Jim Sherman, Student Services director, counsels
Jennifer Lee Fox, who is interested in pursuing a
dual major in aerospace and Spanish
My responsibilities extend into a number of areas, but my overall purpose is to ensure current students, prospective students, and parents receive counseling, guidance, and academic information to facilitate the transition from college admission through undergraduate graduation.
In addition to providing advice and counsel for students and parents, I serve, with Kay Bell, as one of the College's two Open Option advisors. The Open Option Program was instigated to give freshmen the option of taking a variety of engineering courses during their freshman year and not declaring a specific engineering major until the end of their freshman year. I think this flexibility represents a useful option for our freshman who are undecided or uncertain about their interests in engineering.
I am also responsible for developing, maintaining, and updating student files and records from the time of admission through graduation. I process final grades and prepare graduation lists as well as, unfortunately, probation and suspension lists. These latter activities involve working with students to ensure that they are making satisfactory progress in their degree program and offering help to those who are not. Discovering a student is getting in academic trouble and being able to help to turn this around is definitely a satisfying part of my job.
One aspect of my position I particularly enjoy is chairing the Committee on Engineering Scholarships. There is no feeling more gratifying than working with faculty and departmental staff to make sure that as many qualified students as possible received the financial assistance they deserve.
The committee is made up of six faculty, one from each department, plus the directors of the Minority Engineering Program (MEP), the Women in Engineering Program (WIEP), and representatives from Engineering Development. We annually award approximately 250 undergraduate merit scholarships, and assist the MEP and WIEP in making scholarships available to their students. Our scholarships have a total value of about $250,000 of which the vast majority is provided by private donors. I know from my personal experience that all the members of this committee thoroughly enjoy awarding scholarships to our best undergraduate students.
Traditionally, donors of scholarships and student recipients have been recognized at an awards ceremony in April. This year, we moved the timing of this ceremony to October. We did this for several reasons. We thought it would give more recognition to incoming freshmen (almost 70 of whom were receiving scholarships). We also thought that moving it to the Thursday before Parents' Weekend would give more parents the opportunity to participate in this recognition. We think this fall's ceremony was quite successful, bringing together students, parents, donors, faculty, and staff to celebrate the outstanding academic achievements of our students.