From Graduate to Interim President: Dr. Eileen Glover’s Full-Circle Moment

Sometimes, your life brings you back to where you began. For Eileen Glover, who graduated from River Valley Community College (RVCC) in 2008, it happened when she became the college’s interim president this July. From working as a psychiatric nurse at the Brattleboro Retreat in in Brattleboro, Vermont, to developing a Licensed Practical Nursing (LPN) program for RVCC, she brings a wealth of experience to the new position.

Glover started her nursing journey in her mid-thirties, when she attended River Valley Community College, then known as New Hampshire Community Technical College. It wasn’t the first time she tried college, but when she went right after high school, Glover recounted “failing spectacularly,” because she “didn’t have any real goal or direction.” Her failure grew into a belief that she “wasn’t smart enough to go to college,” and it took her years to build up the confidence again. A married mother of three, she explained she “loved the whole process of childbirth,” so the second time around, she planned to become a labor and delivery nurse and a lactation consultant.

The nursing program introduced her to the Brattleboro Retreat for a psychiatric nurse rotation. From here, she “absolutely fell in love,” she said. “I had no idea this was a job.” After graduating in 2008 with an associate’s degree in nursing, Glover worked at the retreat for about ten years. Assigned to the adolescent unit, she worked with teenagers struggling with mental health and addiction issues. Because members of her family had similar issues, she said “I understood how disruptive it is, not just for the patient, but the whole family system.”

Glover incorporated her own personality, experiences, and knowledge as implements for healing. Throughout her time there, Glover held many roles, from bedside nurse to clinical manager to chief nurse. While working there, she earned a Master of Science Nursing with a focus in Nursing Education from Walden University in 2014, then earned a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree with a focus on executive leadership from American Sentinel University in 2018.

Glover received an Excellence in Nursing Award from the New Hampshire Nurses Association in 2025

After this decade, Glover was seeking a new challenge. She became the chief operating officer of a for-profit, physician-owned surgical practice, something she said, “was miles different than anything I had done before.” However, after three months, she realized it was not a good fit because it didn’t feed her soul.

Thankfully, there was a more suitable option in teaching. Glover reached out to the department chair at RVCC and asked if they would take her on, considering she had some adjunct teaching experience under her belt working for Keene State and the now-closed Southern Vermont College. Instead, RVCC suggested something else: creating an LPN program for the college.

By May 2019, RVCC hired Glover to do build the program, which involved research, writing lectures, and fulfilling a lengthy application to the Board of Nursing. The first year, she built the courses, and after that, she taught them. In 2021, Glover became the department chair for RVCC’s Allied Health programs, leading the school’s LPN, Respiratory Therapy, Radiologic Technology, and Medical Laboratory Technician programs. In 2025, she earned an Excellence in Nursing Award from the New Hampshire Nurses Association.

Now, in 2026, Glover is the interim president of the college, taking President Alfred William’s place upon his retirement on July 10. Though it is an interim position, Glover said she’ll be “a hundred percent invested in it.”

When Glover isn’t working, she’s a “wicked book nerd,” and when she isn’t reading, she spends time at her lake house with her husband and children.

When asked what she enjoys most in her current field, Glover said she loves graduation day, because it shows graduates the experience was worth it, even with all the responsibilities and jobs students often have to complete in tandem with their studies.

She said RVCC and, by extension, any college, can give students “the tools to change their lives and their circumstances is so rewarding and moving.” And Glover is glad she can be a part of it.