Feature:
Stephanie Bramlett
The
CONNECT program’s newest Program Director
By
Brian Ward
Durham- Stephanie Bramlett is a
lively and talkative 27-year-old, with a master’s in political science and a Ph.D.
in sociology.
She is also the new Program
Director for CONNECT, an undergraduate multicultural program for students of
different races and ethnicities at UNH.
Bramlett was born in San Diego, C.A.
in 1984, and did her undergraduate program at a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts,
studying political science.
“Senior year of college, I was
sitting with some friends the night before graduation and everybody’s parents
are about to come up, and hanging out with friends and we were looking at this
big box of old pictures, and we kept flipping through the pictures and find
that ‘wait a second this person isn’t here anymore, this person isn’t here
anymore, this person isn’t here anymore,’” she said.
After graduating in 2006, Bramlett came to UNH
for her graduate work in sociology, studying college retention for five years before
receiving her Ph.D.
She wanted to do something about
the large number of students of color who didn’t graduate from college and when
the position of CONNECT Program Manager opened up, she took the position.
CONNECT was founded in 1994, and
offers a week long orientation to students of color entering as freshmen and
transfer students to UNH before fall classes and provides academic assistance
and social support throughout the year.
“I’ve always thought CONNECT was a
really interesting program, it is one of our strongest retention programs, it’s
a great program, we know that students who go through CONNECT graduate at a
higher rate,” she said.
Bramlett became program director
this August, just two weeks before the first group of CONNECT freshmen were
scheduled to arrive.
“I get here Aug. 8th,
and I don’t have access to log on to the computer yet, and I know that I’m
going to have a 100 students and 20 mentors coming in two weeks, and I basically
have two weeks to learn everything about the CONNECT program,” she said
“I have this nice schedule printed
out, and it has a whole bunch of people’s names on it, and they’re going to
come and talk at these assigned times, but I have no idea what they’re coming
to talk about.”
By using her connections at OMSA,
the Office of Multicultural Affairs and C-FAR, the Center for Academic
Resources, Bramlett called everyone on the schedule to ask what they were going
to speak about. By the time the students arrived, she was ready.
“I think she’s done a good job, it
usually takes two years to get a handle of a job,” OMSA Multicultural Coordinator,
Otis Douce, said.
Most of the students that go
through OMSA were part of the CONNECT program, tying the two organizations closely
together. OMSA takes a large part in CONNECT’s summer program, and Douce
expects Bramlett to continue doing a good job as director.
With her background in research, Bramlett
plans to make CONNECT more oriented toward academics. According to her, the
best way to retain students is to get them involved early academically.
“Academics was always a backbone of
CONNECT, but students will start getting that academic
focus immediately,” she
said.
Her new plans will consist of students applying to the CONNECT summer
program with a specific major or profession in mind, and then splitting off
into groups to work on scholarships and learn about the professions they’re
interested in. She said that CONNECT
students could still look forward to evening activities and games, and get a
jump start on their academic careers.
“CONNECT is changing a lot next
year,” she said
Work cited
Bramlett, Stephanie.
"Bramlett Feature." Personal interview. 2 Dec. 2011.
Douce, Otis. "Bramlett
Feature." Personal interview. 5 Dec. 2011.
"CONNECT Program." Home
| University of New Hampshire. 2010. Web. 05 Dec. 2011.
<http://www.unh.edu/connect/>.
"UNH Office of Multicultural
Student Affairs OMSA." Home | University of New Hampshire. 2011. Web. 05
Dec. 2011. <http://www.unh.edu/omsa/>.
No comments:
Post a Comment