Rowan College at Burlington County (RCBC) will celebrate a $725,000 gift from alum Joseph P. Wechselberger on Thursday, May 8, by naming the college’s nursing labs in his honor.
Wechselberger graduated in 1977 and has returned almost 50 years later to support the endeavors of its students, faculty, and staff through an endowment in his will to the RCBC Foundation.
“I have been impressed with Joe’s passion for the college and his generosity that will benefit generations of students,” said RCBC President Dr. Michael A. Cioce. “I’m honored that the college’s nursing labs will bear his name and serve as a legacy to an alum who felt it was important to give back to the college that had a transformative impact on his life.
“I thank him for this gift and the message it sends that Rowan College at Burlington County is a worthy investment,” Cioce added.
A portion of Wechselberger’s donation will go towards part-time students who need financial assistance in commemoration of his late partner, Edwin R. Catanach, who was once a part-time community college student. However, most of the gift will benefit nursing students at RCBC in honor of Wechselberger’s mother, Rose.
Rose became a nurse in 1930 after passing her nursing exam on the first try, unusual for the time. For 15 years she worked as a private-duty nurse in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. However, she stepped away from the profession to be a full-time housewife after Wechselberger’s father, Joseph Wechselberger, Jr., returned from World War II.
“I’d always thought about wanting to do something in her memory. She was very proud of being a registered nurse,” Wechselberger said. “I chose [RCBC] because they have a nursing school here, and it’s affiliated with my old alma mater.
“I’m hoping that [the donation] will help expand the nursing population. I worked for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) in Princeton as a financial analyst and had a portfolio of grants and programs, one of which was nursing. An area we focused on was recruitment. At the time there weren’t sufficient nursing candidates in the pipeline to sustain the need, and the existing workforce was aging and retiring.”
Wechselberger’s time in Burlington County began in 1946. Born in Germantown Hospital in Philadelphia, he and his parents moved to Maple Shade, his father’s home town, when he was two months old. His father was a career army man. During his father’s time in the army, they lived in France for two-and-a-half years (1954 to 1957) and spent another 15 months (1957 to 1958) in Texas and Oklahoma. His father retired in 1958 and the family settled in Tabernacle. Unfortunately, Wechselberger’s father and mother passed away early in his life, when he was 23 and 25 years old, respectively.
At that time, Wechselberger worked for the federal government at Fort Dix, New Jersey, where he’d been employed for several years. Eventually, in December 1975 he quit his job as a budget analyst there, applied to RCBC, then called Burlington County College, and began his college career in 1976. In a departure from the nature of his federal government job, he studied liberal arts with an English concentration. He couldn’t put his degree to use in his career when he returned to Fort Dix and his later job at the RWJF, but he still cherishes the experience in other ways.
“It helped me learn something about myself,” Wechselberger explained. “I made some friends while I was there… We all supported each other. It was a very enjoyable experience.”
It also helped him expand on his interest since his youth: haiku poetry. Wechselberger is a prolific haiku poet, with 657 haikus published in 48 international journals and a number of blogs and anthologies since 2018. He’s written about a variety of topics, some of which include subjects dear to him, like his partner, Edwin, and, of course, his mother; his first published haiku was about her.
Whether through verse or Wechselberger’s donation, Rose and Edwin’s legacies and the Wechselberger name will be remembered forever. Generations of nursing students, especially, will feel the impact of this donation that wouldn’t be possible without one woman blazing a trail as a nurse almost a century ago.
“She was the sweetest woman in the world, a beautiful woman,” Wechselberger said. “I just wanted to do something nice for her.”
To commemorate Wechselberger’s contribution to the college, RCBC will name the nursing labs section of its Health Sciences Center to the Joseph P. Wechselberger ’77 Nursing Labs. A naming ceremony open to the public will be held on Thursday, May 8, at 11 am in celebration, with a reception immediately following.
