All right, hello, this is Shay Brenner and Joshua Party.
Interviewing Alexandra Aragon on February 15th at 10:43 a.m. In the Honors
hall advising offices. This interview is part of the Barrett Oral History
Project. Our goal is to preserve a record of Barrett's history in honor of
our 30th anniversary. Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down
with us and share your experience. All right, so just to kind of kick
things off, um, how about you just say like how you did you come to bear
it? Absolutely, um, I started working here in 2008. Um, I was pretty new
to Arizona. I had lived here about a year, um, and my undergraduate
experience was at Fordham University, which is a small liberal arts school
, um, and so I was really drawn to Barrett because I felt like it was
mimicking that small private experience in the context of a larger
university and I really wanted to work with students, so I was fortunate
to be hired in as an academic advisor for the college.
So you um you had been in Arizona for about a year. I so I did a little
bit of research on you um so I know this was after so you did Teach for
America for a year out of college and then you this was your first uh job
after that, correct? Yes, so I was actually a fundraiser for Teach for
America, so I wasn't teaching in the core. I was helping them secure
funding to support the Phoenix region and I had just finished a master's
degree in counseling and higher education, so um I had worked as a
graduate student, but this was my second job out of college and you know
really the start of my career in higher education.
So how would you say um that helps you with maybe your advising experience
to move up towards being now the head of advising affairs? Yeah,
absolutely. I began as a front line adviser and we were a much smaller
office. We were actually still in the old Barrett complex, so we hadn't
even moved to this new facility and I had a very large caseload of almost
700 students, um, and then I was part of a period of tremendous growth, so.
After my first year as a new advisor, I was expected to train and mentor
new advisors that came in, so I, you know, really had to think about how I
had learned the elements of the job and how I could help others understand
our role um and then just how we were going to scale the experience up as
we were able to grow. So over the years I took on a lot of special
projects, um, managing our thesis process, doing things with the website,
working with faculty, internships at one point, um, and I was just really
lucky to. Do a lot of different side projects so as I progressed in
leadership it's been really important to me that now that I supervise
others I really understand what their job is because I've done it myself
and I still advise students um even in this role so I'm still a part of
what I'm supervising and I love working with students so that brings me
joy to keep doing it um but I think it helps me be a legitimate leader
because I am also working alongside my team um and. What I asked them to
do, I'm expecting myself to do as well. Awesome OK and then so you talked
a little bit about like how you had different projects you were doing. Can
you maybe talk about any of those or what became of some of them? Yeah, so
one in particular was our thesis workshop um so historically we had put on
workshops just as an additional opportunity for students that they weren't
required so um with with feedback from our faculty honors advisors we.
Actually instituted a policy that all students would be required to
complete a thesis workshop before they could progress into enrolling in
our and because we knew we would not necessarily be able to offer enough
in person opportunities to meet that demand, we had to create an online
version of that and so that was a project that I took on. We created a
blackboard course and I was in charge of making sure we had videos um so
just all of the sort of production. Management that went into that the
scripts, the location, recruiting the individuals um helping with the
editing process and I'm really excited because actually just this past
summer we with the move over to Canvas ASU is moving away from Blackboard
, we completely redid the whole workshop so there's new videos, there's
new materials um we had feedback from students so it's just a little bit
more streamlined um but yeah, something that I had been involved with a
really long time ago kind of came full circle this past year when we
renewed it, so to speak. Oh, OK, that's really cool. Um, so what are some
of the, so you, I know you've been here for like 10 years now, so maybe
what are some of the changes you've seen or even overseen, um, if you
could just talk about any of those. Definitely, um, I mean one kind of
significant change is just overall tracking. So when I first arrived we
did not have a DARS report for honors. um I think it's easy to take that
for granted now that the degree audit system is, you know, available for
every major and that's available to honor students. So we were actually
tracking honors credits in Excel spreadsheets so every single student. We
had an Excel spreadsheet that we would manually update and it obviously
didn't speak to a system, so we never knew what students were up to until
the end of the semester when we would look at their transcripts and then
manually input and it took all summer just to even update people's credit
sheets so the students really had to rely on the advisors. I mean,
obviously some students I think were savvy enough to have their own.
