As a kid, Nicole Striegel used to hunt monkeys in the Amazon Rainforest.
Monkey meat is a little stringy, but good, she assures. Later, she adds that it tastes more like alligator than bear.
As if everyone ought to know what alligator and bear meat tastes like.
Educated. Experienced. Versatile. Worldly. Well-rounded. Fun.
Those words do not completely sum up Crowder College’s new dean of student services.
But they’re arrows, maybe, shot in the right direction. Metaphorically fitting, since Striegel loves archery.
She also loves Greece. And the New Orleans food culture. And popular music. And students. And coffee. And more than what probably can be listed.
Striegel’s father is American. Her mother, Colombian. They met in the Peace Corps.
She herself was born in Indiana, but was mostly raised in her mother’s country. And yes, Striegel notes, that’s why she has always been a big coffee drinker. She clutches a yellow travel mug of the black liquid wherever she goes — even at receptions and parties where other beverages are available.
“It’s the only drug I do — let’s just clarify that one,” Striegel laughs.
She’s always laughing. Or getting ready to, it seems. She radiates cheerfulness, though, not silliness.
In 1980s Colombia, Striegel learned how to shoot a rifle and a bow and arrow. But then, everyone knew how to shoot in Colombia, she notes. During the summertime, she would tag along with her grandmother to the jungles of the Amazon Rainforest on healthcare missions. While there, however, they also spent time fishing and hunting pretty much anything they could find, Striegel says, including snakes and monkeys.
Yeah, to eat.
(She won’t comment on if she still likes monkey meat or not).
As a child, Striegel attended a German school (yes, in South America). The German schools are the best, she notes, because the curriculum is extremely advanced, while also varied. The instructors are flown in from the fatherland. To graduate — or even function in class really — students must be fluent in German, Spanish and English.
“So when people say calculus is hard, I say calculus is easy — now, calculus in German, that’s hard!” Striegel says, again following up with a ringing laugh.
Today, she’s forgotten much of her German. But she’s still fluent in Spanish. She can also read Portuguese and speaks enough French and Italian to get herself by when visiting those countries. Which she does pretty often.
Her favorite vacation spot is Greece, however, and she’s a self-admitted sucker for Mediterranean food, especially if kabobed.
Then she also loves spicy sausage jambalaya. That is, real jambalaya, from New Orleans, which might as well be Striegel’s hometown.
When she was 14, her brother graduated from high school and her dad decided to relocate the family to The Big Easy.
And that’s where Striegel spent the next 14 years of her life.
It was the transition from South America to New Orleans, actually, that might have developed her the most. That’s why she especially relates to international students. Sometimes, even to refugees.
“It was about balancing who I was as a person when I came, and making it work with who I was going to be as a person in the United States,” Striegel observes.
Afterward, she lived in France for a time while earning her doctorate from the Grenbole Ecole de Management, a leading French business school.
Up until last summer, she also lived in Hawaii, working as dean of student services at a community college there. Hawaii was OK, Striegel notes, because she was only there for a year and knew she would soon be living back on the mainland, which she was glad to do when the time came.
Compared to many her age — near mid-thirties — or anyone for that matter, Striegel has led somewhat of diverse, almost “Hemingway-esque” existence up to now.
Of course, she doesn’t see it that way.
“To me it all seems pretty normal, it’s kind of what I do,” she says with an expression that shows she’s realized before now that others think her life a little unusual. “My life looks impressive to me on paper, but to me it’s just what I live.”
Striegel applied to Crowder because she knew she wanted to live in a small community. That was after seeing an Internet posting of a house for sale in Bolivar (Striegel pronounces it “Bo-le-var”) a few years back when she was living and working in Colorado Springs. She didn’t have an address, but she made the long drive one weekend to the Show-Me-State just to see this cute little home. Striegel did not buy the house. But Missouri made a good impression on her that stuck.
Now she lives in Neosho.
The place has a good balance, she says, between the Southern charm she grew up with and the hard work ethics of the Midwest (she was once dean of students at St. Paul College in Minnesota).
Striegel likes to say she more or less fell into her career, which has always been on the college scene. She started out as a workstudy at the University of New Orleans before moving up the ladder into bigger and better things. But whether in charge of enrollment records or student services, Striegel has always been at home, job-wise, on a college campus.
“I will do this until I don’t love it anymore,” she says. “And the day I don’t love it is the day I will quit. I do this because I love it. I love dealing with students. But the day I don’t feel that way is the day I’ll stop doing it.”
WHO IS NICOLE STRIEGEL?
Education:
• B.S. — Biological Sciences, University of New Orleans, 1996
• M.A. — Business Administration, University of New Orleans, 2000
• Ph.D. — Business Administration, Grenoble Ecole de Management, 2005
Experience:
• 1996-2000 — Assistant Director of Records and Administration, University of New Orleans
• 2000-2004 — Registrar, Assistant Director of Enrollment Services, Pikes Peak Community College, Colorado Springs, Colo.
• 2004-2006 — Dean of Student Development and Services, St. Paul College, St. Paul, Minn.
• 2006-2007 — Dean of Student Services, Leeward Community College, Pearl City, Hawaii
