Attachments

IMG_retouchsquare.jpg

KK4_3211edit.jpg

STOCKDALE REDEDICATION: Ogorzalek (far right), the former director of Monmouth's student center, was part of the Sept. 20, 2024, ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the reopening of the facility.

Monmouth College

Staying power: Rooted in the field she loves, Ogorzalek is in her 36th year at Monmouth College

Media Attachments

Monmouth College

Share this Story

Recent News