“At The Mount, I was able to blossom and to have a second chance. That meant everything to me.”
Karen Bettez Halnon
Class of 1983
Fresh out of high school, Karen Bettez Halnon came to The Mount in 1981 intent on getting a college education. Despite not being “the greatest student” at her high school, she found Mount Wachusett Community College set her future in the right direction in more ways than one. “At The Mount, I was able to blossom and to have a second chance. That meant everything to me,” she said.
MWCC gave Halnon, a first-generation college student, the opportunity to “develop as a person,” she recalled. “I immersed myself in studying and student life, served as secretary of the Student Government Association, and spent countless afternoons studying and conversing with other students in North Cafeteria.”
“Most significant among my memories…is an academic environment
where the professors strove to cultivate passion for learning,” she
added.
A business administration major, Halnon graduated from MWCC in 1983 and
transferred to Amherst College, where she earned her bachelor’s degree.
She received her Ph.D. in sociology from Boston College.
Halnon’s “excellent experience” at MWCC sowed the seeds for a rewarding career in academe. Before becoming an associate professor of sociology at Pennsylvania State University, Halnon taught at the University of Vermont and Bowdoin College.
Halnon has published many articles on popular culture and music subcultures in national and international journals, and is the author of the book “Poor Chic: Poverty Fads and Fashions in Popular Consumer Culture.” In addition, she was named Penn State’s 2006 Outstanding Faculty Scholar for superior scholarship in sociology.
Halnon credits Dean Dr. Richard Shine, retired English Professor Jack Leamy, retired History Professor Tom Malloy and retired History and Economics Professor Dr. Jack Bassett for instilling in her a passion for learning. “It was largely because of those professors, seeing the passion they had for the learning process itself,” she said. “They really opened up another world for me that I didn’t know existed.”