What is your advising philosophy?

I see advising as a holistic relationship that focuses not just on the student’s academic and professional goals, but also on their personal growth and development. My favorite analogy is the advisor as a guide who walks behind the student: The student is exploring unknown terrain and takes the lead on where they want to go, and the advisor knows the landscape and has tools for the student to navigate whatever path they take. As the student chooses their path, the advisor gives them the resources they need and helps them think through their next steps. Ultimately, where the student goes is up to them, but the student and advisor work together to navigate it successfully. Michigan offers such an abundance of options for how students can spend their time, both inside and outside the classroom, and it helps to have someone in your corner who knows the landscape and is rooting for you to succeed, however you define that.

What was your path to Newnan?

When I was an undergrad in LSA, I was a Campus Day and Summer Orientation Peer Advisor. I loved all the excitement and possibilities that incoming students brought with them, as well as the big questions about who they wanted to be and how they wanted to be in the world. I felt lucky to have a job where I could talk through those questions with them and give them tools and resources to navigate their time here. After graduation, I got a PhD in clinical psychology, and I trained primarily at university counseling centers like Counseling and Psychological Services. Of all the ways I’ve worked with students over the last 20 years – as a therapist, a professor, a career counselor, and more – advising and mentoring are still my favorites. So after having kids and moving back to Ann Arbor, it felt like a no-brainer to go back to my roots and work with LSA students as an academic advisor.

Why did you join Newnan?

I love working with college students and I love this university, so the opportunity to walk with students through their time here felt like a great fit for me. Also, I was fortunate to have an amazing academic advisor while I was an LSA undergrad, so I know how helpful and meaningful that relationship can be. I hope to be the same kind of warm, empathetic, encouraging presence for students that my advisor was for me.

Class you loved and why?

I was lucky to get into a first-year seminar called Diversity, Identity, and Change on American College Campuses, taught by a School of Education professor named Shari Saunders, and it blew my world open. I came to Michigan as a student who was interested in race but had almost no language to talk about it. (It was the early 2000s – a very different time.) In this seminar, we went through all the different social identifiers – race, sex and gender, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, ability status, etc. – which gave me not only a vocabulary for them, but also lenses to see and understand issues of justice and oppression. Those lenses stayed with me and deeply informed my PhD research, clinical work, teaching, writing, and non-profit work. This class set me on a trajectory of examining social location and how it plays out in the lives of individual people, which has been so important for me both personally and professionally. I can’t overstate the impact it had on me.

Interests and hobbies:     

I love writing, eating, traveling, going with my family to Michigan sporting events (men's gymnastics is my favorite), and going to musical theatre productions from the School of Music, Theatre and Dance (the best program in the country!). I always want to talk about pop culture. TV, movies, music, books, sports, podcasts, celebrity gossip – I want to talk about all of it!