Two new faces can be found among the Seton Hill University (SHU) residence life staff this semester. Sarah Fullmer, director of student development and Emily Savoie, resident director of Canevin, Lowe and Maura halls, have been busily preparing for a new year.
“I really enjoy working with college students and am very excited to be at SHU,” said Fullmer, whose main responsibilities are student conduct, and resident assistant (RA) and orientation leader leadership training.
“I’m jumping in head first. I was only involved in residence life for one year of undergrad. This is really new for me too so I’m trying to learn and offer insight,” said Savoie.
With the largest freshman class in SHU history, there has been a lot of work to do according to both Fullmer and Savoie. They worked with the RA staff for two weeks before move in to ensure a smooth start of the semester.
“Training was jam packed couple of weeks but it was beneficial for the students,” said Savoie.
Both women were most recently in positions at much larger schools than SHU. Fullmer was director of student housing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland before accepting the position at SHU and moving back to Greensburg, where she’s originally from, to be closer to family. Savoie isn’t local at all, she is originally from Danforth, Illinois and studied at Western Illinois University.
Fullmer first studied psychology and education at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania where she first decided to participate in residence life activities.
“I was very involved as an undergraduate in college, participating in the student activities board, residence life, and student government. I was very inspired by my advisors and mentors in college, and decided to pursue student affairs as a career,” said Follmer.
Savoie, however, originally studied social work, and views student affairs as a possible career for later in life.
“In my undergrad working as a resident assistant and an orientation assistant, I fell in love with the idea of working with students,” said Savoie, who is a full time student affairs grad student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in addition to her position at SHU.
She hopes to bring some of her activities from Western Illinois University like the Big Pink Volleyball Tournament which will be a tournament played with a 5 ft by 5 ft ball to raise money for breast cancer awareness.
“I feel like one of the pillars of Seton Hill is to try and help others and I think (this project) will help embody that,” Savoie said.
After completing her masters, Savoie said she hopes to move to a coastal state and maybe start working in social work fields particularly with the elderly, though she admits “that might change.”
Overall Savoie believes that those working in student affairs must be open minded and patient.
“There are going a lot of viewpoints on a lot of topics across the board and you allow them to have their own mindsets. You’re going to be thrown a lot of situations and it’s all about how you respond to them, she said.