After 25 years as an associate professor of journalism, media studies and public relations, Carol Fletcher is retiring.

Fletcher took a full-time teaching position at Hofstra University’s at the time School of Communication in 2000. Before that, she was a freelance teacher with young kids. When Bob Greene, former Newsday editor and faculty member at Hofstra, asked her to consider the position, she saw the job as a gig. Within the first year, that changed.

“When I landed at Hofstra, I almost instantly felt like this is where I should have been all along,” Fletcher said.

Her career at Hofstra includes serving as a department chair and a faculty advisor to Her Campus and Zeta Phi Eta. But it was her students that were the highlight of her career.

“It’s unbelievable to me that for 25 years my job has been to come in and spend time with these young people who are enthusiastic and smart and funny and dedicated and kind,” Fletcher said. “I mean, I get paid for that. It’s crazy. That’s the part I’ll miss the most.”

Fletcher’s Rate My Professor – a platform where students can review their professors – aggregates 20 years of 30 reviews that land her at a 4.3 out of five rating and with 100% of students reviewers saying they would take her class again. Reviewers raved again and again about how devoted she is to helping students succeed. Greene gave Fletcher this attitude about teaching with advice he gave her when she first started at Hofstra.

“He told me whenever you have a decision where you have to weigh the administration [asking] for certain things, the budget [asking] for certain things and the students: to always make the decision based on what’s best for the students,” Fletcher said.

It is from her own experience that Fletcher understands students are not coming into college as master writers. Entering her first job in the journalism industry at Discover magazine with a passion, writing skills and no journalism degree, she recalled that year as unsuccessful. When a student with little journalism experience and poor writing skills comes into her classroom, her philosophy is to give them that boost of confidence.

“I often feel like more of a coach or a cheerleading team than a teacher, and I think that’s good,” Fletcher said.

Some students complete their first assignment equipped with talent beyond their years.

“The best students, sometimes, are the ones that make me a little squirmy because they ask questions that are hard to answer and they work on articles that involve ethical dilemmas,” Fletcher said. “They’re pushing me to be more thoughtful and braver than I normally would be and that’s fun.”

The journalism industry has changed a lot in the past couple decades. A space that was originally reserved for long-standing media organizations has now burst through the floodgates of social media where anyone can be a journalist.

Fletcher began at Hofstra connecting students with entry-level positions to eventually work their way up. Losing her ties with the current industry and falling more into Hofstra, she is now an expert at connecting students to alumni. She teaches students to be open to working in a variety of roles that require strong writers.

“It’s not really what you want to do with your life,” Fletcher said. “It’s what you want to do the first year when you’re out of school because careers aren’t always in a straight line. You have to wiggle around.”

Fletcher notes her coworkers as another highlight of Hofstra. She can glance at a room and pick out all the professors she had a little part in bringing onto the staff that she adores.

A student-first mentality was part of the reason why Fletcher chose to retire from a full-time position. Outside of teaching, associate professors do committee work and make administrative decisions that determine the direction of the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication.

“At some point it becomes inescapably obvious that the department would be in better hands with the younger people who are coming in,” Fletcher said. “Looking around at meetings and seeing all these exciting ideas that my younger colleagues had and thinking, you know what, they’re the future of the department and maybe the gracious time to leave is now.”

Fletcher will continue to teach “News Writing and Reporting” and, for the first time, “Composition 001” as an adjunct professor. With her newfound free time, she will teach English at a refugee camp and spend time with her grandchildren.

“I’m just grateful,” Fletcher said. “That’s my overwhelming sense when I think about retirement, it’s not sadness, but [I’m] just grateful that I had these 25 years at Hofstra.”