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Assistant Director, Student Union Operations - Center for Student Engagement at SUNY New Paltz
My current role at SUNY New Paltz is Assistant Director of Student Union Operations for the Center for Student Engagement. My main job duties include overseeing the day-to-day function of the Student Union Building, and overseeing a cohort of about 30 student workers ranging from student union managers and customer service representatives to graduate assistants and event workers.
I’m also the advisor for a Student Engagement Programming Board, which oversees off-campus trips and large campus events like Late Night Breakfast and Spirit Week, and I run the backend of all events in the Student Union, from scheduling and layouts to invoicing. I’m also the main instructor for Rivera House LLC, a program for students who chose to live in an LGBTQ+ specific community.
My English degree has helped me become a persuasive writer and adept public speaker. My job relies on "selling" a product, whether it be recommending outside vendors to use our facilities or for students to attend our programs. I have to convince constituents to spend money on the Student Union Building and students to attend programming so we can increase our budget for even more programming. While I hate thinking about my job in terms of revenue, it's practical and necessary for the building to continue bringing in money so that we can be the "heart" of campus.
My WGSS minor comes into play quite a bit when working. I often paraphrase the saying, "the personal is political" into “the personal is educational”. I tend to use this model to better my working relationships with my students. I’m able to relate to them and teach them to the best of my ability when I know who they are, their background, and what their motivating factors are.
Throughout my time at New Paltz, I took on many leadership roles. I was a resident assistant, orientation leader, and president of the Residence Hall Student Association. I was in an honor society, and was a graduate assistant, among others. I learned through these roles that I was attracted to a career in higher education, and my organizational skills and enthusiasm made for a good fit in Student Activities and Events.
I loved my liberal arts education, plain and simple. The choices offered to me, from classes to professors, felt broad and ranged in topics to teaching styles. In my own major, I was able to take classes from "Literature of the Holocaust" to "Sci-Fi," while exploring things I never thought I'd learn about in my life, like a class on "The Black Woman" and how to play Beginner Piano. I think this choice of exploration led me to 1.) explore careers outside of what you think most people do with an English degree like becoming a teacher, or going back home and work at a bookstore, 2.) hear a multitude of opinions and offer my rebuttal with contextual evidence that I still use today for proposals to get increased funding, and 3.) offer choice in return to my students, which helps me learn from them. What can I do better, make better, and explain better to make their days easier?
Jan Schmidt and Michelle Woods were my favorite professors while I was here. Professor Woods was my advisor and always offered sound advice. Her classes were extremely interesting and I wound up taking three of four with her. Professor Schmidt's Literature of the Holocaust was moving, and taught me so much more about a subject many know about but from varying perspectives. I think these professors inspired me most because they put their cultures and identities into their work. You don’t always have to be impersonal; people want to hear your stories.
December 2024
Assistant Director, Student Affairs Operations - Columbia Business School
As an Officer of Administration, I anticipate and manage the operational needs of Columbia Business School’s Student Affairs Office while interpreting institutional policies and procedures. I'm responsible for the management, reporting, and analysis of eight high-activity accounts supporting student life and academic programs. My time at New Paltz prepared me for Dartmouth where I received my Master's.
Originally set on becoming a humanities academic, I wound up serving higher education in three different capacities: Teaching Assistant in the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric, Program Coordinator for the E.E. Just Program, which supports students who are under-represented minorities, and the Faculty Affairs Coordinator in Dartmouth's Medical School, where I was asked to serve as a Staff Representative for the Diversity Council.
Within these experiences, I have had the opportunity to learn about higher education administration, DEI initiatives, human resource policies, faculty appointment procedures, and the protocol necessary to enforce them ethically and without liability.
I use my liberal arts education in literature, policy, and cultural theory to inform best practices in the administration specific to higher education. At Columbia Business School's Student Affairs Office, I lead quarterly closeout meetings where I leverage historical, current, and financial data to advise the Dean of Students and directors on opportunities, adjust financial plans, revise budgets, or rethink procurement strategies.
Prior to this role, I served as the Program Manager at Teachers College, where I managed the program's operating budget and awarded $100,000 annually to students demonstrating need. Along with the ability to write and communicate effectively, my liberal arts education allows me to navigate cultural nuances in the workplace critically and compassionately.
I found Dr. Heather Hewett's career as a professional writer—in tandem with her diverse coursework offerings—to be inspiring and, more importantly, representative of New Paltz's diverse student body. I owe a seamless transition from high school to college to the late Dr. Margaret Wade Lewis who oversaw the Scholars' Mentorship Program. Both of these faculty members were very instrumental in shaping my career in higher education administration.
July 2023
Content Marketing Manager at Exago, Inc.
As the content marketing manager at Exago, I get to write for a living. My job is to market our business intelligence application to software companies interested in giving their customers access to reporting, dashboards, and data analytics. The blog posts, press releases, and articles I write speak to technical and nontechnical audiences simultaneously and cover a spectrum of discursive modes. When I'm not actually writing, I'm either planning future content or interviewing clients, end users, and coworkers to learn more about our technology and its market. I also assist our product innovation team in designing new features for the application.
