By MARZIA SYEDA
Contributing Writer
More than 700 books line the shelves of Nicole Van Zandt’s home library. In her collection of fiction, non-fiction, classics, and prose, Van Zandt’s favorites include every classic Charles Dickens book, and fiction writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book. Over the years, her collection grew from the recommendations of her close friends, family members, and coworkers. Van Zandt, 25, is determined to read every one of them.
Van Zandt’s love for books developed at an early age which influenced her love for writing. She always tries to incorporate her writing background into her daily work as a coordinator at The College of Saint Rose.
“I always liked reading from a young age because my parents always read to me as a child. They would make up stories while I was falling asleep and that sort of influenced my love for writing because I wanted to get different versions of writing,” said Van Zandt.
Van Zandt is the Annual Giving coordinator for the Institutional Advancement Office at the college. She has been working in the Annual Giving office for almost three years. Van Zandt oversees writing solicitation letters, emails, drafting packets, incorporating new strategies and ideas for current and new donors, coordinating interviews with scholarship recipients, and working with other departments to collectively attract new donors, scholarships for students, hold special events for donors to overall encourage them to support The Saint Rose fund.
“Nicole is like the linchpin of Annual Giving. If you don’t know an answer to a question, she will definitely know,” said Becky Bonenfant, assistant director of Campaign and Special Events.
Currently, Van Zandt is helping to organize the 2019 Community of Excellence event, COE event. She is responsible for managing the event, keeping track of all the staff attendees from each program through a Smartsheet software, interviewing honorees and sponsoring them.
Before working at this full-time job as a graduate student, Van Zandt temporarily had an internship at the Reid, McNally, & Savage Lobbyists Firm after graduating a semester early in December of 2014. As part of her undergraduate work, Van Zandt majored in Communications, minored in Creative Writing and concentrated in Public Relations and Advertising at Saint Rose.
While interning at the firm, Van Zandt married her partner five years at the time and recently has been newly married for three and a half years. Van Zandt and Roland met on April 2010 and have been together for nine years.
“Despite being a little reserved, she always picks her words carefully to get her point across eloquently while being mindful of how this will impact those around her,” said Nicole’s husband, Roland Van Zandt.
Van Zandt searched for an opportunity where she can use her writing, and through research found a full-time position here at Saint Rose. The college also offered graduate classes with a 20 percebt tuition remission for full-time employees.
“I did my MBA program at Saint Rose while working full-time. I had to attend to two classes after a full day of work [every semester for over the course of two years]. Some semesters, some classes were online, some in-person. Other times there were all in-person classes which was rough for me. I was always very tired by the weekend, after work and classes, but I had to pull myself together to do homework,” said Van Zandt.
Van Zandt took advantage of one employee benefit and earned her Master of Business Administration in December 2018.
Managing both classes and full-time work at times were very stressful for Van Zandt. The challenges continue in the workplace, where facing many challenges along the way of her work, Van Zandt still manages to complete her projects and explore new ideas. Unlike her previous job at Reid, McNally, & Savage Lobbyists Firm, here working as a coordinator, Van Zandt feels like she owns her work more.
Maria Vincent, coordinator of Prospect Development has been working with Van Zandt for the last two years since January of 2017. Even though their work does not overlap, she saw Van Zandt’s facing challenges and overcoming them.
“Because of our previous geography at 950 Madison Avenue, [I witnessed] Nicole’s growth as an Annual Giving Coordinator. She is a quick learner and a problem solver and always keeps a breadth of new approaches,” said Maria Vincent.
Other than her passion for books, Van Zandt also carries a love for traveling. She completed visiting 20 states in almost all of East Coast and hopes to finish traveling all over the country. Her recent travel was Seattle in 2016.
“This was our first out-of-state trip and we decided to walk everywhere and not use public transportation. We got to see different parts of the city and using the underground system you can’t really see the city,” said Van Zandt.
Van Zandt was raised in the Clifton Park area since third grade. Before marriage, she lived with her parents and one younger brother, who now lives with his friends in Baltimore.
She owns two pets: a dog named Fitz, inspired by one of her favorite fiction writer, Fitzgerald, and a cat named Kappie. Like the names of her pets, Van Zandt’s maiden name is also unique. People usually assumed that because of her last name, Mt. Pleasant, she should be always happy.
Van Zandt despite her busy schedule, still hopes to continue her journey in reading all her 700 books and discovering different types of writing.
“[Being a writer] definitely is a hobby in the future. I like fiction writing, and I did it almost every day during high school but because of busy schedules, I can’t do it every day now. And I don’t force myself to write because when I force myself, [my writing] comes out as garbage but if I have an idea that comes naturally, I must write it down and it writes out really well,” said Van Zandt.
This is a great human story! I appreciate the work that the author put into finding out about the subject and the specificity with which she wrote.