Tracking systems, but there's just a lot of uncertainty about honors
credits, um, and then that meant we weren't doing a great job of reporting
or forecasting. So a huge change that's occurred is that we were approved
by the university to participate in DARS. We had a DARS encoder dedicated
to honors as part of some of her other responsibilities. We have the
honors audit. It captures lower. And upper division credits and now we're
even at a point where due to the automation, um, when people have hit all
their honors milestones, they're automatically processed for graduation.
So it's a lot of behind the scenes work, but it's really reduced a ton of
manual effort and considering how large we've grown, I mean it was just
essential that we kind of get with the times and use the technology
available.
OK, yeah, no, I, I always use the. I'm glad it's and I like that there's
the upper division one because I entered an upper division. Oh, very nice
,
really convenient. Good. Um, so, um, OK, so you talked a little bit about
some of the changes. How would you maybe like to see change further like
in the future, the next 30 years? Yeah, oh my gosh, absolutely, um. I mean
, I think that you know in terms of advising specifically we want to keep
personalizing the experience as much as possible, you know, really knowing
the students, um, continuing to be creative about ways that we deliver our
services like right now we're kind of tied to a pretty traditional model
of, you know, an office that functions 8 to 5, um, but we started to look
at things like group advising for second year students because that's a
little bit of a more unique. Experience um I've actually been running some
of those groups as kind of an experiment and they've gone really well um I
think that we could do more even with like virtual office hours or just
like some participation participation over technology. I would never want
to replace that in person component but like just accessibility um with
quick questions right now we have a walk-in model uh which we're proud of
because we're open all day for people to drop in but once again that's
just the 8 to 5 so I think. Expanding on that somehow would be interesting.
Um, I definitely want to see like continued collaboration with faculty
and staff just in general like you know knowledge about what each party is
doing and um like for instance I think it'd be interesting if a study
abroadship, for instance, had a faculty member and maybe an advisor who
helped like chaperone or run trip logistics or even like you know did
advising abroad with the students. It's like that could be just a fun way
for people to like take advantage of the resources but in a different
setting um and then I think just always our partnership with the
university you know we hold a really special place um within ASU and I
think it's easy for a university of this size to feel kind of territorial.
Everyone's really concerned with their college with what goes on and you
know we're in the unique position that our students are in every college
so. I know in my role, I actually feel very personally invested in every
college. I want to know how they're doing. I want them to be thriving, and
I think that they care about us, but it isn't always that same level of
investment because they're doing their own thing and I'd really like to
see this as more united, like, oh, we want to know how our Barrett
students are doing in relation to the college and you know we want to be
um kind of going back and forth a little bit more so. Yeah, I, I actually
read a short interview you did, uh, somewhat recently, and the one thing
you talked about was how, um, like there was an extremely unique sort of
honors experience because you could study two totally different fields and
you wouldn't be able to do that. Yeah definitely I mean I think that can
really come out in the thesis in particular that's another kind of dream
of mine I think going along with the colleges is that we would see a lot
more pathways to the thesis we'll never want to lose that ability for
students to have a unique experience like this is my idea, very specific
project that I've been working on since high school and you know I wanna.
