Ms Diane Hotaling is passionate about developing young people into active citizens. She is the Director of Community Service at Virginia Wesleyan College where she has been employed for the past 29 years. She is a New Jersey native who began her career in higher education at Utica College of Syracuse University, staffing the news bureau and earning a bachelor’s degree in public relations and journalism. She worked as a news writer at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College after graduation and was hired at Virginia Wesleyan as their first Publications Director two years later. After 12 years designing, writing, photographing and editing, as well as assisting the college in the area of community relations, she accepted President Greer’s invitation to start the community service program at the college. Over the next 17 years, Ms Hotaling established one of the most respected student engagement programs on a college campus in Virginia, addressing a wide range of community needs and student learning goals. Along the way, she earned numerous accolades for the college, as well as some of her own, including the YWCA Woman of Distinction Award for her work with Lee’s Friends: Helping People Live with Cancer and the Children’s Harbor Safe Harbor Award for serving children, youth and families in South Hampton Roads. Her most recent recognition is as co-director of a 16-minute documentary film, “Winter Shelter, On Campus,” promoting college-sponsored, student-run emergency homeless shelters. An active civic leader, Ms Hotaling resides in Virginia Beach with her husband Mark and daughter Sara Rose.
