By Demelza Ramirez | Echo
Graduation from college is a big stepping stone in life. Students move on to bigger things: careers, family, travel and postgraduate degrees. For some, this means moving across the country. For others, the next step is staying right where they are.
The Masters of Arts in Higher Education (MAHE) program at Taylor University is the most well-known of the three graduate programs Taylor offers. MAHE students are assigned assistantships during their two years of study, allowing them to interact with undergraduate students through the residence halls, the TSO or TWO offices and many other programs.
This year, five seniors will remain behind at Taylor to complete the MAHE program. Emily Stadt, Jason Koh, Erica Gleason, Celeste Harris and Beth Hicks come from different places and have had different experiences while at Taylor, but all five agree that MAHE is the next step in the direction God is taking them.
Stadt, an elementary education major from Augusta, Mich., and current Wolgemuth PA, has been assigned to the alumni office. There, she will work to establish connections between alumni and the alumni office. She wants to develop people and relationships, and the MAHE program is giving her the chance to do that.
"I am definitely looking forward to learning about the administration side of things," Stadt said. "Taylor's MAHE is one of the best in the Midwest, and I think it will prepare me in being able to develop relationships with people through communication, which is especially why I'm excited about being in the alumni office."
Koh, a political science major from Chicago, Ill., and senior class president, said he was prepared to study political science next, but that through several events God pulled him toward the MAHE program.
"I was meeting with my TSO supervisor," he said. "And within that hour, three different people suggested the MAHE program to me, and I felt God was telling me that this was what I was supposed to do. So, very last minute, God changed my plans."
Koh has been assigned to be the grad assistant to Men's Programming. Like Stadt, he wishes to communicate, connect and build relationships with the people around him. But he wishes to focus on the current students at Taylor and develop their professional calling through leadership skills.
Erica Gleason, an environmental science major from Huntington Beach, Calif., has been assigned to TSO. While at Taylor, Gleason said she had the chance to observe the world around her, to see how much college is a time of beginnings and discoveries in who one is as a child of God. In seeing this, she said she began to see and understand how each and every person is called to his transformative work. Through MAHE she can invest back into this process of discovery, a process that led her to choosing the MAHE program in the first place.
Celeste Harris, a public relations major from Warsaw, Ind., will be English Hall's assistant director next year. Though entering the MAHE program wasn't on her radar until this year, serving as WOW co-director helped her realize how formational the past few years had been for her.
"So many people have come alongside me and guided me through this time (of college)," Harris said. "And I want to help people through it."
Beth Hicks, a marketing and management/systems major from Grand Rapids, Mich., has worked with the First Year Experience program for most of her years at Taylor. Through this program, she realized that she loved working with students in a university setting. After learning about the MAHE program, she started to consider studying higher education. According to Hicks, the MAHE program appealed to her because it would allow her to mix the relational and administrative aspects of working with and supporting college students. Hicks has been placed with the TWO Spring Break Missions team as grad assistant.
Graduation from college is a big stepping stone in life. It means moving on into the real world, it means finding jobs, marrying, getting an apartment. For others, it means staying right where they are, but expanding their knowledge at the same time. Emily Stadt, Jason Koh, Eric Gleason, Celeste Harris and Beth Hicks intend to do just that.
