Watson leaves Bonner Center for web design firm

By Ali Snyder

Derric Watson, director of the Bonner Center for Service and Vocation, says his experiences at Earlham will continue to impact his future endeavors. Photo by Yaro Zabavskiy

Derric Watson, director of the Bonner Center for Service and Vocation, is spending his last day today at Earlham. He will be leaving to work for a web design firm. 

He’s not going too far, however. Watson is headed to Summersault, in Richmond. In taking the job, Watson is fulfilling his “want and need to stay connected to Richmond, Wayne County and Earlham.”

Summersault, which was founded in 1997 by two Earlham alums, has done consulting and building of websites for the college. At Summersault, Watson will be  selling the firm’s technological services and doing web design. Working there will be fulfilling a passion of his – as Watson said, “I love tech.”

“That makes sense,” said Abby Beatty, a freshman Bonner Scholar, referring to Watson’s new job. “Derric always does the tech stuff at our meetings.”

Currently, there are no plans to replace Watson, due to the hiring freeze. The freeze, which is in place due to the poor economy, allows the college to move current faculty and staff around in positions rather than hiring from the outside.

According to Jana Schroeder, the Bonner Scholars program coordinator, “right now we’re just making plans to try to cover as best we can some of the main things that Derric was doing for the Bonner Center.” She added, “We’re going to try to fill as much of that as we can,” Schroeder said, “recognizing that we may have to cut back on some of the things that we were doing because we will be short handed.”

Schroeder explained by Watson was a joy to work with.

“It’s been great to work with him. I’ve really come to appreciate the kinds of gifts that he brings.”

She added those gifts included “the way he’s fun loving and warm, draws people in, and makes people feel comfortable.” 

“He’s really good at rolling up his sleeves and doing what needs to be done,” Schroeder said.

Schroeder and Watson arrived at the Bonner Center around the same time, within three weeks of each other in the summer of 2004. Prior to that, Watson had been an Area Director (AD) at Earlham in the mid ’90s. He took the Bonner Center job partly because he grew up Quaker, and was therefore involved with service, but also because as an AD, he fell in love with Earlham and wanted a way to come back.

According to the Bonner Center website, Watson’s duties included helping students find service and volunteer opportunities, staging mock interviews and aiding them in the search for jobs, as well as providing information on resume writing, fellowships, off-campus workstudy and graduate school preparation.

While students don’t often work with Watson directly, he is still approachable. Meg Duff, a senior Bonner Scholar, said that he is “always someone that students have felt really comfortable going to.”

Freshman Bonner Scholars also annually go on the Bonner retreat with Watson. During that time they can discover, according to Duff, how he is “a big goofball.”

“He has such a fun and welcoming personality,” Duff said. “I think everybody’s going to be really sad to see him go.”

Watson said that what he will miss most about Earlham are the students. In addition, he will miss “the stimulating conversation that is easy to get into regularly on campus.”

His favorite memories are mostly composed of individual student successes, like students passing classes they thought they wouldn’t, graduating or winning awards. He said he would also fondly remember being endowed by the Bonner Foundation.

Watson’s experiences at Earlham will continue to affect him in his future endeavors. He said he would take an educational approach to his work. In addition, Earlham’s ideal of collaboration will stick with him.

However, “it wouldn’t surprise me to come back to Earlham,” he said. “I came back once.”

For now, though, “it’s going to be really weird not to have him here,” said Schroeder, “not to have his presence, his sense of humor and everything that he brings.”