“I was feeling my roots growing down between the floorboards, into that Carolina red clay,” said English professor Beth Keiser, when asked what has kept her at Guilford since 1966.But after this semester, Keiser is retiring, along with her husband Mel, who teaches religion and has been here as long as she has.

Born in northern Virginia, Beth Keiser worked part of her way through college as a typist and clerk at the Pentagon for the Air Force. She studied first at Wheaton College in Illinois, and then moved on to George Washington University; finally she found a home at Earlham College, where she received her undergraduate degree in English.

At first, Keiser had no intention of becoming an English professor at all. She had already spent two years at Yale’s prestigious Divinity School, but began rethinking her decision with the death of a professor and close mentor.

After some radical evaluation of personal beliefs and an acceptance that all of her free time was spent reading poetry and writing interdisciplinary papers with a combined focus on literature and theology, something changed. She finally gave herself permission to follow her dream.

While discussing a proposed honors thesis on the novels of Thomas Mann, she was asked the question that changed her life: “Why don’t you just go down the hill?”

The Divinity School was actually at the top of a hill at the base of which is Yale University’s main campus. That one question changed her life forever and sent her into the world of postgraduate English study.

At that point, Yale was a fairly male-dominated institution, not even allowing women to enter some parts of the library or eat at the famed Morey’s restaurant. “Every time I visit there now, I make sure I eat at Morey’s,” Keiser said.

Keiser said that she loved teaching and especially loved the move to teaching at Guilford.

“When I first came to Guilford, I only expected to stay two years, but I couldn’t leave,” Keiser said. “There was such a passion for teaching, with a sense – based on a Quaker ethos where truth is no respecter of persons – that we all had things to learn as well as to teach, and that everyone could and should make a difference in creating a better educational community,”

Beth Keiser said that her husband Mel helped get her hired at Guilford. Mel’s mentor from Earlham, and at the time the new Guilford president, hired them both.

“You have to stop sometime,” Keiser said about why she’s leaving now. “You don’t want to stop too soon and you don’t want to stop too late. This is just a hunch; it feels right. I still love teaching and I’m going to miss it.”

She also said that she would miss the conversations and courses fostered by Guilford’s emphasis on the interdisciplinary.

Although Keiser is leaving her teaching days at Guilford behind, she still plans on being involved with the study abroad program in Ghana and will also serve as “book-fairy” to her daughter’s third grade class.

“Jung’s ideas of inferior functions that are not your preferred and developed skills makes sense for me,” Keiser said. “I have a growing passion to make art with my hands and connect my eye, my hand, and my heart – the nonverbal realm.”

Whatever else lies down Beth Keiser’s path, she will remembered not only by her contributions to the Women’s Studies, English, Religious Studies programs and others, but by her warm smile and love of teaching.