The debate surrounding liberal arts degrees asks whether "soft skills" like explication, persuasive writing, and critical analysis--all of which I developed and refined as part of my English degrees--offer sufficient value to the prospective student. The nice thing about soft skills is that they're malleable and can be applied to virtually any industry. I started out at Exago as a support analyst but was asked to join the marketing team after only six months because they were "desperate for someone who could write a decent sentence." As an English major, you tend to take skills like that for granted, but they're not as common as you might think!
June 2019
Composition Program Assistant & Instructor
As the full-time Professional Staff Assistant to the Composition Program Coordinator since 2007, I have assisted in drafting and revising first-year writing program materials, as well as co-editing and copy editing our student publication, New Voices, New Visions. I also organize, revise, disseminate, and present on instructional materials for faculty; plan and present at professional development workshops; coordinate lectures and events; perform daily administrative operations; schedule meetings and final exam rooms; assign portfolio reading partners, and maintain program assessment plans and records; help students register, and more! I love the diversity of the job.
My English degrees have been paramount to my success. My daily work requires engaging with students, colleagues, and administrators. I compose numerous emails and memos each week, write justifications for funding to support student programs and faculty development, which requires writing clearly and persuasively to various audiences. I am regularly steeped in the very rhetorical considerations and composing processes that I teach my students.
My liberal arts education has provided me with effective communication and critical analysis skills essential to my professional position and pedagogy. The opportunity to have completed General Education courses for my undergraduate degree provided me with a spectrum of knowledge, and allowed me to discover my interests and identity as a student and scholar (from poetry to cultural and body studies, creativity, mental health, and writing process, which have all shaped my course syllabi). The study of literature, writing and rhetoric essentially fosters interdisciplinary connections, and enables us to connect with anyone we seek to reach; a liberal arts education cultivates in its students empathy for others' distinct perspectives and experiences. There is nothing more essential.
Several excellent faculty members [who inspired me] come to mind, such as Dr. Thomas Olsen, and Dr. Jan Zlotnick Schmidt. Dr. Pauline Uchmanowicz, however, has inspired me since I transferred here as a junior. Her dedication to her students and their success, as well as her high standards and diligence have always impressed me. We worked together on my MA thesis; she guided me through reducing my thesis into a brief conference presentation for my first symposium; she modeled for me relentless revision to improve my academic and creative writing. She reinforced in me the confidence to pursue English and to hone my teaching. She even recommended me for my current position; as a result, I had the opportunity to assist her as Composition Program Coordinator. I am grateful to have such a mentor, colleague, and friend.
May 2017
Manager at Oblong Books & Music in Rhinebeck, NY
I currently work as a manager at Oblong Books. I was the web manager for the New Paltz Oracle and a public relations representative for three years with Dumbledore's Army of New Paltz. There is absolutely nothing as incredible as finding a team of people as passionate as you are and working with them towards a goal. The people I met at New Paltz definitely allowed me to learn and grow while having an incredible amount of fun.
The good thing about English classes is that, for the most part, they allow you to pick something that really interests you and run with it. Even if you don't like a particular book or work that's being studied, you get to hone in on something that interests you - writing or plot structure or how it lines up to another work that you do really love. For me, that meant being able to study children's literature and young adult literature in classes, and it meant being able to structure my entire senior thesis around young adult literature. Between my extracurriculars and what I did in my classroom, I acquired a huge amount of knowledge for something I was already passionate about, and it's paid off every day I go to Oblong.
June 2019
Territory Manager, Oregon and SW Washington, at Hubbell Wiring Device-Kellems
I am the Territory Manager in Oregon and SW Washington for Hubbell Wiring Device-Kellems, a manufacturer of electrical products. I oversee the sale and marketing of our product line through electrical distribution partnerships, and have a wide range of responsibilities: from educating electrical engineers and contractors to visiting construction sites to solve application and installation issues. Most days, I'm all over Portland to meet with professionals who need safety and reliability most, and my communication and presentation skills are used each day to help our customers understand the quality of our product.
Hubbell prides itself on products that are differentiated from their competitors; we sell on features and benefits, not just price and availability. In order to develop our brand presence, we are constantly in front of customers to communicate the significance of a safe, reliable electrical connection. This is the essence of differentiated-product sales, but it's not the first time I've been a salesperson. As an undergraduate in the SUNY New Paltz Liberal Arts program, I learned to explore a marketplace of ideas and then sell my own manipulation of those ideas to my professor and peers. The critical process I applied to complex intellectual fields like critical theory and historiography is in concept no different from the process used when I pick up a competitor's electrical outlet and try to determine how it functions in its environment in comparison to my company's product.
August 2016
1 Hawk Drive
New Paltz, NY 12561
845-257-SUNY (7869)
877-MY-NP-411 (toll free)
