The clock on the wall said 4:32 p.m., when Demaris Watford welcomed a visitor into her office in Weiss Hall at Temple University.
During the previous several hours, Watford had done the things an office manager does, which is to say a little of everything.
Watford was recently distinguished by adjunct instructor Adam Dvorin as a difference-maker at Temple University, the fourth-leading employer in Philadelphia.
She may not be as well-known publicly as President Richard Englert or former Men’s Basketball Coach Fran Dunphy, Dvorin says. Still, to those inside the Department of Communication and Social Influence at Klein College of Media and Communication, she is someone who is willing to do anything for anyone, smiling the whole time.
“The key to this job,” said Watford, “is to treat everyone the same. From the dean to a first-year student. I am here to help people, and I get a lot of satisfaction when things work out.”
On this day, it meant ordering a customized window treatment for a professor, helping a student schedule the classes she needed to graduate, assigning faculty to classes they will be teaching in upcoming semesters, booking classrooms for instructors, answering incoming phone calls, paying credit card bills and other invoices and delegating assignments to a colleague. Soon, it would be time to commute back to her West Philadelphia home.
The next morning could bring a whole new set of challenges, something she said keeps her job fresh and exciting after 14 years at Temple.
“A lot of people in my position set boundaries, saying this task or that request isn’t ‘part of my job’,” Watford said. “I don’t believe in doing things that way. I feel my job is to help people, and that is the way I go about my daily responsibilities.”
Watford left a 16-year career with a non-profit organization to work at Temple so she could help pay for her daughter and son to go to college themselves. Both are now Temple graduates. Soon Demaris will be one, too. She went back to school in her late 40s, working to finish her bachelor’s degree in adult education. She is on track to graduate in December 2019.
“Finishing my degree was very important to me,” said Watford, whose office walls are adorned with photos of her two grandchildren, ages 8 and 3. “I started college years ago, but never finished. I wanted to close the loop.”
Not that having a degree would indicate a change in work ethic, Watford explained. She said that while a college diploma would make her marketable, she’d continue to put others first and continue helping in whichever ways she can.