This week’s Who’s Who is Catherine Robertson. Catherine has worked at Notre Dame for 18 years, for the last 10 of which she has been the administrative assistant for the Philosophy department. If you talk with Catherine for longer than a few minutes it instantly becomes clear what is most important to her: family, friends, and community.

Catherine has three boys, Chas, Brian, and David, who are now grown men. Chas, his wife Amber, and Catherine’s only grandson, Avery, live here in town. “Chas and Amber both graduated from Notre Dame. Amber was a triple-domer in psychology. Chas works as the director of interactive marketing for the agency at Notre Dame,” said Catherine. Brian and his wife Katie live in California. Both Brian and Katie went to Notre Dame as well. Brian works for Boeing, and Katie is a painter. Catherine’s youngest David went to Ball State and works for WNDU.

When I asked her about her upbringing, Catherine responded, “I had a wonderful childhood, two wonderful parents and 4 siblings. I am the oldest of the 5. We grew up here in St. Joe County. Most of my family lineage is from here. I have family from St. Joe County all the way back to 1830’s. I went to high school at Marian,” he said.  “Then I went to IU Bloomington and studied Elementary Education.” After that Catherine settled down and moved to North Carolina for 7 years.

But Catherine couldn’t stay away from her roots and moved back to St. Joe County. Her family is clearly attached to the area. Catherine, her father and mother, and even her grandparents all attended Camp Eberhart in Three Rivers, Michigan on Corey Lake when they were growing up. Catherine told me why she loves camping so much: “Camping is about community, outdoor skills, and developing friendship.”

Catherine is full of life. Besides spending time with her family and friends, she has many hobbies. “I’m into genealogy and gardening and my grandson and traveling, and I love to exercise,” she said.

She explains, “I think the genealogy thing comes from a fascination with family history and origins- wondering what your great grandparents were like, and where they are from. I have family from Ireland, Wales, Germany, Scotland, England, and Amsterdam.” But why gardening? “Simple,” she responds, “I love flowers and I like to just be outside.”

Catherine told me how she feels about her job before I even asked. “I love my job! I love working with all the different students, undergrads and graduate. It keeps me busy –  I maintain the website and job placement for our PhDs. There is a good group of faculty and really nice students.” I ask her if she is a philosopher. “We (she and Linda, the other administrative assistant) do the administrative work. But we picked up philosophizing about things,” she jokes.

Her advice to students is to “enjoy every minute of college; it goes by really fast and then you have to work for the rest of your life. Stay in touch with your friends. Don’t lose contact.” She told me how grateful she is for her own experience at the university and in life in general. “I’ve been very fortunate to work at Notre Dame,” she said.  “I’ve been very fortunate in my life to have my family and friends.”

It was very fortunate that I came to Notre Dame, because I never would have met Catherine otherwise. I walked into her office as a freshman and walked out a friend. She is one of my dearest friends at the university, and I can honestly say that in many ways she has taught me more about philosophy, love of wisdom, and love of life, than any of the books or classes I have taken as a philosophy major. In the words of C.S. Lewis, “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.” Through Catherine I have found this to be true.

Kelly Mason is a big softie, who also happens to have a great new haircut. She can be contacted at kmason2@nd.edu.