Teresa Duffy’s office sits close to the entrance of the admissions office on campus. As dean of Enrollment Management, she likes to keep tabs on prospective students and families. After waiting briefly in a wood-paneled room that I recalled from my original admissions’ interview for RPI, I was led into her neatly-decorated office and sat down at a small, round conference table to get started.
Originally from Phoenix, Ariz., Duffy was schooled in Los Angeles. She studied English at Mount Saint Mary’s College, a women’s college.
“In retrospect, I feel that I would have been better off going to a school with a more accurate representation of diversity,” she said, although she praises her education and experiences at college. Duffy graduated after three years in 1967. Unfortunately, she was not able to stay in Los Angeles and eventually went home to Phoenix. There Duffy gained employment at a newly opened American Express division office. “What a wonderful choice! It was a company growing by leaps and bounds; the concept of travel and credit cards was fairly new. Businesses like American Express were in an incredible place,” mentioned Duffy.
Although Duffy moved through various jobs at American Express, her focus was always customer service and marketing. “I always did my job in the context of the customer. I looked at the business from the outside in and that is helpful even today,” she remarked. After ten years she was offered a position in Manhattan as vice president for for direct marketing operations. Upon taking the job, she also became involved in the development of the New York City Partnership, a business-driven support network for the city of New York. “We literally designed a program that found 25,000 jobs for underrepresented kids. It was a time [when] the city was struggling financially, so it took a load off them as well,” smiled Duffy. For her work with the NYC Partnership, she received an award from President Ronald Reagan in the White House Rose Garden—it still hangs on her office wall today.
Fourteen years after she joined American Express she was recruited by a company in Troy called Garden Way. “I was their first female vice president, so I must have interviewed twenty times,” she laughed. “What I adored about that job was that for the very first time I understood the strength of customer satisfaction and how important that is on the development of a product.”
After some time with Garden Way, Duffy decided that she needed to spend more time with her family. Resigning her position with Garden Way, she took time to re-evaluate her career and enjoy time with her new husband. One year later, in 1989, she was recruited to be director of corporate and foundation relations for Rensselaer. “They wanted somebody with a corporate background. Rensselaer was just starting to launch a capital campaign, and wanted somebody to direct corporate fundraising,” remembered Duffy. After five years in Institute relations, she was asked to fill a vacancy as dean of undergraduate admissions.
“And the rest is history!” laughed Duffy, “I absolutely loved it.” In 2000, Dr. Jackson added graduate recruitment to Duffy’s responsibility, and she became dean of enrollment management.
“Read something that you don’t think you would normally be interested in,” advises Duffy. “Be inquisitive! I think curiosity is the one attribute that makes people live longest.” Also, she offers that “if you’re a risk taker, this is a place that understands that. Many universities are risk-averse. Rensselaer is a place that realizes that in order to get to the next level, you need to take calculated risks.” In her current position, she enjoys working with students and parents, and helping them through the college selection process. Outside of work, Duffy enjoys gardening, “reading everything,” and cooking. She can be reached at duffyt@rpi.edu.
