Joanne Haen cannot believe it has been more than 20 years since she retired from her full-time position at KCKCC.
“I have made so many friends working at KCKCC. I have friends outside of education, of course, but people I have met working here are just a very special group of people. I used to drive on campus thinking, ‘I am where I belong right now. I am here, and I am safe. I am where I need to be.’”
And it’s not just the friends she made while at KCKCC that made an impact - it’s also the numerous students she taught over the years.
“It does make me feel good to hear from former students. Sometimes it seems like I had them in class a bazillion years ago,” she said. “I love knowing when they are out in the world doing good things.”
Haen, a retired KCKCC faculty member and faculty advisor for the student newspaper and yearbook, was hired by the first president Dr. Jack Flint, for what was then Kansas City Kansas Community Junior College (KCKCJC). It was 1968 and KCKCJC was still located in downtown Kansas City, Kan.
“When I arrived at KCKCJC, the paper was called the Jayhawker. We changed that because I had earned my masters at K-State (she said with a smile). The students suggested names and voted to name the paper the Blue Devils Advocate. Over the years, the ‘Blue Devil’ part of the paper’s name faded away. We had staff artists who made suggestions for change, and The Advocate just sort of grew out of that process.”
Haen worked at KCKCC full-time until 2000, and then became an adjunct faculty member. Her husband, Dr. Michael Haen, was also a former faculty member, baseball coach and Reserve KCK Police Officer. Killed in the line of duty, the building that currently houses the Police Academy on the KCKCC Main campus is named after Haen.
Faculty, KCKCJC, KCKCC, Advocate
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