Executive Assistant
About
When did you join Student Academic Affairs? December 2019
What was your path to Student Academic Affairs? Before joining Student Academic Affairs, I studied architectural history and theory at UC Berkeley. Before that, I worked in the Office of the Registrar at Berkeley. I moved to Ann Arbor in the Fall of 2019 to join my partner who is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan.
Why did you join SAA? I’ve worked with undergraduate student populations for almost ten years, in both instructional and administrative roles. I joined SAA in part to build on those past professional experiences and for the opportunity to do some career exploration in an area of higher education that I hadn’t previously worked.
Subject you love and why? I like American cultural history because it teaches me how to question the world around me--and why I should. Formally studying American history allowed me to dive deeply into my seemingly strange and unimportant questions, like: “What did Sesame Street say about the way Americans felt about the city in the sixties?” “What explains the popularity of accordion walls in public schools during the seventies?” and, “Why was Korean-American immigration influenced so profoundly by Protestant Christianity?” As narrow as these topics may appear, the process of research and writing helped me see fundamental patterns and truths about American society. Complicated ideas, values, and intentions can be discovered behind just about everything we have done and created as Americans. Studying the past informs our present as well as where we are heading, and so I believe it has immense value in our current moment.
