What do you do?

I direct the Student Parent Help Center program for U of M students who are pregnant or parenting children through their academic degrees. We formerly served only undergraduates but in recent years have expanded to serve graduate students as well. I love my job and cannot think of a more inspiring group of people to work with than our low income parents.

What tools/software/hardware/etc do you use to do your work?

I would say one of the things I am most excited about is our efforts in digital storytelling and video. We have several videos of student testimonials about our program linked on our website and I also have a stellar testimonial that a student did about us for a class project, that we show to donors and others. This is the best way possible for people to learn about the actual impact we make on individual students. I took a class on digital storytelling from the President’s Emerging Scholars program, but have not mastered it. But I am trying to get all staff trained on digital storytelling so that we can continue to document our student and program successes through first hand accounts from program users.

What do you use that you love? 

Because photography is my hobby, my favorite tool to use is my digital camera to document our events. I send actual photos of our children enjoying activities at our End of Year Celebration and Grad Party, to donors who have donated money to cover those activities. I think this allows donors a very personal insight into the impact of their contribution. (Releases are signed by parents of course!)