She has been likened to caffeine, a southern belle and a southern spitfire, but to some of her colleagues, “She’s just Karen.”

Vice President of Student Affairs Karen Rigg announced last Friday that she will be leaving the university and entering early retirement effective August 31, 2003. Vice President Rigg spent 14 years at Northeastern, beginning in August of 1989 as the Dean of Students and later being promoted to the VP position in 1992.

In an e-mail sent to university administrators last Friday announcing Rigg’s exit, President Richard Freeland highlighted her recent naming as a “Pillar of the Profession” by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. He also touched upon Rigg’s dedication to the President’s Leadership Institute and her initiation of the President’s Excellence Fund grant in 1998.

But that is not what her co-workers speak of. Instead they speak of her impact on people, the way she enters a room and the way she motivates people to keep striving for success.

“She is always a source of strength, she’s always telling you that you can do it,” said Richard Schwabacher, president of the Student Government Association, who has been working alongside Rigg for close to three years. “She is a constant reminder, like a really warm breeze in the middle of the winter reminding you that summer is coming.”

Her dedication to creating a student-centered university became evident when she took on the task of rallying students together to create a place to call their own. This place is now the Curry Student Center, which SGA has deemed, “the living room of the university.”

It all began when Rigg first came to the university in the late 1980s, twenty years after the student center had been built. A building which Rigg calls, “the ugliest thing” she had ever seen. Instead of shrugging her shoulders and moving on, she went to the president of the university at that time, Jack Curry, and asked for funds. He gave her $25,000. It wasn’t nearly enough.

But she kept going.

“Karen was instrumental in getting it [the student center] off the ground, which was a major accomplishment in that day and age,” said a co-worker and Dean of Student Life Ron Martel. Martel said that although students may not always agree with Rigg’s final decisions, they could not deny that they were respected and heard.

“With Karen, what you see is what you get,” Martel said.

In the end students voted to raise their activities fee, they rallied together and raised the money and the issue. They wanted a place to call their own, and because of a woman from Macomb, Ga., they got it.

“The students really taxed themselves. There were no plans to renovate the building,” Rigg said. “But in the end there was an amazing change. The student center has become the heart of the campus and a lot of that is due to students who helped make it work.”

Besides major undertakings, Rigg has impacted colleague and students on a day-to-day basis.

“I never drank coffee in my life. People say that as you get older, there are different needs in life, like stimulants to keep you going in your job,” said Dean of Student Services James Motley. “Karen Rigg is my caffeine. She walks into the office and charges at 560 mph, 575 percent, full speed ahead.”

President Freeland agrees that Rigg is a positive force to be reckoned with.

“She is a real southern woman. She is one of the truly positive spirits who is enthusiastic, she loves this school,” Freeland said. “Even at administrative tables, she adds a good sense of fun. I am a big fan.”

Although fairly new to the university, Senior Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs Philomena Mantella said she wanted to express her gratitude to Rigg for her 14 years of service to the university.

And after 14 years at Northeastern, Rigg said it is time to slow down and leave the university on a good note. Although she wants to relax and enjoy life, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to focus her interest on. It was then that she realized her task at hand: focus and discover a passion.

“I have had a great time, I have a love affair with the university,” she said. “I admire Northeastern students, they are just different, their fire and their drive.”

But despite that affinity for the university, she just said it is time.

Although she admits she could not leave “cold turkey.” She will be working to support leadership initiative and she promises, visiting old friends from time to time.

A national search for Rigg’s replacement will begin immediately. According to Mantella, the committee will be comprised of three students, three members of the student life staff and three other members of the university, most likely a faculty member, an academic administrator [a dean] and someone from enrollment management. A search consultant will meet with the committee to start initial interviews at the end of the month. These interviews, Mantella said, will help gain a sense of what the university finds to be fundamentally important.