Follow that passion, um, but for a lot of people, a huge stumbling block
is that they really don't know what they want to do or they feel like
there's really no process to follow because it's extremely open ended and
I would just love to see more colleges and faculty say you know this is
something that we're working on this is a very specific pathway you apply
to it you follow these steps and at the end you have. A thesis that you
produce and that it benefits maybe that college like it helps them write a
grant or it helps with the center that they have so that there would be
like a mutually beneficial exchange um but that our students would feel
like they were following a program I think that would just make some of
them feel more secure and will probably help us see like a higher level of
completion overall. Uh, you mentioned accessibility that the office runs
from like has a set timetable. Uh, Barrett is unique in that almost all
the honor students live on campus, like right here just outside this
building and across the street in Vista. How do you as like the director
of advising now see that as a benefit for students when they are pursuing
their academic career in Barrett the honor? Absolutely. I mean, I think
just the fact, uh, you know, living on campus in and of itself is hugely
beneficial. There's a lot of research that shows that that can just lead
to higher success rates, um, and the fact that we are in a complex, I
think, you know. They're able to access advising offices as well as the
staff and deans, um, but just even having that smaller community of you
might not know every person in Barrett, but it's small enough that people
look familiar, that it does feel like its own neighborhood. I think when I
was in college, the whole university felt that way because it was
essentially the size of Barrett, um, and it was in the middle of the Bronx
and we were in New York City, and but we had our own. Kind of island. And
when I left college and actually moved into Manhattan, I was struck with
how lonely that was. I hadn't really appreciated that when I was a student
and I left my dorm, people were smiling at me. They were waving to me um
and obviously like in the middle of New York City, that's actually not
necessarily like common behavior. So I think our students, even if they
don't realize, are benefiting just from that social network. That occurs
here, um, but then I know I was talking to a business student recently
like you can strike up conversations and because people are from different
disciplines, it could also be like an academic network or an
entrepreneurial network where these are really bright people and the idea
is that whatever people end up doing um or pursuing, they're going to tap
into the network that started kind of like organically here in Barrett. 00
sorry, no, you, uh, for study abroad programs, how do you think that
benefits students? like what experiences do students gain from study
abroad programs that make Barrett's so unique compared to like just ASU in
general and maybe other universities that you've experienced? Absolutely.
I mean, I think just to start any travel is just a really eye opening
opportunity for students. Um, it's just very important to have that
perspective shift. Of seeing a new place and experiencing a new culture.
With the honors trips in particular, um, the diversity of the student
body that participates is probably one of the unique elements that it's
not necessarily major specific, um, and even that the classes are not
particularly focused on like a specific discipline, like, oh, these are
management courses, um, they're really rooted in the tradition, the
history, the culture. um, of the place, so they're more focused on the
destination if you will, um, and I think then the whole honors experience
in theory is designed to then have you weave that back in. So there would
be additional maybe HON courses that you could take it could influence
your thesis directly or indirectly so that hopefully the requirements of
our program, you can actually capitalize on your study abroad to even
enrich that further.
So, um, when you're looking at different honors halls here, uh, in Barrett
, looking at different colleges, for example, the Fullerton schools, they
have Tucker House which is just for engineering majors, you mentioned that
one of the unique aspects of Barrett is that there's multiple disciplines
working together. Uh, do you have any input on how students are arranged
in the honors halls? Are they like. Uh, arranged by major or they arranged
by discipline and how does that like does that benefit study groups and
studying and coming back to advising, how does that work for the benefit
of the student at the end of the day. Yeah, absolutely. So I personally am
not necessarily um holding any weight in these decisions, but I do know
that we have some communities here so that there is a business community,
engineering, and Herberger. But if a particular That's in that major
wishes to be outside of that community, they may. So that's significant to
me where it's like, well, I just want to live in housing, but not
necessarily in the business community. I want to just be placed with any
student. And then even for those communities, they don't occupy the whole
building, so they actually still get to benefit from having a diverse
building of others. Um, so I think it's kind of both sides. Like it is
really beneficial when people understand your situation. I think Herburger
is a great example of that. It is very stressful for freshmen with the
milestones that come up and the demands of the studio. I think it's nice
that they have each other, but then I know it's a split floor, so I have
another student who's pre-med and she's on that floor, and she was
actually saying it is truly like half the floor is her burger and the
other half is CLAS, but they're friends and they talk and she's just found
it really interesting. To be around those artistic people. So yeah, I've
had people with concerns like, well, I'm missing out. I'm not in Tucker
House. It's not that far. I think if anything, it's good to be stretched
you can still go over there, you can visit, and we want them to visit here
too. It's a two way street, but it never hurts to meet others who are
different from you, as well as have that comfort of the familiar. So I'm
glad that we have kind of like a blend, basically. A ball and going off of
that topic, what do you think about the Vista del Sol uh Community Center
now that it's a main hub for Barrett students, upper division Barrett
students, uh, how did that uh occur and what were the processes behind
that like once Barrett expanded to like start using that facility as upper
divisions? Yeah, that's a great question. It was a pretty organic process.
