All In: Expanding Access through Nationally Competitive Awards

12. Performance Review

127 12 PerformanceReview ReflectionsonPrivilegeandGratitude Jane morris Jane Morris is a 1978 graduate of Villanova University with both a BS in biology and a BA in honors. After receiving a master’s in biology from Bryn Mawr College, she worked as a research scientist in both the private and public sectors for nearly twenty years. In September 2001 she became Villanova’s first director of the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. In this capacity, she provides guidance for students applying for nationally competitive scholarships and direction for the Presidential Scholarship Program and the Villanova Undergraduate Research Fellowship program. In 2004 and 2006, Jane directed site visits by NAFA members to universities in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Northern Ireland. She has published two articles on the nationally competitive awards and has served as NAFA’s vice president from 2007 to 2009 and its president from 2009 to 2011. 128 • Jane Morris This year, amid meeting scholarship deadlines, tracking down letters of recommendation, and dealing with the politics of departmental budgeting, I am paying especially close attention to the issue of scholarship advising assessment. I have been in this job for more than a decade now, and nAfA has recently made discussion of assessment a priority. As an organization nAfA has a role to play in establishing the standards by which professional practice will be judged. As individuals engaged in the work of helping students discern their academic and professional goals through the lens of nationally competitive scholarships, advisors have a unique set of performance criteria. As one who has witnessed the growth and maturation of this critical role both professionally and personally, I would like to share a few reflections, as well as the profound gratitude I feel for having the privilege to work with the next generation of world leaders. like so many of my colleagues, I began with no direct qualifications for the job other than some twenty years doing research and some experience working with college students. My initial supervisor provided a sound foundation for starting an advising program and, even more important , gave me the freedom to explore. nAfA, then in its infancy, also played a critical role by allowing me to take on responsibilities within the organization. one of the best ways to learn something is to be immersed in it (at least, that is what I tell my students), so I learned a great deal about scholarship advising through my leadership roles in nAfA. similarly, I learned a great deal about university culture and politics by serving on various committees and task forces. Through this service I discovered ways to expand the office to include undergraduate research as a part of its mission, and I also found fruitful partnerships with the honors program, admissions, each of the university’s colleges, and the center for multicultural affairs (CMA). Through CMA I found myself participating in the development of our University Diversity Blueprint and began to see that a commitment to expanding access at all levels was at the heart of our enterprise. In May 2007 I attended the national Conference on race and Ethnicity in higher Education (nCorE) in san francisco, where villanova’s vice president for the CMA invited me to join a contingent of faculty, administrators , and students. I would encourage all advisors to attend this conference. There, at age fifty-one, I discovered I was white. Go figure. Performance Review • 129 In all that time it never occurred to me the extent to which the choices I had made and the opportunities that had come my way were the result of nothing more than my being born with white skin. This epiphany transformed me in ways I could not have imagined and forever changed the way I do my job. It all began at the airport on the way to san francisco. While we were waiting, I had the great fortune to meet the group of eager young students who were on their way to learn the ins and outs of diversity leadership and intergroup dialogue. Among them was a quiet young African American student, Mike, with whom I had a lovely if brief conversation about his major and his plans for the future. he was from north Philadelphia—a particularly challenging section of the city—and he was an English and spanish double major who planned on taking his education back to his neighborhood as a teacher. As I...