Klimecki looks at children’s books in the Educational Resources Lab, located in Pawley Hall. Whenever she visits Oakland University she likes to tour the campus and remember how it was when she attended more than 30 years ago.
It’s all about giving back.
That’s what Camille Klimecki, a two-time Oakland University graduate, says. It’s the reason she decided to donate her very last paycheck, $3,000, to the School of Education and Human Services (SEHS).
Klimecki was inspired to donate after reading about Samantha Wolf, who donated her first paycheck after graduating in April 2014.
“When I was done I thought, ‘Who really helped you the most?’” Klimecki said. “Other than God, my parents, and the financial aid department, it was Oakland.”
The money will go into the SEHS gift fund, according to Dave Tindall, director of development at SEHS, and will be used to help support undergraduate and graduate scholarships.
“A big need in the school, just like with the rest of campus, is scholarship support,” Tindall wrote via email.
Klimecki’s donation is another step in meeting that need and providing support for future alumni.
The 64-year-old Warren resident first came to Oakland University after her mother read about it in the newspaper and told her to check it out. Klimecki had originally been planning to go somewhere else, but fell in love as soon as she reached campus.
“Once I (spoke with advisers) I asked, ‘Where do you sign?’” Klimecki said.
She received her bachelor’s in teaching in 1971 and returned for her master’s in counseling in 1974, and for the next 40 years her career in counseling kept her in touch with her alma mater.
She completed a counseling internship at Oakland and then worked there for a year. While she was department head of Saint John Hospital’s Patient and Community Education Center, she supervised student interns from Oakland. While she was a counselor at Macomb Community College, she advised students that were transferring to Oakland. She had to keep up her degrees and certification throughout the years, and attended trainings and meetings at Oakland to do so.
She has always felt close to Oakland, and this is the reason she calls it the “common thread all the way through” her life.
Klimecki has always managed to find one good opportunity after another. She said she owes it all to Oakland.
“Oakland always seemed very practical,” Klimecki said. “Whatever job I had, I felt equipped with the skills to do that job and if there was a problem I knew how to deal with that problem, because we had role played this, we had practiced it. If I didn’t start here and have all those connections, I don’t think it would have happened quite the same way.”
In June 2014, Klimecki retired from her position as the director of counseling at De La Salle Collegiate High School. During her 20 years there she was always promoting her alma mater and encouraging the high school’s students to consider Oakland.
Now, after 43 years of counseling in hospitals, universities, schools and her community, Klimecki is retiring and has found her way back to her beloved university once more. Her love for it has only grown.
She said she plans on continuing to donate and hopes that the donating of first and last paychecks becomes a tradition.
Klimecki said she’d like to see a lot of other alumni give back as well.
“Keep this place going strong and secure and keep the quality.”
Visit isupportou.com for information on giving to Oakland University, or email giving@oakland.edu.