So you know when we initially came over here, the plan was that all. Of
Barrett living would take place here in the complex. Um, we didn't
necessarily know at that time how big we would grow and Vista was our
competition. When students were told, you know, it's a two year living
requirement, so it's time to sign up for sophomore year, they would say,
but I want to live in an apartment. I want to have a kitchen. I don't want
to have a meal plan. I want you know kind of that next step. They wanted
to go live in Vista, um, and we weren't affiliated with them. So it was
actually really gratifying. the way it worked out to say, well, now you
can live there because we have this partnership. So I think it's really
important that it is different, that it is that apartment style because
that's a good experience for people to have. I mean, it's nice that they
can still stay on the side if they want to. Um, and actually I definitely
have students that live over there that still have a meal plan, so you can
still have that security blanket if you're not planning on cooking. um,
but I think what I would like to see too is a little bit more. Back and
forth like the plan is not to have freshmen over there at this time, but
we do have human event classes and I just think it's really important that
we keep having the first year students also engage just to see what it is
, but also to have that mentorship because the one concern was if we
really are separated so much, then first year students don't get the
benefit of their older peers. So we're going to have to just be
intentional and make sure that keeps happening so that it isn't like
totally isolated. And uh going back to the time you mentioned that when
DARS was introduced to Barrett was super beneficial, I understand that
there's a new student student services building being built over in the
Vista complex so how do you think that'll have an impact on advising on
honors students in general? Absolutely. So despite you know our smaller
size right now, there is still some sectioning off of certain. Services,
um, and so the idea behind a student center is that it really does become
this one stop shop for everything that needs to occur, so you have your
advising, but you also want to talk about internships and then you need
some career guidance and then you're gonna take, you know, a professional
development leadership course and then we're gonna have you apply for a
national scholarship and if you don't do all those things in one day, but
you also can hang out because there will be just open. Space as well. So I
look at it almost like an MU. I mean, it's another hub for students, but
just that convenience factor. Like I'm in this study group and we're
talking about our thesis, and we all have a really specific question.
Let's just go upstairs and ask advising, and they'll tell us. So just this
idea that um the convenience factor, and then I think even just for the
staff, I mean it's much more of a chance to collaborate because people get
busy and they try to make meetings, but when you are in the same space,
it's more organic that you're having conversations in the hall, you're
bumping into each other in and out of work, you're eating lunch together
and like those things do benefit the students like when the staff can
really work together, um, that's kind of like when the creative stuff
happens that ultimately benefits the students as well.
So, um, OK, we've talked about a lot of stuff, um, so, but I think one of
the really. I, I don't know, I really, I, I still live in Vista as a
senior because I think it's convenient, um, uh, so, um, I know you're
talking about some of the things maybe like you're not quite in charge of
like so what exactly do you oversee maybe more specifically? Yeah,
absolutely. So I oversee academic services so I directly supervise the
Tempe advisors here, so I help hire them, train them, so I'm definitely.
Overseeing more of our logistical processes. So when do we offer
mandatory advising? When do we put holds on students? How do we
communicate with them? How do we implement systems like DARS, automation?
