St. 爱德华大学强调社区的力量和网络的力量. 但这在现实世界中是什么样子呢? We asked students and professors to tell us about ways they turn connections into opportunities.
当 妮可·塞利格曼，12岁 作为一名学生，她知道写作与修辞客座讲师 贝丝Eakman 希望学生在她的课堂上茁壮成长，并超越课堂. Eakman spent hours teaching students the nuts-and-bolts tactics that would help them land jobs in the publishing world. She brought young professionals into her classroom who could share their experiences transitioning from students to working writers and editors. 当塞利格曼请求我帮她打磨她的履历和求职信，申请实习时, 伊克曼花了一个多小时帮助她把它做得完美无缺. 伊克曼是塞利格曼博客“感觉良好，穿得更好”的拥护者. 这种支持巩固了两国之间持续至今的真正关系.
Seligman attributes Eakman’s teaching and support as a key reason she is now executive editor at Junebug Weddings, 一个在线婚礼策划网站，以其强大的编辑工作而闻名. “贝丝对我来说是一个巨大的资源和支持者，”塞利格曼回忆说.
现在塞利格曼正在把爱传递出去. 她是伊克曼课程的常客, where she shares her best advice about landing publishing jobs and mines the classes to find talented interns for her team at Junebug. “我知道(来自圣何塞的学生). 爱德华的学生将会很有能力，”她谈到该校深厚的人才库时说. “雇佣其他(山顶员工)真的很有趣.”
Seligman and Eakman represent just one tiny piece of the power of networks and community at St. 爱德华的. 小而强大的校园帮助学生真正了解教职员工. These deep and genuine relationships allow Hilltoppers to make the connections they need to find the perfect club, 处理有趣的研究, 毕业后找到好的实习机会和有意义的工作.
在一个认识的人几乎和你知道的东西一样重要的世界里，圣. 爱德华的 is making sure that students graduate with both the knowledge and the network to succeed.
为什么越大不是越好
Developing a meaningful network of people willing to help advance your career takes more than clicking a button to accept a LinkedIn request or sending a generic application to a general email address. 相反，它始于真正的人际关系.
问问 杰克Musselman, director of the Center for 道德与领导 and associate professor of 哲学. 今年早些时候, 例如, 穆萨尔曼在他的办公室工作时是一名招生代表, 一位母亲和她的准学生女儿来拜访. 他们问了一些关于专业和法学院的问题.
Musselman, who teaches a popular philosophy of law class and frequently works with current students who plan to attend law school, 很乐意帮忙. 他与三人相处了近20分钟, walking them through important considerations and printing out a few documents he’d developed for the most common questions he answered.
“我可以把这个故事乘以100，”他说
与现有学生和未来学生互动的频率. 在这些对话中，它很有启发性, 脆弱而真实——穆萨尔曼开始了解学生, 他们的梦想和目标.
That genuine connection makes it easier for Musselman to make recommendations and assist a student who is ready to take the next step, which might include connecting the student to one of the dozens of lawyers he knows personally. “你必须相信教学和与整个人交谈,穆萨尔曼谈到了他与学生合作的理念. “实际上，这意味着要投入时间.”
他说，这样的工作是可能的，因为圣. 爱德华大学是一所小型大学，强调人际交往的价值. 班级规模通常在12人左右, “紧密结合”是对这个社区最常用的描述之一.
更重要的是, 有一种倡导精神, mentoring and compassion among professors and administrators who see themselves as doing more than simply filling a professional role. 他们认为学生不仅仅是一个数字或一个等级.
学生事务副院长 康妮·雷·罗德里格斯04届，马赫06届 作为校友和管理者都知道这句话的真实性. 作为一名学生, she appreciated how often she saw administrators and professors outside their offices and classrooms and engaged in the many facets of the St. 爱德华的社区. 如今，她在自己的作品中体现了这一点. “我和教务长Steven Pinkenburg一起打校内篮球。, 我经常在其中一个食堂吃午饭,她说。.
Her deep familiarity with campus means that she can provide the kind of support that really helps. 例如, 最近有个转学生带着问题来到她的办公室, she was quickly able to find him an intramural sport he was interested in joining — along with the name of someone who could connect him to a comic book club. 她说:“我们不仅仅是想让学生看到我们(在校园里). “这有助于我们了解正在发生的事情，”罗德里格斯说.
艾米•亚当斯, 修辞学和写作的兼职讲师, 同意融入社区是有真正价值的. 学生们在教室里找到了她, 但他们也很可能发现她在Jo 's Coffee指挥办公时间, 坐在看台上看垒球比赛, 甚至还为卡布拉拍了时装照, 学校的电子时尚杂志. 当要为她的学生写无数封推荐信时, 她利用这些经历，画出了一幅更饱满、更有活力的画面
她代言的每个学生的照片. “我是这些学生的捍卫者，”她说.
