Professor Anne Lee and Dr. Rich Lee
Photo courtesy of Dr. Rich Lee
BY: LILY PETERSON, STAFF WRITER
Dr. Rich Lee and Anne Lee are both professors in the Jandoli School of Communication at St. Bonaventure University and are co-editors of local news platform, TAPinto Greater Olean. They also spend their summers abroad with students at Oxford’s Trinity College with the Francis E. Kelley Oxford Program.
The Lees first met while earning their undergraduate degrees here at Bonaventure.
“We spent a lot of time at the BV together,” said Rich Lee. “I actually started his journalism career,” said Anne Lee.
The Lees both pursued careers in journalism and news, but their busy schedules never gave them the chance to work together.
“A lot of the time I would wake him up in the morning to say goodbye and see him when he came home at night, sometimes as late as 3:30 in the morning,” said Anne Lee.
They recalled how opposite their schedules used to be and now they are able to function with only one car. That is only one of the multiple perks of working together, according to the Lees.
After spending 34 years of their married life in New Jersey, the Lees ended up returning to Bonaventure around 2011.
“It is kind of funny that this is what we’re doing, 50 years later,” said Anne Lee.
Rich Lee said he used the term ‘surrealistic’ when they first came back to Bonaventure.
“We were going to the same dining hall and the same buildings that we went to as students,” said Rich Lee. “Now, 15 years later, we kind of have more of a faculty identity, but we still go back and forth.”
They recognize that working with your spouse may seem like a foreign concept to many people. For the Lees, that experience is quite the opposite.
“Anyone else would think it’s strange, but we really enjoy working together and collaborating on a story,” said Rich Lee. “We understand each others’ work.”
The Lees collaboration, which began decades ago, has evolved into a lifelong creative partnership rooted in shared experience and growing as journalists together.
“We get to take what we were doing in our 20’s and 30’s into our 70’s,” said Anne Lee.
Returning to Bonaventure has not only increased their passions of journalism, but has reignited their Bonnies school spirit.
“I was never really into sports while I was here as a student, but now we rarely miss a [Bonaventure basketball] game,” said Anne Lee.
Outside of working together here at Bonaventure, the Lees enjoy going to New York Mets games, visiting the Jersey Shore, watching soap operas and traveling around the world together.
“Rich is really nice, really polite, and really smart,” said Anne Lee. “He’s the best dad I’ve ever known… our oldest grandson likes me, but he really likes Rich.”
The Lees share similar qualities they admire in each other.
“I always tell Anne that she’s the nicest person I’ve met,” said Rich Lee. “She’s smart, she’s got a fantastic memory, she’s great at what she does professionally, and she’s a great mom and grandmother.”
This year marks 49 years of marriage for the Lees.
When asked for advice for new couples on campus, Anne Lee offered simple guidance: “Have fun, talk, and don’t try to dominate each others’ lives.”