We've had to make decisions about different tools that we've had built for
us. Um, we have an online scheduling system that was something that I
helped you know research we looked at different groups, we had meetings. I
had to propose it to the deans because it has a. Cost associated um then
we had to go through a period of testing we recommended changes to the
system, so those are things that I participated in. I work with the other
campuses in kind of an advisory role, so those advisors report to the
associate deans, but we've, um, you know, have a relationship and actually
almost all of them at one point worked at Tempe, so we were even
colleagues at a point in time, um, which just makes. Make sure that we're
staying consistent like they're allowed to have some deviation so for
instance West does a little bit more of a group advising model like they
have historically, but I want to know that we're all using the same thesis
folders that we're all adhering to the same contract deadlines um and then
I just am responsible for pushing out information you know since they are
separate, just keeping them in the know on you know different things, um.
I meet with the Dean's office, so for instance, like we'll talk about
course scheduling, so I'm in charge of the new student orientation. So our
dates, I deliver a speech, I help manage the logistics, um. I've been
giving feedback most recently on like honor sections versus honors
contracts this whole thesis pathway idea so different areas like that um
but I'm directly supervised by the assistant dean of students so I mean
really this is all her area and I just kind of you know, support her goals
and vision but handle like daily operational kind of things um and then
another aspect of my job is our partnership with all the other academic
units. So once a month there's a big meeting on campus for all heads of
advising called AAB Advisor Administrative Board, and we come together, we
give updates and reports, um, but for me, like I was saying earlier, it's
also about relationships like how's it going, what's new in your you know
um world because then when we have a student issue like I want to. I can
pick up the phone and say like, Hey Casey from CLAS help. We have a shared
student. That's definitely something I usually emphasize first, like, oh,
our student who's a bio major, because it is, but I think people forget
right away. Um, so how can we help our student? And that took a while.
When I first took the role as manager, I was replacing someone who Very
well established and respected and it took a while for people to get over
like who are you? you know and start trusting me um and seeing that I was
reliable and that I would follow through and that I would support them. I
remember really clearly early on we had a student who was really upset
about a decision that was made um in the College of Liberal Arts and
Sciences. And wrote something to the effect like, you know, Barrett will
back me up on this and um you know I had to come in and say like you know
I'm really sorry that this is happening but actually the decision that was
made by CLES is what we support because that is the appropriate decision
um and I know that meant a lot to them because they were like wow like we
really. I didn't think you would do that. I was like, well you made a fair
call and I mean obviously like I want what's best for the student, but in
this situation like we do support that and so how can we kind of come
together so some of the job is just that kind of thing like this meetings
and you know getting out there and stuff like that. Uh, you talked about
like coordination with the other departments here in Tempe. Uh, could you
talk more about the coordination between campuses because now there's 4
campuses that's part of. And it now has a major influence across the
entire like Phoenix Tempe metro area. So uh how does Barrett advising
specifically like monitor students as they go across campus with the
shuttle system, like make sure that everyone's all working together under
one towards the same goal. Yes, great question. So our systems track all
students. So when we have reports, for instance, on, you know, the status
of our students, like what year they're in. Honors credits, all of them
always show all campuses, and then you can filter out if you're looking at
your specific campus, um, and then we have a shared note system. So any
notes that I put in about my advising interaction can be seen by advisors
at all campuses, which really does occur, I think, between downtown and
T0B the most frequently like just yesterday, someone who's a journalism
student is a Spanish minor here and she was like, Well, can I just do my
mandatory advising here? Yeah, absolutely. But it was helpful to see the
notes from her downtown person, you know, just to give context. Um, we
hold a weekly advising staff meeting at Tem B, but the other campuses are
invited. They're not expected to physically come, but they can call in or
Skype in. Um, they do that if we had meeting guests typically, but if they
don't, we just send them the meeting minutes as like a best practice. And
then once a semester, all campuses come together and we just kind of
rotate where we hold this for like a half. Day all advising meeting where
we can just catch up with one another. We might do professional
development and then just sort of get on the same page like how's it going
? Any issues? And then as needed, I will go travel to the other campuses
like maybe once a semester just to check in um downtown, for instance, it
had a lot of transition. They had a new dean, so I was going there a
little bit more frequently. Um, then there was a period where they were
short staffed and so we actually had one of our advisors work there
halftime. Like they did advising here and then spent two days down there
and that was a good example of the partnership. Like I know they would
help us if necessary. um and then it sounds silly, but we use Skype for
Business IMing so like throughout the day we can just IM each other, which
is really helpful actually. The whole college is on that, so like you know
Vista, it's not really it's going to take me 10 minutes to walk there. So
if I can IM admissions, I might do that just with a quick question. And
talking more about the unique experiences of Barret across 4 different
campuses, you mentioned how here at Tempe the uh collaborative nature and
the small nature of the Honors College campus allows students to interact
more frequently with each other. Um, how does the design of the Barrett
complexes on the other three campuses also help with that same feeling of
mutual like coordination and. Um, Like mutual coordination. No, absolutely.
