Late start launches teaching career

Most students are just beginning their adult lives when they step onto a college campus. But by the time Tess Quattrone Vaglienti walked into a classroom on one of Ohio University’s regional campuses in 1957, she’d already done a lot of living.

Vaglienti was a 42-year-old wife and mother when she decided to fulfill a longtime promise to her father to earn a college diploma. In a little more than five years, she completed an education degree at what was then Ohio University’s Belmont campus in Martins Ferry, Ohio. (It’s now Ohio University-Eastern in nearby St. Clairsville.)
 

Tess Vaglienti and Eastern Campus Dean James Newton

“It was tough going to school, taking care of the gas station we owned and raising children,” says Vaglienti, who lives in Bellaire, Ohio. “My daughter, bless her heart, would help me start dinner for our family. I would have to leave to attend classes, and she would finish the meal for my husband and son. She was 13 years old at the time.”

Vaglienti’s opportunity to attend college came about when her husband, Bill, who drove a school bus, was promoted to bus garage supervisor. She decided it was time to make good on her promise to her father, an Italian immigrant who ran a grocery store in her hometown of Welch, W.Va.

With the encouragement of Robert Bovenizer, an instructor and counselor at the Belmont campus, she plunged into her coursework.
“I asked Bob if he thought I was too old to start going to school again. He told me, ‘Most certainly not. You can do it!’” she says.

Not long after graduation, she began teaching in Bellaire City Schools, where she enjoyed a 24-year career before retiring about 10 years ago.

Vaglienti took pride in watching her daughter, Patricia Nelson, attend her alma mater and her son, William Vaglienti Jr., BSIT ’65, earn his degree. Her son met his future wife, Julienne Stickel Vaglienti, BSJ ’66, while attending college.

Even now, Vaglienti is pursuing her education — but at a much  more relaxed pace. She’s studying Italian and enjoys square dancing and cooking.