Welcome From the Dean

Former advising center director Anne Murphy was a formidable advocate for students. She had an impact — and continues to have one — on generations of students and graduates of Fulbright College.

Anne lost a heroic battle with breast cancer a few years ago, but her spirit lives on in our college.

I first met Anne in 1986, when she was an administrative assistant in the dean’s office. Anne was a big woman, around six feet tall, with red hair and a temperament to match. To put it mildly, she was a strong personality. You crossed Anne — faculty, staff, or student — at your peril.

But Anne had a heart of gold. I have never known a stronger student advocate than Anne. I saw her cry once: it was in my office when I was an associate dean. She had done everything she could do to help a student and failed.

Anne started our college’s advising program 20 years ago. It grew from a one-person operation to one today with nine counselors who schedule more than 10,000 appointments each year with more than 4000 students. This is her legacy: the difference our advising center has made in the experiences of thousands of our students.

Anne used to offer a workshop for the faculty called “The College Experience,” and eight to 10 faculty members would participate each fall. She started the workshop by asking us to “Describe an incoming freshman.” She would write on a white board our words:

Naïve. Disengaged. Difficult to reach. Demanding. Immature. Unprepared.

She would review our list. Then she would ask, “Describe Seniors.”

Mature. Dedicated. Determined. Successful. Focused. Optimistic. Worldly.

She would then ask, “How did these freshmen become these seniors?”

The faculty in the workshop would look furtively at one another, and although no one said it, we were all thinking, “Moi!” Could there be any other explanation than that we — your professors — were responsible for your metamorphosis from naïve, unprepared freshmen to these remarkable seniors?

Anne knew what we were thinking and extinguished any idea that we were the sole source of our students’ transformation. She had a way of peering over the top of her glasses with a look that asked “What have you people been smoking?”

Anne would then review the research on the college experience. It turns out that social scientists have been studying the college student experience for over a half-century and we still don’t fully understand it.

First, there is the biology. Most students arrive in late adolescence and leave as young adults. The maturation process is a major factor.

Second, there is socialization into the role of college student as well as unique experiences that occur on a campus. Most of them occur outside the classroom: sharing living space with a stranger, called a roommate, balancing work with class, papers, exams, texting home for money, working, dating, partying, volunteer work.
Then there are the non-traditional students who balance family, children, work, and school. I see them in my large lecture classes and wonder how they do it. At times, I think their efforts can only be described as heroic.

Third, there is serendipity and chance. Housing assigned a roommate and with any luck, the two become life long friends; perhaps the person who sat next to you in sociology becomes your life partner; a class assignment or reading aligns with a news story or a bull session in RZs and suddenly, you know what you want to do with your life. Or you sign up for a physical education class that turns out to be a physics course, and you find your major.

Then there are the professors. We have students for only 15 hours a week in class, maybe another 20 or 30 hours indirectly with reading assignments and papers, but somehow with the structure provided by our curriculum and teaching and the informal learning from life on a campus, it works. And it has worked for the past 800 years. It is a process upon which we have built a knowledge-based economy.

National surveys of college graduates show that 90% of our alumni would do it again.

I hope to honor Anne and the students she served with such devotion by raising support for the center and for the thousands of students our counselors will serve in the years ahead. I ask that you, our friends and alumni, consider joining me in this effort. I know many students would not have graduated without the careful advice and support of our professional advisors. If you wish to make a donation, please contact our Office of Development, 479-575-3712, fulbdevt@uark.edu.

William A. Schwab