Student Engagement

Why UNE

When I was a kid, my family used to vacation on Hills Beach. I was so young then that I later didn't even remember that there was a college campus right there. When I was looking around at different colleges, my mom said to me, “What about the one we used to pass by?” I remember looking into UNE then, but I wanted to go to UMass Lowell because that’s where a lot of my friends were going. Then one day I was hiking with my brother, and he told me that I should challenge myself to go somewhere that none of my friends were going. I took that challenge, and it led me here to UNE.

We have a very different setup than other schools because the Business Department is small compared to the health science majors here. It’s close-knit because of that. All of the professors tailor their classes to the students and what the students want to learn. I think that is the coolest part. Rather than just following a set curriculum, they'll see what the students are interested in and try to engage us more.

Welcoming Community

Everyone is very friendly here at UNE. When you pass by people, you don't even have to know them, they’ll smile and wave. I think that's really cool. It’s a very welcoming environment, and I really appreciate that. It's very much geared toward getting students involved in different things, and I think that allows for a lot of freedom and opportunity.

I learned a lot about myself from being here at UNE. I remember coming into college…I thought, “Oh, I'm just going to do my classes, study hard, and not do anything aside from that.” I got sucked into the culture, though. There is so much community here. It started with my involvement in [the undergraduate theater club] UNE Players and went from there.

I remember when I first came to UNE, I thought it was pretty, and I liked it here. It was a shallow interpretation of the place. After a few years at UNE, though, I have a much deeper connection. I think that UNE Players helped me feel that way and find my place. I developed friends through participating in the plays.

Working in Title IX is never boring. During my first years at UNE, on the national stage the Office of Civil Rights and the Department of Education were doing a lot of renewed and public guidance about universities’ obligations under Title IX. The University recognized the importance and priority of Title IX, and I was looking for a new opportunity, so I was asked to take on Title IX in full.

Title IX is a huge umbrella. Essentially, the core of Title IX is access to education and removing barriers to access that could be related to gender. Accessing education is special, and we want to help facilitate that in the safest way possible.

It has to do with protections and supports for sexual harassment and sexual assault. It’s also about equity in athletics. It also protects pregnant parents and their student rights, and it expands to gender identity and expressions too. These issues are all very different things, so I need to be an expert and create many partnerships with different areas of the University and beyond.

Student Centeredness

My primary job is oversight of the University to make sure that we are consistent with our policies and with how we address issues. The other thing that comes out of my office is assessing the culture and climate in our programs to ensure that we are being equitable with regards to gender.

We want to make sure that we are supporting and providing resources for our students, faculty, and staff. Much of that work is prevention. The best way to respond to things is before they happen, so it is critical to have a strong prevention program.

People know who we are and understand the issues. They understand that they can get help, so if there's a concern — maybe it's biased behavior in a classroom or a residence hall — we can get on top of that by working with them before it becomes a discrimination issue.