I mean, obviously they're smaller in scale, but um each other location
has a specific Barrett hub, so downtown, that's in um The university
center so they have a suite in a pretty busy area so you know downtown is
a good example like there's not necessarily a lot of university space like
real estate is you know primed down there so I think it's great that the
students can come in and just even hang out between classes, but the dean
is there the advisors, there's faculty, so that's kind of where they come
together and then Weston. Holly have beautiful suites where there's a
place for the students to hang out, you know, the computer lab. I mean, I
love West in particular. They have a larger commuting population. They
have a kitchen for the students. They have a microwave, they have a
refrigerator where someone can put their lunch, like just those elements
that are important to them. Um, and it's funny because their walk-in model
here. Tempe, we schedule times on people's calendar to have walk-ins, and
there it's like way more organic where they'll just sort of even go to the
students like there's a bunch on the couches and they're like, Oh, Liz, I
have a question, and she'll just sit down with them. So given how small
they are, she's able to, which I love. Like here that would be a little
bit more challenging, um, but they're able to do that at the smaller
places. And uh if we go back a bit more to the study abroad programs
offered at Barrett, um, how does that in addition to like benefiting
students just for providing cultural experiences and diversity of thought
, how does that academically help students like with honors credit, honors
courses, and how does that like translate towards their progress to a
degree? Absolutely. So I mean in the longer study abroad experience, you
could earn up to 9 honors credits. For upper division, so that's like a
whole semester's worth right there. Um, 3 to 6 credits is fairly common,
and they mean at a minimum 1 credit if let's say it's like a global
intensive experience. So there's always an honors credit outcome, which is
helpful. Um, there's a requirement to do upper division outside the major
credits and all of those trips count for that. And then I think kind of
like an indirect benefit though is just another faculty connection, which
is helpful with the thesis. Even if the thesis isn't directly about your
study abroad experience, those are pretty diverse experiences, and I think
it is common that that professor either will connect you to someone who
will be. Thesis director, they might be a reader or they're just going to
be a source of support when you're feeling stressed um so I'm always very
thesis driven and I think that those trips have a direct impact on people
having like a more positive experience and definitely a stronger network
to draw from. So one of my favorite things about Barrett is that we do
offer those like HON 394 classes um like this one I get more credit for
and um I took like the design Sun Double stadium last year um does
advising have any impact on those at all or? Um, so the faculty really do
get to choose on those, um, but I mean indirectly I know that's something
I've been advocating for like I think it's very. important that we think
about marketing those classes because some of them are a little bit more
obscure. And so unfortunately it's easy for them to be overlooked. And so
we just want to make sure like are we putting up the right kind of flyers
? Should there be a direct email maybe to certain majors just to get more
eyes on the class? Um, there have been occasions where maybe one was
really underenrolled and so the dean's office asked me, like, can you send
this to students or can you promote it? So we definitely promote them and
then You know, I've just been a part of conversations about how can we
continue to maximize our efforts. The Sun Devil Stadium was a really
important example because that was a collaboration outside of Barrett. It
was unique because it was short. I mean, it wasn't the whole semester. Um
, it was hands on. The competition. There were just a lot of cool elements.
