 "Photo: Emily Silver")
Joe Arabia has been at MCLA, in one form or another, since he was a child.
“I’m a product of this neighborhood,” he said. “I grew up here, I played here, I started school at Mark Hopkins Elementary when it was part of the North Adams school system, back in 1956 or something. So, I never really left [MCLA].”
After graduating from Drury High School, Arabia served in the National Guard, worked for a local textile mill and then got a job with MCLA facilities. He was 24 years old, and he’s been working here ever since. This year is his last as an employee, but that doesn’t mean he’s going away.
Arabia said he’s been in the labor market for 42 years, and he’s ready to retire with an almost-full pension. “I will almost max myself out. Not quite, but enough to be comfortable and do what I want to do,” he said.
And what does he want to do? It won’t be your typical golf-playing and fishing retirement for him. Arabia said he plans to work on his house and look after his 13-year-old daughter, Anna, while his wife continues working.
He also plans to take two classes each semester until he earns a degree in sociology — he currently has 17 credits, so he expects a diploma within a decade. He said he’s doing this for personal enrichment, not a new career; once he goes into retirement, he has no intention of ever coming out.
Arabia said he was never the best of students as a kid, but looks forward to his studies. “Sociology, I think, is my forte.
“I’m curious about life, why people do things, why things are the way they are — that’s what I’m looking forward to. I’m really looking forward to a change,” he said.
Discussing the history of the college and the neighborhood, it becomes clear that Arabia has already seen huge changes. He has worked under five college presidents and two interim presidents, he said.
He has seen the city of North Adams go from a manufacturing-based economy to a crushed economy, to an art-and-tourism-based economy. He said he’d seen the college evolve simultaneously from a school devoted to training teachers, to one focused on business and computer science in the 1980s, to the current focus on arts and humanities.
He also said he can remember a time when the Amsler building, Freel Library, Eldridge Hall and Bowman Hall didn’t even exist. He recalled playing in the construction site where Venable Hall was being built.
He was working here when the Townhouses were built: “I moved every damn piece of furniture in that place,” he said. He added, “If I had a buck for every piece of furniture I’ve moved on this campus I could have retired ten years ago.” Even as the interview for this article was taking place, he was busy setting up tables, chairs and other necessities for an Accepted Student’s Day event, but he offered no complaints.
“I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve been able to stay here that long, retire from here, and, you know, now I’ve got the great opportunity to come to school here,” Arabia said.
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