Student services professionals change lives

“When you work in admissions and student services, your work can be life-changing for some students,” said Jimmie McMillian, Senior Corporate Counsel for Hulman & Company. “You perform a gatekeeping function, and that function has a pivotal importance in the lives of so many folks.”

McMillian, who grew up in Chicago, was a freshman in college when family trauma interrupted his studies and ultimately led to him failing out. But the extraordinary efforts of student services professionals at his institution allowed him to eventually return school and achieve his dreams.

Someone in his corner
“I had great administrators who fought for me, listened to me, had patience, and did everything they could to help me finish college and ultimately go to law school,” McMillian said. “When I flunked out of Indiana University due to things going on at home, I didn’t know what to do, where to go, how to get back in, what classes I’d need to take, what to do when my students loans came due -- how to pay them back or that I couldn’t transfer because I had an encumbrance. Certainly I was not going to law school.

“I had all these questions, and no answers,” he said. “The only people with answers are the folks in the administration. Folks just like AACRAO members.”

Although McMillian had helpers, he also had to have plenty of determination to trek across campus and make phone calls to all of the different offices required to figure out the many different steps he’d need to take to get back into school.

"Think about what it means to give someone the opportunity to go to college."

An invisible population
“Although we all know every university has students that don’t complete, very few have resources for returning students,” McMillian said. “Even though you may be qualified, and they may still want you, there’s no one office that is there to help you build a solid plan to get back. How do we reach those hundreds of thousands of students who flunked out and want back in, when most schools are built for new students?”

In his work in his community, McMillian meets a lot of people like himself: those who want to go back to school -- single moms, adults just laid off from factory work, and so on -- but have no clear path.

“I hear it all the time: They really want to go back to school, but they’re scared, timid, and they don’t know how,” McMillian said. “It’s so important to understand that when you’re a good gatekeeper, you have to listen to these folks and give them a chance. Understand what that can mean for the long term -- not just for the person you helped but sometimes for generations of people that follow. Think about what it means to give someone the opportunity to go to college.”

We can do better
McMillian, a keynote speaker at the AACRAO SEM Conference in November, said that it can be easy for student services people to forget what a powerful force they can be in students’ lives.

“You truly are creating a pathway for someone who, without your help as an administrator, might not have a path,” he said. “You may not have time to deal with everyone’s particular struggle, but we can do better, in particular when it comes to minority students. Just a phone call to someone who has flunked out or who is trying to figure out how to pay for school can really make a difference in someone’s life.

“Administrators doing great work should be applauded, and those who need more support, we’ve got to figure out a way to support them,” he said. “Without administrators who care, no one reaches end goal we’re trying to achieve -- matriculation of students, student success, and a better society in general.”