Admissions’ Penelope Terry: ‘Brooklyn College Feels Like Home’

“When I came here, it was like coming home,” says Penelope Terry, who in September left Baruch College after three decades of employment to become Brooklyn College’s director of undergraduate admissions and recruitment. “I felt very comfortable being here again,” she adds.   
    Married and the mother of a grown daughter, Terry explains that she grew up just a few minutes’ drive up Bedford Avenue from Brooklyn College and that her mother, Winifred Terry, worked here for a number of years in the Human Resources Department – “back when it was still known as Personnel.” She says, “My mother put me in the Early Childhood Center and when other children were going to kindergarten, I attended early childhood classes here. I remember one, a summer math program, in particular. And I recall having fun at the Country Fairs that they used to run back then.”
     After graduating from Erasmus Hall High School, Terry went on to Medgar Evers College, where she earned her B.S. in elementary education. “When I got out of college it was the middle of the ’70s,” she recalls. “It was the height of the city’s fiscal crisis. Jobs were very scarce.”
     At the urging of her mother, who told her she “should get experience working in an office,” Terry applied for and landed a position in admissions at Baruch. Step by step she gradually moved up the ladder of advancement to become director while also working on two master’s degrees.
    

    Then after twenty-nine years at Baruch, and while still living in the same house where she grew up, Penny’s former boss, CUNY Associate Dean for Enrollment James Murphy, told her about the opening at Brooklyn College. Terry decided to go for it. “I felt it was time for a change,” she says.
    “I’ve always worked with students in the area of admissions,” she says. “I’ve always believed in providing a good education for a reasonable price. And I’m interested in dealing with kids who don’t see themselves as coming here and showing that they can.”
    Terry says that in her short time at Brooklyn College she has seen nothing that is obviously wrong in the admission area. “I’d like to experience a full cycle before I make any big moves,” she says. “So far I’m enjoying it. Everyone has been warm and welcoming.”