Underneath the corridors of Granite Hall sits Jim Earle in his wooden Franklin Pierce chair reminiscing about his own college experience. "For the first time in my life I realized that I was not a dummy," says the Vice President of Student Affairs. "I was not a dumb jock and that there was a lot more to life."

     Growing up in Gilford, Connecticut along the shoreline, Earle attended prep school and played on both the hockey and lacrosse teams. Sports were a great part of his life and he was always considered a jock. However, when he started at New England College, he realized his potential. "I got straight A's, I really worked very hard, and I found a part of me that I never knew existed. It created a passion in me for something new."

     Earle earned his undergraduate degree in English Lit. According to Earle, he found a wealth of knowledge within literature. "I was going to classes where there were five to ten students in a class reading a book and talking about it, it was something I never imagined I would be interested in; and when I got into it, it was a whole new world."

     "I found that that was really interesting: a good book," says Earle. American classics were his favorite to study, however in most recent years Earle found a curiosity in a story about a young boy becoming a wizard. "I have really enjoyed the whole Harry Potter series. I loved Mark Twain. I loved Ernest Hemingway. But I have to say most recently that this is just great literature for all ages. The imagination, the ability of this writer, Rowling, is just absolutely amazing."

     Not only has he read the books, he has seen the movies and has also listened to the books on tape. "Each time you learn something new," he says with zeal. "I always identify with Dumbledore; maybe that is part of the allure." Being a Vice President on campus, one could see the relation. Earle has been working at Pierce for sixteen years and has been able to see the culture of the campus evolve and is involved with student life and activities. "It's been a third of my life," Earle reflects.

     When he is not on campus Earle spends most of his time with his family. "I'm a hockey dad," he says as he takes pride in his children. "My youngest daughter now is a hockey player. She's 15.5 and she travels quite extensively with that. Typically she has a Friday night practice that soaks up most of my night and most of my weekend is hockey games or going to Connecticut or wherever her games might bring us. My wife is just as involved as I am. When my kids were younger they all played soccer…and we would have four or more games on a Saturday. So she would take the girls and I would take the boys. I would be in one part of the state and she would be doing the same thing. We wouldn't be able to afford it now with the price of gas."

     Earle recently bought a new car that his colleagues poke fun at calling it his midlife crisis car. "Let's not pretend I am driving a Porsche or anything. It is an Eclipse. I mean I like my car and take car of it; it has a name." Laughing Earle says that his cars name is "Little Jerry Seinfeld." "In my family we name everything. If we have a pool we name it. If a deer comes into the backyard and is standing by the compost pile, it's named 'compost' or 'compy' or something. Every car in our house has a name, virtually everything gets a name…on the show Little Jerry Seinfeld was a rooster that Kramer had, Little Jerry. So that was kind of funny." However, if you visit his office, nothing in there has a name. Those rights are only for home possessions and deer.

     Earle has called many places around the world home, including England right outside of London. He worked at a University there and got married to his wife, Sally. "She's someone I met at college. That used to happen a lot. People used to go to college to find their partner. Doesn't happen so much anymore, people get married a lot later in life." He met his wife when he fell out of a window and she was outside and Earle literally fell for her. "That could have been a bad situation but it turned out to be a good one."

     Earle shakes my hand and thanks me for talking with him. At the beginning of the interview Earle said, "There's not much to say about me. That's because my life, the position that I have and because I have four kids, that so much of my life is about other people." Guess he proved himself wrong.