The next instructor to be featured in a series highlighting the new faculty members at SWOSU is Dr. Sherry Westmoreland, a new computer science assistant professor.
“I was born in Texas, but when I was 12, we moved to South Carolina,” Dr.
Westmoreland said.
After 10 years there, she moved to Oklahoma with her family and began her career. “I’m retired from the FBI, and I knew when I retired I wasn’t going to sit around because that is just not me.”
When Dr.
Westmoreland began working at the FBI headquarters in Oklahoma City, she wasn’t initially catching criminals. “I started in the 80s in the mailroom,” she said. “I worked my way up. My last position was asset forfeiture paralegal.”
Dr. Westmoreland explained her position was to trace stolen money back to the thief. When expensive purchases were made without having a source of income, it was her job to look into the person to see if the items were purchased with stolen money.
Sometimes criminals made interesting purchases with their newly acquired money.
“One of them bought a little puff dog you carry in your purse. That’s what he spent some of the money on. Instead of seizing the little dog, we gave it to his mother. We couldn’t just put it in the evidence room.”
In her last few years with the FBI, Dr.
Westmoreland went back to school to get her doctorate in education in the hopes of working at a university after the FBI.
“After I retired, I came up to SWOSU cold — no appointment — and started handing out my CV,” she said.
Dr. Westmoreland said she wanted to work at SWOSU for several reasons. “My husband graduated from here and his parents graduated from here. Even though I wasn’t going to take any classes here, I still wanted to be involved.
It’s a beautiful campus. I live about 25 miles away. It’s just the place I am supposed to be.”
Since she is working in Weatherford instead of driving to Oklahoma City each day, the new professor said she has enjoyed getting to be established in the town.
“I love Weatherford.
I like the small town atmosphere of it. I walk into the diner, and they all know my name. It feels very cozy and safe.
I wish I had been here much earlier in my life.”
After spending her life working at the FBI, Dr.
Westmoreland said she has a lot of stories to tell, and she shares many of them with her classes.
Along with the anecdotes, Dr. Westmoreland tells her students she is there to help them succeed.
She said if students take away one thing from class, she wants them to know almost any problem can be fixed if they ask for help. “Things are not the end of the world.
Almost anything can be rectified. I give my students my personal cell phone number because if they have a problem during the weekend, I don’t want them to suffer during the weekend. I don’t want them to drop out; I don’t want them to quit my class,” Dr.
Westmoreland said.
Faculty Fast Facts -Go to coffee order?
Sugar free vanilla latte made with half and half -Favorite TV show? Love It or List It -Dream vacation?
Somewhere quiet -Best Christmas gift you received as a child? A very long heavy black coat “I took my father to show him, but my size was gone. And then Christmas morning, there was that coat.”
-Favorite meal? Scallops -A book you could read again and again? The Secret Garden. “It’s a children’s book, I know, but I love the idea of it.”
-Day that’s not a holiday but should be? “I think my oldest dog’s birthday would be a lovely holiday.”