Alumni Profile: All in the Family
Category: Alumni
l. to r.: Kathleen Skullney, Dan Nagle and Susan O’Neill; photography: Chris Hartlove
Dan Nagle, B.A. ’11; Susan O’ Neill, B.A. ’91, M.P.A. ’93; Kathleen Skullney, B.A. ’91, J.D. ’93
Blame it on Kathleen Skullney, B.A. ’91, J.D. ’93. She started the University of Baltimore ball rolling for two of her four children, and given the family’s positive reactions to their experiences here, there may very well be another generation enrolled as students in the not-too-distant future.
Originally from Illinois, Skullney moved to Baltimore as a single mother primarily because of an extensive network of aunts, uncles, grandparents and other relatives in the area. After earning her undergraduate degree in jurisprudence in 1991 and her J.D. in 1993, both from UB, she spent a number of years working for nonprofit Maryland Legal Aid before retiring. Today, she is of counsel at Williams & Santoni in Towson, Md.
“My current husband and I met when we were living in the same townhome community and my children used to play with his dog,” Skullney says. “Bill, who had a career as an aerospace engineer, asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I thought about that and said [that] I wanted to finish my college degree.”
Working with a UB admission counselor, Skullney was able to transfer credits she had received from Loyola University Chicago and from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and she began at UB as a junior. After completing her jurisprudence degree, she marched right on to the UB School of Law.
While Kathleen was in law school, her teenage son, Dan Nagle, B.A. ’11, now the University’s associate director of auxiliary enterprises, grabbed the bus from his high school to UB and waited for his mom to finish classes so they could carpool home to western Baltimore County.
“Although I started at Howard Community College before transferring here, UB had me hooked from the start,” says Nagle, who earned his undergraduate degree at UB in government and public policy. “I used to wait for my mom in Poe’s Publick House (the former cafeteria in the basement of the John and Frances Angelos Law Center) where I would often have a burger and fries. Even though I was a bit younger than most [of the students around], no one seemed to mind, and I just remember feeling comfortable.”
Although her time at UB did not overlap with her brother’s, Susan O’Neill, B.A. ’91, M.P.A. ’93, and her mother were on campus together for a good part of their college education. “I was not happy with the school I was attending, so my mother suggested transferring to UB,” says O’Neill, who is now the economic development manager for the town of Perryville, Md. “I instantly fell in love with the school.”
She cites the faculty’s enthusiasm, attentiveness and knowledge and UB’s manageable campus and small class sizes as motivation. “In spite of everyone being older, I could really understand my fellow students,” says O’Neill, who began at UB when she was 20; at the time, UB’s average student age was higher because it offered upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses only. “Because the classes were held in the evenings and people were working during the day, the students had work experience and they were focused on their education, not on partying.”
