Third time’s the charm

Blythe Roveland-Brenton ’83 was no stranger to upstate N.Y. when she accepted the position of director of special collections and library preservation in 2018. In fact, she has moved from and returned to the area on three separate occasions throughout her life.

“My parents met originally at SUNY Farmingdale, and I was born in Queens,” recalls Roveland-Brenton. “My dad went back to school for his bachelor’s degree at Cornell University and accepted a position with the New York State Department of Labor, which is how we ended up in Triple Cities the first time.”

Born into a family that enjoyed taking road trips across the U.S., Roveland-Brenton had always aspired to go abroad and learn about different cultures. When the opportunity came during her senior year attending Unatego High School to participate in a Rotary Exchange program, she went for it.

“When I flew to the Netherlands by myself, I had just turned 17 years old, and it was my first time on a plane,” said Roveland-Brenton.

Returning back to the states after a year away, Roveland-Brenton attended Bradley University in Illinois for a semester before making her second move back to the Binghamton area. She transferred to Binghamton University as an anthropology major her sophomore year.

“Undergrad was a time of exploration for me,” she shared. “I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do, but I took several anthropology courses my first semester at Binghamton, and I was hooked.”

Passionate about languages but unable to find a Dutch course to expand upon what she learned during her time in the Netherlands, Roveland-Brenton enrolled in a second-level German course, taught by late professor Gerard Schmidt.

“Professor Schmidt encouraged me to consider double majoring in German,” she said. “I still had no idea what I would do with either of my majors, but I didn’t really worry about it at the time.”

Shortly after graduating from Binghamton, everything began to align. Roveland-Brenton was awarded a competitive Fulbright scholarship to study Paleolithic archaeology at the University of Cologne in Germany. She continued on to earn both a master’s and a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. During graduate school, she met her now husband; The two found themselves at St. John’s University, where he had accepted a teaching position and she once again found herself as a student — this time, enrolled in a Master of Library Science program.

“While conducting my PhD research in Germany, I went to archives quite a bit to do historical research, and it intrigued me,” Roveland-Brenton said. “I had never thought of library science as a field up until that point.”

In her final semester of the MLS program, Roveland-Brenton accepted a position as the interim university archivist and continued to advance in the department.

“At St. John’s, my responsibilities shifted and grew. I was eventually asked to head the Special Collections Department. By the time I left, I was the associate dean of the libraries,” Roveland-Brenton said.

2018: Another return to Binghamton

Roveland-Brenton refers to herself as an upstate girl at heart. Her family purchased a vacation home near Oneonta, N.Y. and visited often.

When an opening for head of the Special Collections Department at Binghamton University caught her attention in the fall of 2017, she applied. Her family would spend the next several months planning their relocation back to her alma mater.

“It felt like a pipe dream to be able to come back to Binghamton. Accepting this job and relocating back was a big leap of faith, but I love this university,” she said. “I think the SUNY system is an amazing system that has so many opportunities to give students a great education.”

It had been nearly 20 years since Roveland-Brenton had stepped foot on Binghamton’s campus, and with that came some nostalgia.

“Returning to campus was a very odd sensation to me. Some of the buildings I didn’t recognize; a lot of the residence halls were new, and I also remember feeling lost in the maze of classes in Bartle, just like I had when I was a student. Yet, every once in a while I’d walk through an old building and get a flashback and feel 20 years old again,” she shared.

Today, Roveland-Brenton has built an entirely new team leading the University’s Special Collections Department, a team in which she describes as knowledgeable, collaborative and enthusiastic.

“I have made it my mission to increase the awareness of special collections so our students and faculty know that we are here for them,” she stated.

In addition to spreading the word about her department’s offerings, Roveland-Brenton can be found engaging with fellow alumni and students.

“I really enjoy the fact that I can connect with people as an alum, as well as in my position. I make sure to tell students that I was once a student and show them what Binghamton did for me and my journey to end up back here. I enjoy going to alumni events on campus also. I feel proud about being an alumna and staff because I have an impact on students.”