Many, if not the majority, of my earliest childhood memories revolve around her office, where we spent weekends and afternoons after school. I vividly recall sitting at her small round table made for meetings as she diligently worked at her desk. She would be typing on the computer working on complicated Excel spreadsheets as I worked on my elementary school assignments.
I often took her attention away from the spreadsheets for a short time to show her the “novel” I had written and illustrated myself with crayons. Sometimes, she’d indulge my impatience for adulthood by placing me in a cushioned, spinning office chair in the conference room where I could pretend to be part of her “big girl meetings” while she practiced presentations. My mom has even recounted stories from before I can consciously remember, of me nestled in my removable car seat beneath her desk, never far from her side as she typed away. My mother has always been the most fiercely and beautifully independent woman I have ever known. If you ever wish to know the source of my prowess with a toolbox as well as my adeptness at navigating college life, you need to look no further than her. My learning started in my home, but the college campus where my mom worked also helped set the stage for my future and the person I am today.
From Mom’s Office to the Real World
The time I spent on college campuses led to interactions with college students, staff, faculty, and facilities long before many other children and teenagers even begin to think about secondary education. draf. Except this was just a normal weekend with my mom. I was raised on college campuses, so applying to and going for a higher education degree was never in question for me. Not because of any motherly pressure, but rather because I always knew I would have her support and I adored the campus environment. It wasn’t until being on a campus as a student, however, that I began reflecting on how this isn’t everyone’s experience. Then in my student affairs program, which allowed me space to have these conversations with no judgment, I began to more deeply consider the advantage I had because I had a mother working in higher education.
Not only did I receive scholarships from the university I attended because my mom worked there, but I also received more help and insight than many students expect or hope for. When applying to colleges, my mom was by my side, answering any questions I had and reviewing my essays before I hit submit. When I filled out the FAFSA for the first time, I had the assistance of someone who worked in higher education to keep me level-headed through the stressful process. Then, when I finally began college, I had the comfort of knowing that between classes every day, I could visit my mom in her office and always have a listening ear with informed advice and a taste of home.
While I did many things on my own and gained a great deal of independence in my undergraduate years, I didn’t always have to worry about things other students may have because my mom was there. If I couldn’t find a building one of my classes was in, I could call her to figure out where to go. If I was worried about getting a job on campus, my mom offered to reach out to a contact she had. As a very young adult, I had to learn to carefully tread the line between parental support and nepotism. I never wanted anyone to view me as just her daughter, or to think that I didn’t deserve an opportunity because I needed my mother to find it for me. So, I found the opportunities on my own. I made contacts and connections on my own. Though I still have her look over any application or essay materials to this day.
Finding My Own Path
It’s fascinating to reflect on how, before realizing how deeply student affairs had ingrained itself into my heart, I adamantly declared that I never wanted to work in the same field as my mom. This was my rhetoric for two reasons that impact me to this day: I wanted to do something unique, rather than feeling like I was following in someone else’s footsteps, and I never felt that I could be as effective or successful in a role like hers.
My whole life, I have loved nothing more than the written word and how it can transport someone outside of themselves. From this love, I decided that I wanted to go into the publishing industry to instill this same love of literature into young readers, leading to my decision to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of South Carolina. I also decided to intern at a publishing press in Columbia, SC to learn more about the industry I so desired to be in. I quickly learned that publishing wasn’t what I thought it would be and if I continued this pursuit, I would lose that passion for reading. I had to take a quick glance at my life to see what it was that I did find fulfillment in, which just so happened to be my on-campus job at the Career Center. Here is where I discovered student affairs.
Change of Mind (and Heart)
My path into higher education, both undergraduate English degree and post-secondary student affairs degree, has felt different compared to many of my peers and colleagues. This is because it was always accompanied by the presence of my mother, who has worked in leadership positions in higher education since I can remember. Before I was born and during the first four years of my life, my mom worked as the Director of Institutional Research at the University of Central Florida and currently works as the Associate Vice President of Institutional Analytics. These two positions were, of course, separated by two others; 12 years at the University of Akron and six at the University of South Carolina. I like to tell people when asked “Where are you from?” that I was born in Florida, raised in Ohio, and found myself in South Carolina, where I received both of my college degrees.
During that time in my life when I had to decide what to do for my career instead of publishing, I had the benefit of discussing this decision with someone familiar with higher education. My mom and I had many discussions about the highs and lows of working in this field, especially the differences between student affairs and other areas. We would discuss the troubling news when the government would make calls that we didn’t agree with or didn’t feel supported our student populations. We would also discuss how I would manage my starting salary, because as anyone in student affairs will tell you, “We aren’t in it for the money.” Before deciding my path, I wasn’t sure if I should simply apply for a full-time job or go for my master’s degree first. I also wasn’t sure about navigating my wants and needs from graduate school, but she was always available to work through those choices with me. Even still, my mom was never the person to make decisions for me, she always acted as a guiding force, allowing me the time and space I needed to make life decisions on my own.
Being more intentional in my thoughts on our roles, it came to my attention that while we are both in higher education, we are in very different areas. I work as a student affairs professional, with more interactions with students in a single day than my mom has in a month. She also works with more data and assessments in a month than I likely have to in any given year. These differences make us who we are in our roles and we both have as much passion for our separate areas of higher education as the other.
Any lack of confidence in my ability to be a great leader has nothing to do with my mother and everything to do with myself. When I discovered the term “imposter syndrome,” I had never felt more understood. I also discovered that a lot more people than I thought felt the same way I did. Beyond this, when I brought up my imposter syndrome to my mom, she surprised me by saying “I see so much of myself in you.” She expressed that for her entire career, she has battled feeling that she wasn’t good enough in her role or wasn’t smart enough to be amongst the other people in the room with her. I look back on that conference room I sat in as a child, always looking up to my mother and thinking about the confidence she exuded in presentations, meetings, and conversations. I admired her even more when I found out that she often had internalized self-doubt but stood tall despite it.
Looking Ahead
As I enter my first year of being a full-time student affairs professional, I’ve done a lot of reflection on how my mother has impacted my journey. I have been beyond privileged to have a parent who could support me in the ways my mother has. Whether it was having a knowledgeable person always a phone call away for college applications or a professional to offer advice on the career path we both are in, I have never felt a lack of support. For other professionals who work with students in higher education, I highly encourage these people to also contemplate who they had or maybe didn’t have in their lives as they prepared for college and their careers in this field. Moreover, what advantages did they gain over their peers as a result, and how can we extend similar support to students who lacked such advantages? We often hear the phrase “meet students where they are at,” but it is equally important to consider where they come from. How can we offer the support that a student may need to also navigate college when they don’t have a parent who knows the ins and outs of campus life? While I will always agree that the separation from in loco parentis was the best path to take to empower students to independence, I also have learned the benefits that having a knowledgeable parent in higher education can have. With this, I recommend that we continue to consider how we can balance the line between offering a similar support system to our students without delving into acting as a parent.
My mother is my inspiration and ultimate support system. I couldn’t have asked for a better person to guide me through my time in college. With the knowledge I gained from having a parent in higher education, I can only hope to better understand my role in supporting students who may lack this same advantage.
Author Bio
Taya Andrews (she/her/hers) is an Academic Advisor and Marketing Coordinator in the College of Business and Technology at Winthrop University.