And so I mean personally, I would love to see us continue to be creative
, so that not only do people get honors credit, but they have a very
unique experience because that's kind of what our whole aim and Barrett is
to just keep making it different. So what is sort of your maybe vision of
making be like that optimal place for student? To like. Absolutely. I mean
, I think more and more there's so much pressure when you enter college to
right away be specialized, to right away be thinking about what's the most
lucrative career path, what's guaranteed, times are uncertain, how will
you make money. And those things are really important and we you know we
hear this information like, well, you still need soft skills. So I mean, I
just want Barrett to be a place where we provide a solid liberal arts
foundation because there is still a lot of value, especially in terms of
those soft skills to human event, liberal arts, argumentative writing, but
that because of the security of the honors framework, knowing, well, I
have to meet these requirements, it would allow people to take creative
risks so that you know people would feel. Like I know I'm going to finish
my major. Be in Barrett does not prevent me from doing that because it's
supposed to be supporting your major up, but that we could get to a place
where people truly felt, oh, but I'm, it's OK for me to like try this
other thing, or it's OK for my thesis to be something really different, um
, because that doesn't mean I won't get a great job. In fact, it might
help someone get a better job or a promotion later. So I'm not sure
exactly what that looks like yet because I know we have a lot of
conversations with students about the value of honors. And that's a hard
concept. Like it is more philosophical. It's very personal and
individualized to people. What I found myself saying more and more is
what's your why? What's your reason? What's your motivation because it's
really different than your friends and it's really different than mine. So
that sort of introspection um and and letting people know like it's OK
that your reason is different, um, so it's like I think just a little bit
more time for that, but a lot of security where it's like, let's look at
really successful alumni. Let's continue to hear their stories so that you
also see, oh, it did help them, because I think that makes people
ultimately feel like it's worth it, um, so that they just continue to see
the value of their investment. It's a financial investment. It's an
intellectual. It's an emotional investment to do honors. It's hard. It
gets stressful. So we want people to feel supported, um, but also have
that reassurance that well, OK, it's not a 100% guarantee, nothing is in
life, um, it is kind of that like. Insurance policy if you will, towards
maybe, um, you know, more unique experiences in the future. Could you
maybe talk a little more about um the importance of like that liberal arts
foundation? I know for me as like a business student, like I definitely
struggled with that and my brother does as a finance student. Of course,
absolutely. um yeah, so I mean I think the human event at its core
foundation is thinking about building habits of the mind, which really
means like tackling questions that do not have easy. answers don't have
clear outcomes and are really open to interpretation, and it's funny
because I feel like it's business students in particular who really are
the ones who are going to tackle that. Like how is the industry going to
change? How will we continue to meet the demands in a global society, in a
technology evolving world? There are no answers because these are brand
new things. And so even though it can feel really disconnected, when you
read primary text. And you're forced to come up with your own answers, not
what someone else said, and it's really dense and difficult and you have
to struggle through it. You are sort of building that muscle to deal with
those questions that will occur um and being in a situation where you have
to speak up and there's people next to you who totally disagree and it's
like kind of uncomfortable, that's training for when you're going to be
confronting that in the workforce or politically or you know what have you
so. I think we can continue to do a better job of like being explicit
about those parallels because right now you know I mean I love the faculty
and you know they're all academics it's like we just love it like love of
learning and it's like yes but it also does connect I think to these more
practical like life skills um and so with the student center that's
actually another outcome is to start kind of bringing. That together by
also talking more about like leadership development career building and
how what we've always done in honors the dots are all there, but let's
draw a more clear connection so that people feel like it's worth it to go
through this experience because you will come out um like that much
stronger and diversified. Oh, Barrett, like, at least for me as a freshman
, seeing my older sister who's gone through the entire thing and graduated
with honors, uh, definitely I can see the worth of Barrett, and it
culminates in the honors thesis. So could you explain more about the
honors thesis, what exactly it is, how that correlates with your. Uh,
