Plomedahl is retiring as academic department assistant in the geography and anthropology department after 55 years at the university. The McIntyre Library Special Collections and Archives team found record of two other employees who had worked at least 50 years at UW-Eau Claire, but Plomedahl may be the only one to reach the 55-year mark.
“I like to work with the students; I think that’s why we are here,” Plomedahl says of the reason behind her lengthy career. “I was hired here to work with students because this is a university. I like to sit and talk with them. They’re fun, they’re young and they kind of keep me young.”
Geography and anthropology faculty say Plomedahl’s departure will leave a large hole in the department where she had worked in the same office of Phillips Hall for nine different chairs for more than five decades.
“To be honest, I am not sure it is possible to quantify how important she is,” says Dr. Ryan Weichelt, professor and chair of the geography and anthropology department. “For all of us, she has always just been here.”
Plomendahl hadn’t envisioned such a long university career when the Eau Claire native was hired at then-Wisconsin State University-Eau Claire in 1970 after taking the civil service exam. That was the same year as the opening of the Fine Arts Center on campus — later named for then-Chancellor Leonard Haas — and before completion of the McIntyre Library addition and construction of Hibbard Hall.
Plomedahl recalls that during the early years of the job, students who wanted to take a class would come into the geography office in hopes of securing a data punch card that allowed them to register for a specific course and section. Before she had a desktop computer, Plomedahl operated an IBM Executive typewriter in her office duties, backspacing to use white-out correction tape for any mistakes.
“How times have changed,” Plomedahl says.
Career ‘nothing short of legendary’
Plomedahl says she looked at job openings in other academic departments over the years, but always decided that the geography department was her home.
Dr. Zach Hilgendorf, assistant professor of geography and anthropology, is among faculty and students who are thankful Plomedahl never left the department, calling her decades-long contributions “nothing short of legendary and mind-blowing.”
“Yvonne is so incredibly special and has touched the lives of thousands of students, dozens of faculty, and we are all better for it,” Hilgendorf says.
Hilgendorf, who graduated in 2015 from UW-Eau Claire with a bachelor’s degree in environmental geography, has a perspective of Plomedahl’s importance to the department as both a student and faculty member.
“As students, we had the utmost respect for Yvonne and all that she did for us, from helping with payroll for those of us employed by the department, to helping with reimbursement when we would travel to conferences,” Hilgendorf says. “We knew she was amazing, helpful and a wonderful person to talk with.
“As a faculty member, multiple departments and multiple administrative assistants later have shown me just how special Yvonne’s continued service is in the department, her always pleasant disposition, and her intense knowledge of, quite literally, everything we need really is.”
Plomedahl helped shape student’s career
Third-year student Grace McDonnell, a geospatial analysis and technology, and biology major from Olivia, Minnesota, decided to attend UW-Eau Claire because of Plomedahl. McDonnell had narrowed her colleges choices to three universities to study geographic information before she visited UW-Eau Claire.
“Yvonne reached out to me before I had a chance to ask for a tour,” McDonnell says, recalling how Plomedahl told her in an email that she would set up a meeting with a faculty advisor. “I met with not one, not two, but basically the entire department faculty. I’m here because of her; that tour made it so very easy to choose UW-Eau Claire.”
McDonnell has been a student assistant in the department for five semesters, and she says the time spent with Plomedahl has helped shape her college career.
“Yvonne has been my boss, mentor and, in many ways, my role model,” McDonnell says. “I will always think of her when I look back on my college years or think of the department.
“She is the department; she’s shaped it into what it is today. And she doesn’t ask for praise or even recognition. She is just a genuine, selfless person.’
Scholarship will honor years of service
Plomedahl says she was “surprised and honored” that the geography and anthropology department is working to create a scholarship to celebrate and honor her contributions to the department.
“We can think of no better honor than to create a scholarship that will help students graduate,” Weichelt says. “Because Yvonne has always helped others, we believe this scholarship will honor her dedication to always helping others.”
Weichelt says his department will hire someone to replace Plomedahl, but her absence will be felt.
“The work-related duties will be difficult to fill, but we will survive,” Weichelt says. “The human element of who Yvonne is and what she has meant to this department and geography is what everyone will miss. She has always been here; we have never known what it is like to not have Yvonne here. We will all dearly miss her, but we also know how fortunate we all are to have had her in our lives.”
