One of Danville Area Community College’s most recognizable faces will be wrapping up her career at the school later this year.
Laura Williams, who is the Dean of Adult Education and Literacy as well as the Middle College and College Express programs, is retiring at the end of September after many years in a variety of roles. She says while she will miss the students, she also wants to devote more time to family life.
Audio Player“I’m really proud of some of the accomplishments we have there so I’m sad to walk away from that, and (I’m) definitely going to miss the students, but it’s that time of my life where there are other things I need to do and work with my family,” she says. “We have a military family, so I’m going to be helping my daughter out. So, it feels good…yet sad.”
Williams’ time at DACC has included both being a student and faculty member. After dropping out of high school as a teenager, she took classes at the college in order to receive her diploma and associate’s degree, later earning a master’s degree from the University of Illinois.
The first working position Williams had at DACC was as an evening switchboard operator. She says she has had 12 different positions with the college over two different terms. In between, she was the executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters and worked for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
One area of her job she says she will miss the most is the Middle College program, which she started in 2009.
Audio Player“We actually have about an 80 percent success rate,” Williams explains. “That program’s grant was only supposed to last five years, and here we are in our 12th year of it. We’ve graduated many, many students who were at risk of dropping out of high school.”
Williams plans to divide her time after she retires between Danville and North Carolina, where her daughter, Amy, son-in-law, Brandun, and three grandsons live. The rest of her family includes her son, Danville Mayor Rickey Williams Jr., and her husband, Rickey Williams Sr., who is a criminal justice instructor at DACC.