Title: Director of Student Involvement

Hometown: Conway Springs, Kansas

Degrees/Certificates: BSE in Social Studies and Physical Education, MS in Counseling and Student Development

Began at Missouri S&T: July 1, 2024

What does a director of Student Involvement do? As the new director, I’m excited to learn more about the day-to-day responsibilities of the position, but in general, it’s my job to lead the various initiatives that come out of the office and to support the staff so they can do their best work.

What do you enjoy most about your work? I really enjoy building and leading teams of people. Whether that is groups of students, professional staff, or a mixture, I love it when I can help a group of people work together to achieve a goal.

What is one thing on your bucket list? I want to visit all 50 US States! I traveled a lot working as a leadership consultant for my fraternity and I’m over halfway to this goal, but need to spend some time in the northeast to get those states.

What do you do for fun? I really enjoy being outside. Everything from yard work, to hiking, camping, boating… I just really like being outdoors.

What is something that others may not know about you? I collect bumper stickers/car decals from every campus I’ve worked with. Anything from a short term consulting visit to a full time job…I’ve got a sticker for every place.

What is your favorite place on campus? I don’t know yet! One of the things I’d like to do in my first few months on campus is explore everything that the campus has to offer. I’m sure I’ll find my favorite place in no time.

What would you describe as the most important personal attributes or strengths that you bring to your work? I’m a great problem-solver. I can look at the details of the situation, analyze and explore different solutions and build a plan to move forward.

What is the best advice you have ever received? I started umpiring baseball games at a young age and, at first, was worried about what people thought about me and the calls I was making. Early on, my dad told me, “on a good night, you can make both teams mad”. Obviously, the goal isn’t to make people mad, but his point was to remain neutral and keep calling things as they really were. The team might be mad when a call doesn’t go their way, but if I spent my time worrying about what they thought of me, then I wasn’t actually focused on the work that needed to be done.