After 40 Years, Glazer Credits Rider for Nurturing Career Success

Dr. Susan Mandel Glazer recently included Rider University in her estate plans. For Susan, the decision came naturally.

"Rider is my home," explains the Director of the Center for Reading and Writing and professor of graduate education at the University. Susan, who began working in Rider's education department in 1969, says she wants to give back to the institution that has supported her for the past 40 years. "Rider has been good to me. Rider permitted me to spread my wings and let me grow."

As a young professor, Susan saw that her graduate students needed a hands-on facility to practice what they were learning in their coursework. She requested a classroom space, and her graduate students began to guide the children of Rider faculty and staff to become effective readers and writers. Once word spread, the after-school and summer programs grew, and the Center for Reading and Writing officially opened its doors to the community in 1980. Susan creates the on-campus practicum at the center, and her graduate students have worked with more than 7,000 kids.

Nearly 30 years later, the Center for Reading and Writing is recognized worldwide as a place for exceptional literacy training. The Center also provides parent education, teacher education and a resource for school personnel.

Susan remembers the self-doubt she experienced in grade school and high school when she was told she should never go to college because she could not write. The problem, though, was her inability to spell. Despite her teachers' remarks, Susan was determined to succeed and earned a degree in education from Syracuse University, her master's from New York University and her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.

"I was born with an innate ability to push and set goals," Susan explains. "Without that ability, this Center never would have been created."

At the Center, Susan, the staff and the graduate-student reading specialists guide children to set their own learning goals. Susan has been invited to speak in 29 countries and all 50 states about the Center's programs and the research she has carried out in this facility. In addition, Susan has authored and co-authored more than 15 books and 200 articles. She is currently working on a new book entitled Through the Looking Glass: Reflective Teaching. In the book, she explores teachers' behaviors and how they affect the children they work with.

Susan hopes her bequest will support the University, particularly in some ongoing program of service to the community.

A conversation with Susan revealed that she is grateful to President Mordechai Rozanski's administration for continuing to value her work. She says, "My feelings are expressed best by Elizabeth S. Shepherd, an English novelist in the mid-1800s who wrote: ‘To feel [exquisite] is the lot of very many, but to be appreciated belongs to the few.'"