From a Phoenix, to a Panther, and back again, Alumna Katelyn Santy shares her story about a path that unexpectedly brought her back to her alma mater.
Graduated from UWGB in May 2011 as a Comm Major with emphases in Public Relations and Journalism, her post-college plans were not exactly in stone.
NEVER Finished Learning
Following graduation, she believed she would enter the workforce and begin her career, somewhere. Before securing that Golden Ticket into the field of Communication, faculty advisor Tim Meyer asked if she had considered graduate school. Not sold on the idea of more education, she began doing some research on this alternative. The more she did, the more excited she became: Maybe she wasn’t finished learning quite yet.
Phoenix-to-Panther
In 2011, Santy was accepted at the University of Northern Iowa to study Organizational Communication. In graduate school, her thesis became how people handle dissent and disagreement in organizations, as well as how loyalty plays into it. What do people do when they disagree with a decision? Do they stay silent? Speak up? Leave? What motivates them and their decisions? Katelyn won the Outstanding Master Thesis award for the 2013 graduating class.
Homecoming
Katelyn then returned to UWGB as Campus Visit Coordinator. She loved the job, but moved ahead to her current position as the Student Recruitment and Enrollment Coordinator where her focus is enrollment: She’s marketing to prospective students via print, email, digital advertising and, as of April 4, via text messaging. Reporting to the Director of Admissions and Vice Chancellor for Recruitment and Enrollment, Katelyn’s boss – and mentor – is always asking her employees what they want to do – and how she can support them. She challenges them and helps them to expand their skill set.
Growth as a Phoenix
As far as professional goals, she loves that there are many opportunities to grow at UWGB, and looks forward to continuing to grow professionally and learning new things (while retaining and refining current skills). Supervising opportunities and budgetary responsibilities are definitely on her radar for the future.
Thanks to faculty member Tim Meyer, Katelyn is back at the university where she built the base for what she is doing now. The Comm Program instilled the skills necessary to guide students to their future – and/or former home.
Story Seekers include: Ben Berndt, Hannah Koerner, Danielle Magnusson and Danielle Shea
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