After more than four decades in education, Bethlehem native Virginia Gonzalez had finally come to terms with the idea of retirement. It’s now time to travel, focus on friendships and find personally meaningful projects to occupy her days.

She sat with the Press some time ago to reflect on the social evolution of her Southside neighborhood and the city, her career at Northampton Community College, and the ever-changing face of the local college population and the niche schools like NCC fill.

A daughter of Spanish immigrants, Gonzalez was born and raised on the Southside during an era of social upheaval. The Bethlehem Steel Corp. welcomed thousands from other countries to shovel its coke and tend its furnaces, and even while those transplants sought to become part of the community, they met resistance and were forced by necessity into insular cultural islands among a whites-dominated population.

Elementary school was difficult, she said: Nonwhite students at Holy Infancy were relegated to lessons in the basement, while a stint at Northside’s Clearview was rife with ostracism to the point she readily fled elsewhere. “There was a lot of racism and prejudice and I ended up returning by age 10 to Holy Infancy.”

But it was time of cultural revolution, and with it came hope and singular opportunities. “My father wanted me to be a bank teller,” she recalls. “When I got into college he was stunned. He never thought that far. College wasn’t a reality.”

She said he realized what the opportunity meant, but was still protective, and said, “An education is never wasted. You can apply anywhere, but you have to come home to sleep.”

She was the first in her class to be accepted into Moravian College, and she later attended Boston University while switching from psychology to career counseling, thinking it would make the best of what few opportunities were available for women in those days. “I applied to 50 places and not a nibble,” she said. “The best offer was selling shoes at Hess’.”

But it was during a spring internship while pursuing her master’s degree at Boston that she first came to NCC – at the time a brand new school. And it was there she found a home in the office of student services, helping build the Career Planning Center, and also later as a psychology professor. Gonzalez got a doctorate at Columbia and remained at the core of what NCC has meant for the community over the years. “We’re a second-chance place. You need to draw everybody. Think expansively.” And NCC has always done so, attracting groups that needed skill for the times: Vietnam Veterans, women entering the workforce, former steelworkers, recent veterans and others looking for a new beginning in a more technology-oriented society.

There were waves of blue collar workers who never thought they would need a college degree and a surge of traditional students as well. “This place has always been responding to different groups of people. Even our student clubs reflect that. And we have a lot of online students now. We’re an open-access institution, and giving every opportunity is near and dear to my heart.

“Finding that career goal is important to retention,” she said, explaining her favorite part of working in student services. “That’s why I see my work as so essential, because until people have a goal, you can get much more easily frustrated. But once you have one, it becomes more clear what you have to do, even if there are things you don’t want to do,” such as take specific classes on the route to graduating.

She said one major change in younger students’ attitude she’s noticed is their awareness of the world they live in. “They are very cognizant of what happened in 2008, when we had the Great Recession. I used to ask that question; what do you want out of a career? And I would get people who would say, “I want to achieve the most I can,’ or ‘I want to put my talents to work,’ or “I want to be creative.’

“And now it’s ‘I want a comfortable life, and I don’t want to be laid off.’ I see that as a result of what they experienced in whatever happened in their family. We’re always a product of our times. Students are much more practical about their education than when I started here.”

But now, at age 67, it’s time for her to move on. “This for me is a tough parting. I really really love my job. The students – what they’ve said to me – that I changed their lives, that they felt lost until I helped them.” One student gave her a gift; a compass, and told her, “’It’s because you gave me direction.’

Her eyes dampened as she recalled countless similar incidents. “That’s why I stayed here 43 years.”