Longmont, Colorado is a long way from Berkeley, Chicago, and a 102-year-old haunted house in Fresno, but that is the circuitous path Logan Tennerelli followed to become Dean of Students at San Joaquin College of Law.
She grew up in the Centennial State but moved to California to pursue a degree at U.C. Berkeley. Upon graduation she accepted a consulting job in Chicago, which led her to pursue her J.D. at the University of Chicago. That’s where she met her future husband, and the pair took law jobs in Chicago after graduation. Logan practiced corporate bankruptcy, and real estate law, but in the end, her husband’s career led to another path; he landed a job as an Assistant U.S. Attorney based in Fresno.
By then they had a son and daughter, but packed everyone up for the trip to the Valley. Logan noticed the opportunities at Fresno State, so she obtained her Master’s degree in Counselling with a focus on student affairs and higher education.
Logan then accepted a job at Fresno City College as a counselor and instructor for three classes, which are all requirements in the Pathway to Law School Program. She is proud of starting in a program which initially included only two students, but now boasts over 300. In addition, the Law Pathway swayed Fresno City officials to allow its students to assist those appearing in Municipal Citation hearings, giving them extra experience in research and pleadings.
By then, Logan was also an adjunct professor at SJCL, teaching Legal Methods. She was impressed. She says it’s a challenge helping older students because they learn differently than 18-year-olds, but she loves that many of them are “pursuing a life-long dream. They are dedicated, with a different level of maturity.” She also loves “the smaller classes, where you get to know everyone’s name.”
She is still getting settled in as Dean of Students but invites current students to stop in and meet her, adding she is “approachable and open to new ideas.”
And while she loves new ideas, she and her husband apparently love old buildings, buying a home in the Tower District which was built in 1918. It’s a house with a history, where a former owner, a Mrs. Gundelfinger, dramatically dressed herself in a black negligee before committing suicide after her lover left her. Logan has never seen her, but neighbors say they’ve seen her shock of flaming red hair through the windows of the home. She says Mrs. Gundelfinger is “a good ghost,” because she has never bothered them. Her two cats disagree.