Day 7: Choosing Baylor

Before the Street Fair madness, I was reflecting on how I chose this field of Student Affairs. My thoughts ended with graduation and taking a year off to get a break from academics and worked in Warner's admissions office. Even though I was already living a state away from home for the past four years, that fifth year in Portland was different. I felt more independent (likely circling back through Chickering's vector of autonomy towards interdependence) as I moved off campus and into the Portland community.

I wound up in an amazing living situation via Craigslist with two other women in a house. I learned to mow the lawn. I paid an actual check for rent monthly. As that next year went on I could feel myself becoming more energized for academic work ahead. I started talking to one of the faculty at Warner, Dr. Foltz, about how graduate school admissions even works. I learned I needed to take the GRE. He offered to write a letter of recommendation for me which I was surprised and humbled by. I never took an actual class from him, but he had been very complimentary of the work I did as a student leader on campus and the things he observed. My favorite line- that still makes me grin- in his letter of rec described me as someone who 'gracefully displays the challenging balance of grit and tact.' :)

Shannon was now supervising me in the admissions role and we talked in our 1:1s about my future plans. I wasn't really sure what schools to look at for a master's. She recommended I take a look at Baylor University because she had a former colleague at George Fox who had recently been the VP of Student Life at Baylor (Eileen Hulme). I read their website and really connected immediately with their program. It was a holistic approach to student development and not just focused on a theory approach or counseling based, but connected leadership, history, spiritual development, law, counseling and theory with a practical experience throughout the program called a graduate assistantship. Additionally, Baylor was a 'strengths school' and utilized the Clifton StrengthsFinder Assessment with its students. Since this was something I did while a student at Warner I was familiar with the language and loved the idea of viewing students through a lens of what they were good at.

I know that I am atypical in what how I approached graduate school in that I only applied to Baylor. I looked around at Azusa Pacific, Portland State and Oregon State, but really I felt confident that I was to be at Baylor and so set my path for that next step. Thankfully after flying out for an interview weekend they agreed and made me an offer. That was in February 2006 and in March they emailed our cohort to introduce us to one another. That was the first time I saw the name Jonathan Manz.