Profile: Dojna Krecu
Dojna Krecu has been a fixture on the Kasteel Well campus since the early 2000s. At that time, she was awaiting an asylum decision in Well, due to a war in her home country of Yugoslavia. She started volunteering at the Castle as cleaning staff and a facility assistant. In 2007, she was hired as permanent staff, filling the roles of on-call duty staff and part-time assistant in the Office of Student Affairs. Today, she is a full-time senior coordinator of student affairs.
As senior coordinator, she manages the Office of Student Affairs and supervises two office coordinators and one part-time staff member. She also hires and manages 23 students each semester, whom she hires through Emerson Employment to fill 10 different roles, including assistant positions for the dining hall, resource center, recycling, and the IT helpdesk.
Each semester, Krecu plans and executes a three-day Orientation program for students, which includes information sessions on Castle rules and travel in Europe, icebreaker activities, and preparation for the students’ first mandatory Amsterdam excursion. She also oversees the three mandatory academic excursions that students take each semester: two to Amsterdam and a larger one with a rotating destination. This spring, the students went to Venice, and next fall, they will go to Barcelona.
Many students travel on their own on the weekends, but for those who don’t, Krecu leads optional day trips to a number of Dutch cities, such as Den Haag and Rotterdam. She is also always ready to give students general travel advice.
The Castle receives funds from the Student Government Association (SGA) every year, so Krecu and her staff use the money to finance extra activities, such as a T-shirt design contest every semester. All students receive a shirt featuring the winning design. Students also submit creative work to a literary magazine called Black Swan, which is printed with the SGA funds.
Since the Castle employs about 21 staff, Krecu said that “everyone is very involved in everything.” However, she mainly works with the facility manager, office manager, and Academic Affairs. She also works with external companies that provide catering, security, and taxi services. Boston campus offices that she collaborates with frequently include Education Abroad and Domestic Programs, ECAPS, Housing and Residential Education, and IT.
Krecu enjoys her job because every day is different. She explained that it keeps her young, because she needs to stay informed on a wide range of topics. Every semester, she interacts with a new group of students and learns something new every day along with them. And she said, “When I receive an email with a student’s gratitude and recognition of my work, that is what makes this job perfect.”
Krecu was born in former Yugoslavia, the area known today as Serbia, and obtained a bachelor’s degree in economics. She noted that her experience living in a communist regime and a village with conservative norms taught her that freedom is one of the most important human rights. When the war in Yugoslavia started, she decided to leave with her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, and they ended up in the Netherlands. She and her daughter, Ana, and their dog, Coco, currently live in Venray.
Outside of the office, Krecu enjoys volunteering at a local nursing home and organizing community events at her apartment building, such as fundraising for a defibrillator and organizing regular cheese and wine gatherings for older single adults. She also considers dancing to be her therapy and is a regular attendee at local EDM rave festivals. She has found the EDM community to be very welcoming, and it has provided her with a sense of belonging in a foreign country. Having attended festivals in other countries, she said that the Netherlands festivals are definitely the best.
Nancy Howell (Communications and Marketing)