Staff have the opportunity to do something extraordinary too.
The director of the first-year experience was one of 10 people in the nation to receive the Outstanding First-year Advocate award from Cengage Learning and The National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition on Mar. 3.
“Ultimately at the end of the day this award, to me, is an example of how we, at this institution, work so collaboratively together,” Richard Gebauer said. “I almost feel as if everyone’s name should be on it because there’s no way that I could do this without our wonderful faculty and staff.”
The Living and Learning Communities (LLC) program allows incoming freshmen to apply for spots in communities that interest them. In August of 2007 the first LLC, voices of justice, launched and Gebauer began on work with co-curricular programming for the LLCs and eventually with individual departments on campus.
These communities grew rapidly and instead of creating larger LLCs with upwards of 60 students six LLCs were made available for students by 2009. At this point, Gebauer became the director of LLCs before the program grew and his title became director of first-year experience.
While Gebauer does not believe that he could have achieved anything without the help of other on campus, students see the extraordinary effort Gebauer puts into his job.
Sophomore Allie Monyak, double major in psychology and sociology, worked as a classroom coach for Gebauer’s ECG 100 course. Through her work with Gebauer, Monyak has assisted in developing leadership workshops and team building exercises.
“As a mentor, Richie gave me the confidence to challenge myself and pursue leadership roles—which was something that I’ve always been afraid of doing,” Monyak said. “If he is not directly with a student, then odds are Richie is working on some project or activity to further enrich the Cabrini experience.”
This relationship between Gebauer and his students is an example of what Gebauer said the LLCs aim to do. Many students come into college thinking of faculty as authority figures rather than connecting to faculty and breaking down those walls can come more easily within an LLC.
Jena Marinelli is a sophomore who was in Gebauer’s Engagements in the Common Good (ECG) course last year. This course was a reacting to the past course in which students learn about the common good through historic events and take on different character roles to work through issues based on their character’s beliefs.
“Whenever a student or myself were having difficulty trying to connect what we were learning in class, Richie would take the time to help the students who are having difficulty with the given topic,” Marinelli said. “He would connect with students by incorporating the given topic to something in our lives outside of the classroom.”
The LLCs are in place to help build confidence to seek opportunities throughout campus too, but LLCs are not necessarily for every student.
“I think that whether in an LLC, a sports team or another leadership opportunity on campus [freshmen] are going to identify with the campus and find what their passion is and how they want to explore it,” Gebauer said.
LLCs do not end with freshmen though as sophomore LLCs are also beginning to launch.
“We want students in year two to really think holistically about ‘how does my involvement in [clubs or sports] plus my LLC experience, which might not even directly connect with my major, strengthen me as an individual,’” Gebauer said.
At the end of the day, this award shows that Gebauer has a talent for improving the student experience.
“I think my experience would have been different if I had a different professor because I had met Richie a couple days before school had started,” Marinelli said. “I could see the interactions between him and the other students and that he really cared about what the students had said.”
“He genuinely cares and that is a quality that should never be undervalued,” Monyak said.
