Northwestern professor savors her space

"Yes, the space is close," she says with a grin.

Lundberg's "digs" are contained in Kepp Hall, a sturdy cinder block building with a brick facing that once housed apartments. Lundberg's desk is near a window that likely opened up to the living room area of this expansive space.

"Those trees are maples and the view in the fall is beautiful, just golden," Lundberg says.

That, too, befits a professor who came to Northwestern from the great outdoors, literally. Lundberg held six positions in her previous career, park ranger posts with national parks, the most recent being at Hovenweep National Monument on the border of Utah and Colorado.

The park only had limited satellite phone access at that time 17 years ago, so Lundberg traveled 15 miles to a spartan trading post that contained a building and a post featuring a phone jack.

"We brought a phone out and that's where I did the interview for the job at Northwestern," Lundberg says with a laugh.

The interview was conducted with Dr. Joel Westerholm, a professor of English, who ended up hiring Lundberg. The two now share this former apartment unit, one connected with a doorway.

"This office didn't have the main door when I was to move in," Lundberg says. "You'd have to walk through Joel's office to get to this office."

Thankfully, a doorway was added, leading into a spacious setting featuring all sorts of books, posters, pictures and mementos. There's even a University of Wyoming letter jacket hanging next to a bright yellow chair. Both items have a history.

"I wear the letter jacket sometimes," Lundberg says, "and I ask my students what sport I might have lettered in during my days as an undergrad at Wyoming."

Lundberg majored in both geology and English at Wyoming, where she was a member of the varsity rifle team, shooting a .22-caliber rifle competitively in three positions (standing, kneeling, prone).

She found the yellow chair at a thrift store in nearby Rock Valley, Iowa. The chair was made in New York. Lundberg noticed it and went back to the store three times before offering $20 for it.

A number of Navajo rugs cover space on her office floor. One dates back to the 1930s or 1940s. She found it in Boulder, Colorado. Another one, all wadded up and forgotten, she uncovered at a store in Hastings, Nebraska.

There's also a fire fighter's license plate and a small toy fire engine, both paying homage to Lundberg's yen for service; she has been a volunteer fire fighter in Orange City for 16 years, having served as a fire captain and the unit's vice president at various points.

The significant wall space is covered, in part, with posters and pictures from her previous places of employment, including: Natural Bridges National Monument, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore (where she lived and worked in a lighthouse), Cedar Breaks National Monument, Hovenweep National Monument and Agate Fossile Bed National Monument.

She also displays her diplomas from Wyoming and the University of Notre Dame, where she earned her doctorate.

Lighthouse models and toys and Native pottery also line Lundberg's shelves, as do pictures of her parents and her husband, Duane Jundt.

The space has been Lundberg's for two years, as she and the English Department relocated here from a pair of off-campus sites, locations chosen during the construction of Northwestern College's Jack and Mary DeWitt Learning Commons.

"I once had a student who called me because she couldn't find me," Lundberg says of the off-campus period. Prior to that, Lundberg and her colleagues worked from Grandberg Hall, a space that contained all their classrooms and a kitchen. Grandberg Hall was torn down to make way for the new library, which is close to Kepp Hall.

"I was the last in the English Department to choose an office," she says. "This has been great. I like students to wander in. They should come here if they have questions, or if they just want to talk."

The area also puts Lundberg close to other professors in the English department, allowing the chair to drop by and visit with her colleagues frequently.

The space is clean, but warm, both current and a bit nostalgic, showcasing the professor's interests in geology, literature and the American West.

A space that was once an apartment before becoming offices for campus ministries and music, is now where the chair of the English Department finds herself each day.

"I love this space," she says. "I hope this is my office forever."