Before I go...

So the United Kingdom.

 It still doesn’t seem real to me and I’ll be leaving for the airport…way to soon.  I just never imagined getting to participate in such an amazing opportunity having grown up near a small town of less than 300 people in the Midwest.  This kind of stuff just doesn’t seem to happen, least of all me.

 If you don't know, I have got the opportunity to go abroad to promote Northwest Missouri State University's student employment program.  You might be asking, why me?  Well, I asked myself that too...a lot.   It’s kind of a long story so bear with me.

 What is a British university doing in Northwest Missouri looking at a student employment program?  That's a question that runs through a lot of people minds every time delegates come from their university to ours.  As incredible as it might seem to those at Northwest, Birmingham City University has very little in the way of a student employment program and they see something very special in our student employment program.

The delegates from Birmingham first heard about our student employment from Dr. Hubbard, the former President of NWMSU, at a conference they all attended together. Stuart Brand, Paul Chapman, and Luke Millard the delegates from Birmingham City University visited Northwest for the first time in January 2010.  Ever since then there has been a lot of travel back and forth.  Northwest first sent delegates in July 2010 and they stayed for three days.  Stuart, Paul, and Luke then came again in April 2011 to observe and meet with students, staff, and faculty to further discuss student employment.  It is during this time period that I enter the picture.

I was in the spring semester of my Junior year which was actually just last semester even though it feels like it has been much longer.  Early in that spring semester, I found out that I had been nominated for Student employee of the year again.  I was excited and pleased for the honor especially since I had felt that I had not been producing the highest quality of work.   Even more, I found out that I was in the top three candidates and interviewed for the highest honor, Student Employee of the Year.  I was pumped!  It was around this time between interviews and the student employee recognition ceremony that Stuart, Paul, and Luke came to visit and Paula asked me to participate in a student panel with the delegation to discuss student employment. 

I was pretty excited about the student panel, but I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to participate because of class conflict, but luckily my class got out early.  I was on that student panel with some big names on campus, Kelsi Jo, Molly, Carli, Quentin, and Joe.  To be perfectly honest, I was intimidated and didn’t really feel like I should be there participating, but I did and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.   As the panel concluded, Stuart asked us if we’d like to go to Birmingham and of course we all said yes.  I was really excited.  Even the mention of going to another country sounded like a dream.   As we left the panel, we all gave email addresses to the delegation so that Stuart, Paul, and Luke could contact us with more questions.

Maybe a week after the student employee recognition ceremony, I received this email:

Hello Kirk,

Firstly I hope you received my previous message of thanks and will forgive this further intrusion. We were particularly interested in your work in peer support for Maths and admire the way in which it was described to us. We are interested in discussing these ideas further back home. So, I hope that you will not mind if when back in the UK next week I bombard you with a few more questions?! We would also hope to get a delegation of folk from NWMS to visit with us in Birmingham during the fall. I hope that you may be able to join that delegation.

Finally, I believe you may have received good news recently? If so, our congratulations!
Best wishes

Stuart

Stuart was of course talking about the student employment recognition ceremony where I received the amazing honor of Student employee of the year, but perhaps equally amazing to me was that I had received a personal email asking for possibly more information.   I tried to not let my excitement grow about the possibility of going to the United Kingdom, but it was really hard not to!

Stuart then sent more emails asking how I got into my work at the Talent Development Center and other peer support positions.  I tried to answer the questions to the best of my abilities and Stuart thanked me and hinted at the possibility of me coming to the United Kingdom.  The excitement level could no longer be contained.
Birmingham then sent student delegates to shadow our student employment program in June during SOAR (another highlight of my summer!) and at the end of July, Stuart and Paul came to visit Maryville.

During the first day of their visit, Paula (Coordinator of student employment) called me in and explained what was planned.  Paula, Mary (Vice President of Human Resources and Organizational Effectiveness), Dr. Toomey (an Associate Professor in the Chemistry department) and I would be going to the United Kingdom in November.  Furthermore, Paul, Mary, and Dr. Toomey would be staying one week, while I would be staying a full two!  I was ecstatic and still am.

I still didn’t quite understand why they wanted me.    Student populations in Birmingham City University are unengaged because of their eight different campuses across Birmingham.   So I think what Stuart, Paul, and Luke see in student employment is engagement and that it enriches the educational experience.  In many ways they are definitely right, I feel more connected to the university and possibly I have learned more skills and information from working on campus than I have in all my classes.   The trick is selling this message to Birmingham City University.   That is where I come in.

Whether or not it is true, I think Stuart sees me as a model for how student employment can seriously impact students.  While I have held a wide variety of jobs on campus, I think the real value I hold is my transformation.   Mom said to me tonight, “In high school you were social but you were a big fish in a little pond.  When you went to college, you were a small fish in a big pond that almost drowned.”  She’s right.  She went on to tell me how student employment probably kept me from “drowning” and the employment gave me more confidence and assurance.   She’s completely right and therein lies my value; I went from an unsure and timid young adult to confident and assured young man largely because of student employment and the belief of my supervisors, Dr. Galbreath and Linda.  If they hadn’t stuck with me, I’m not sure where I would have ended up!   I’m not alone in my transformation.  In my three years here, I have watched fellow employees grow and develop in the same manner that I did.   There is something special about Northwest’s student employment; it’s just that sometimes we are too close to see it.

From my perspective, it is these transformations that Stuart and Birmingham City University  is interested in, and that transformation ultimately shows the value of student employment to the student.

The rest is history; I’m staying up late hoping that I will sleep on the plane in a few short hours. Wish me luck and stay tuned for new posts!