education and how that relates to your undergraduate degree and your
future career. Yeah, definitely. So I mean like we were just saying with
the human event and building those skills, that's a pretty controlled
environment. The professor plays a huge role in mentoring and sort of
training the students um it's it's a lot of hands on. So the thesis has a
similar outcome, but you're more independent. So the idea is that you've
now evolved to the point through your human event or history of ideas,
through your contracts. Courses, just life maturity. You've arrived at a
place where you can identify an area of interest and you can essentially
convince a professor to collaborate with you. Um, and that in and of
itself is a pretty challenging thing to do to you know not only approach a
faculty member, have them agree to sponsor you, but then be willing to
adapt and shift so that you come up with a shared idea. I think a lot of
people have a misperception that you as a student will spend all this time
coming up with the perfect idea and then a professor will just sort of
appear and say like, yes, good job, when really you'll identify areas of
interest because that's how you'll know who to speak to. But what really
occurs is that you are interested in these things. You find a professor
who feels similarly has a background, and then together you
collaboratively come up with an idea, um, which often means compromise,
where it's like you thought it would be. One thing, maybe it's another,
maybe through the project development a whole new idea emerges that you
hadn't even thought about. So it's really more of like that mental
training. So when you leave, yes, you have a product and you learn
something, but you also learn the skills of persuasion, evolving,
compromise, dedication, um, failure because there's always moments of
failure throughout the process. Hopefully they're small, um, but
disappointment, you know. Time management, it's a lot. And so I think
that's where we feel like it will you'll see it play out again in various
stages of your life, um, but we want you to also have that tangible
benefit of like, look at this thing that I did that I'm proud of, that I
have a letter of recommendation from someone that now knows me in a really
different way than just being a teacher in a course I took, um, but was my
mentor. Um, so that's kind of what we're hoping you'll get out of it. And
uh just tying everything together about the accessibility of Barret, uh,
the study abroad programs, the honors thesis, how it all provides a super
unique experience for honor students to grow them academically and uh as a
person before they graduate. What do you think about the honors colleges,
uh, terminal like terming Being the gold standard now in the United States
after only existing for about 30 years, like how do you, uh, seeing that
it has gained this, uh, title, what do you see in the future that, uh,
overall could like improve the entire experience and bring Barrett, uh,
make Barrett even more like innovative for the future generation of
students. Yeah, I mean it's a big title to carry, you know, so it
definitely holds responsibility that we need to maintain our standard um
so definitely keep that level really high, um, but being in a place like
ASU that's already so innovative, it just means that we also have to be
open, um, just like we've asked the students to be in human event, how
will we answer questions that don't have easy solutions, um, not get too
comfortable with doing things just because that's the way they've always
been. And you know, listening to what our students are saying and meeting
, you know, realizing it's a whole new generation that have new needs um
and a lot to offer. where are our traditions and things that we hold as
core values, but how can those continue to be expressed in creative ways
because I think you can maintain your sense of identity and tradition, but
try new things and if they fail, own it and move on and you know that will
keep us kind of at the top of our game.
All right, that's, well, I think this is very good, thank you. I don't
know any final words of advice or anything? I mean, I think, you know, I,
um, I'm in my mid-thirties and so I have a lot of friends who have changed
jobs many times and it's pretty unique to have stayed around a job for so
long. I've had different roles, so I've I've been evolving, but. It really
is, I mean, bear it. I know that sounds kind of cheesy, but I do really
love it. I love being a part of ASU. I really believe in what we're doing.
Um, I think that we will be around in 30 more years. I think that we will
continue to move forward, um, and so it's just really Exciting to be a
part of all of this and you know see what the students are doing. I mean,
being an advisor is all about helping shape the future, so knowing that
like we're putting this out in the world just is a really exciting thing
to be a part of. OK, awesome. Well, there's the final oh yeah the final
statement, yeah.
All right, um, OK, cool. Uh, thank you for your participation. If you have
any more thoughts to share later, please feel free to reach out and if you
have any questions about this interview or the 30th anniversary.
30th anniversary of oral history project. Please contact Vice Dean Nicola
Foote. Yeah. Thank you for your help. Thank you.