The Circle of Student Affairs

I am still amazed that students ask me to edit their work. After all I am still sending my work to my mentors and colleagues to edit. I cannot count the number of times that I have sent an email or paper to a colleague asking for their revisions or comments. I am constantly learning how to improve my own work.

Early on into my journey I have been blessed with amazing mentors. These mentors range from my voice teacher in middle school, to my history teacher in high school, who I still communicate with regularly, to my student affairs colleagues and supervisors in the field. I have been beyond blessed. I have time and time again told them all that I did not know how I would ever repay them. Time and time again they have all answered me saying, just pay it forward.

Pay it forward to the future generations of student affairs professionals they tell me. Pay it forward to the future students you work with who need you. Pay it forward, pay it forward, pay it forward. I just never thought it would be so easy to pay it forward.

There is always an opportunity to help a student. Whether it’s the student who just needs you to listen, the student who needs you to write a recommendation letter on short notice, or the student who is always and forever a mentee. They all allow me the opportunity to pay it forward. They all make it so easy. There are some I do not see often. Some that only come to me in times of need but I still say yes. There are others that speak to me daily, that seek my guidance on scholarship applications to attire for interviews. No task is too big or too small. No task takes up too much of my time. No task is one to which I want to say no. I am honored that they have asked me.

And sometimes with a simple response of “wear the blue shirt” or “sure I have five minutes for you” I pay it forward and hope that they return the favor someday. Those five minutes may have made a world of difference for them or that blue shirt may have provided them with the confidence they needed to nail the interview, but they have no idea what they did for me.

Because on the days where everything seems to be going wrong, where I cannot seem to get anything done, where I feel like I’m just failing at everything I’m doing, those five minutes save me. That email or text helps me remember why I do what I do. I am instantly reminded of those that count on me who look to me for guidance and those that need me.

For as much as I support their development they support mine. They push me to continue learning and growing as a professional and as a student. Their courage to ask for help in times of need reminds me that it’s something we all must do. I thank my mentors and colleagues who have supported me thus far and want you all to know I pay it forward each and every day, just as you do for me.  After all that is the circle of student affairs.