考虑时间的问题
玛丽·凯瑟琳·库克，17岁 当她坐进那张红色的皮椅子里时，她感到飘忽不定 史蒂夫Rodenborn2016年春天，他来到了他的办公室. 烹饪, 英语文学和天主教研究双学位, had no idea what she was going to do after graduation — and she felt like all her peers had figured it out. 她希望罗登伯恩, whose charisma in the classroom had helped persuade her to add 天主教的研究 as a second major, 也许能引导她.
Rodenborn, 他是宗教研究的副教授, 没有答案, 但他确实有疑问. 我温柔地刺激了她30分钟，告诉她是什么让她兴奋, 她到目前为止做了什么，她不想做什么, Rodenborn helped her see clearly that grad school — a common path for students like her — was not in her future. “I wanted to go and serve in the world,” she wrote in a blog post about that conversation. “我不想让自己屈从于写关于为世界服务的论文.”
罗登伯恩建议她调查一下耶稣会志愿者团(JVC), 一个她从未考虑过的为期一年的服务项目. 为厨师, it was a life-changing moment — she was later accepted into both the 2017–2018 and the 2018–2019 JVC program.
对罗登伯恩来说，这是他在圣. 爱德华的. “通常, (在这样的对话中)你会看到一个学生的脸亮了起来,他说. 当这种情况发生时, 我的工作是为学生做一面镜子, 并帮助他们看到他们需要去哪里. 如果这是我擅长的领域, 我可以帮你确定选择, 如果不是, 我可以推荐另一位教授.”
Rodenborn says such moments can feel magical — and they’re one of the essential ways that St. 爱德华学院的教职员工为学生服务. “如果(学生)还没有经验, 他们不知道外面有什么机会,他说. “教职员工会说，‘你还不知道这个问题，但你可以调查一下. You might find that it’s what you’ve always wanted to do, you just didn’t know it existed.’”
对于学生来说，寻求帮助并不总是一个直观的想法. 爱德华的 with intelligence and drive that has often allowed them to succeed in their previous endeavors through sheer force of will. 负责学生事务的副校长 丽莎·柯克帕特里克 says there’s often an “unlearning” process that students go through as they transition from trying to do everything themselves to building meaningful and powerful alliances with faculty, 教职员及其他学生. “当我和新生交谈时, 我说, “你认为你来大学是为了学习如何独立完成所有事情,’”她说。. “但最终, 学生们意识到这并不是要学会独自做所有的事情. 而是要意识到他们在前进的道路上需要其他人，”她说.
Kirkpatrick, 例如, has done extensive preparation with high-achieving students seeking jobs. 她对他们进行了模拟面试, helping them tweak their answers and their delivery so they can make the best possible impression. 她还为其他人提供职业着装方面的建议, leading with self-confidence and respectfully engaging with people in higher-level roles.
这种教学时刻没有确切的模板, 柯克帕特里克说, 也不应该有. 相反，她试图深入了解某个学生的情况, 她能提供什么帮助，这种支持可能是什么样子的. “这需要我们圣. 爱德华的 to make sure that students get what they need in the right place at the right time,她说。. “首要目标是了解每个人给校园带来了什么, 并提供个性化的教育，为他们在世界上做好事做好准备.”
有时, the support that students need is not seeing an array of new options or learning the technical skills to achieve a goal. 他们只需要从别人那里得到安慰，他们的目标是什么——团契, 的实习, 名牌研究生院, 这项工作完全在他们的能力范围之内.
“学生们可能相当谦虚，”罗登伯恩说. “有时 they need for us to confirm that these world-class opportunities are the ones they should be shooting for,他说. “We can tell them: ‘We know what it means to go to these programs and who they will accept. 你就是那个学生. 你已经准备好了.当他们听到这句话时，他们真的很喜欢. 他们只需要几个人说他们能做到.”
为一生的支持而建
St. 爱德华的 is purpose-built to foster the kind of meaningful connections that help students make the most of every minute on campus, 这些关系很少会因为学生们在毕业典礼上扔掉帽子而结束.
Eakman, 例如, invites all of her students to friend her on 脸谱网 once they graduate. 他们经常与她分享她传递的工作机会. “Our alumni often actively recruit our grads because they know how rigorous the writing major is and how well it prepares them for professional writing jobs,她说。, 注意到包括美国国家仪器公司在内的公司, 六月虫婚礼和战争游戏电子游戏公司雇佣了一系列的圣. 爱德华的校友. “Hilltoppers招聘和雇佣了一整排的Hilltoppers.
通常，校友们会学着自己承担起这种有益的角色. In 2012, a student from one of Eakman’s classes created an Eakman 校友 Association 脸谱网 group. 现在拥有100多名会员, 它是校友在出版和传播领域寻找和提供工作的中心.
Eakman is delighted by all of it — and she loves that it’s all part of being a Hilltopper. “这里有一种真正的社区意识，”她说. “互相帮助是这所大学的灵魂之一.”
艾琳·彼得森
Gwen Keraval的插图