Multimedia Reporting (Bradford-Utsler)

When she arrives to her office filled with pictures of happy faces, she doesn’t mind the quiet of Watkins Health Center. It is 6:30 in the morning and she’s ready to work. Few others have arrived to start the busy day at the health center. There’s a lot to get done in the next two hours before the center opens and Carol Seager has had her hands full these days. The desk and walls are filled with the smiling faces of her children and grandchildren and serve to boost her spirits as she deals with the dilemma at hand. The mumps are spreading throughout Lawrence. As the University of Kansas Director of Health Services, Seager cannot let herself slow down, at least not now.

“I’m spending a lot of time making sure that people are connecting well with each other,” said Seager.

Seager said keeping communication with the staff and other important people is key in keeping the mumps at bay. Along with talking with other public health officials, Seager is working hard to communicate with students at KU. She spends a great deal of her day making rounds throughout the health center talking to people. The communication lines are kept strong as she tries to keep up the morale of students and staff through this stressful time.

“There’s a lot that needs to be done when you’re in a situation like this,” said Seager. “My job is to make sure that everyone has the resources they need and that everyone that needs to, is talking with each other.”

In the seven years that Seager has been director of health services, she has never had to deal with an outbreak of mumps. She also never saw mumps cases like this when she was at Clemson University in South Carolina or at Notre Dame, both colleges she has on her resume.

“The first stressor is to make sure that we’ve got all our I’s dotted and T’s crossed,” said Seager.

Right now Seager is putting her concentration into keeping her staff focused and encouraged. She said that letting the staff know that they’re doing a good job and doing things right is important in keeping stress at a low level.

“I’m a cheerleader. I’m a real cheerleader. I don’t want them to think that anyone is cheering for them more than I could,” said Seager.

Stress and unfamiliar territory is not something new to Carol Seager. In becoming a health care professional, she had many barriers to break. In having her children, she was forced to quit work for a while as maternity was not yet set up in most workplaces. She also had to face an overwhelmingly male dominated job market.

“Literally every job I’ve ever taken, I’ve been the first woman in the job,” said Seager.

Because stepping up and taking the reins is not that uncommon for Seager, she’s not letting this outbreak dampen her spirits. She has been there and experienced many things in becoming a successful woman in the workplace. Now she’s just focusing on today’s obstacle.

The mumps have grown to about 135 cases in Douglas County and health officials have estimated that 103 of those cases are KU students.

“We really expect this to go on until the end of the school year. We don’t expect mumps to go away until the students go away,” said Seager.

Keeping lines of communication free flowing and getting the infected students isolated are the two major focuses that Seager is trying to stress to her staff, Douglas county health care officials and other campus officials.

“The whole idea is to keep the students well, so they can accomplish what they want to do,” said Seager.