Amanda Haney-Cech starts her Mondays by listening to a podcast focused on speaking with leaders in higher education.
Office Hours with John Gardner helps focus Haney-Cech as she begins her week supporting students through her role as Marietta College’s Director of the Academic Resource Center, and oftentimes she reaches out with the podcast host to comment on an idea shared or approach being taken with students. Gardener ’65 is the Founder and Executive Chair of the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education — so Haney-Cech knows that her interests and questions about student support are being shared with an expert in the field.
“The people that he interviews are innovators in higher ed and people who have made a significant change or have a philosophy that he feels needs to be shared with others,” Haney-Cech said. “They could be people who do things in some unique way to help support students with their success in higher education.”
A few weeks ago, rather than send Gardner an email, he sent her one.
“I was absolutely humbled and shocked when I got an email from him saying, ‘I’m ready to interview you,’ He said I would bring the perspective of a practitioner and that there are a lot of folks like me who tune in and listen, and who try to stay pivotal toward the work that is being done on behalf of student support.”
The podcast will be released later this month.
Haney-Cech has trailblazed plenty of new initiatives at Marietta, including supporting the development of the PioPREP Academy bridge program, the Campus Food Pantry, the Tri-Alpha first-generation national honor society, and helping the ARC being named The National College Learning Center Association Frank Christ Outstanding Learning Center Award winner for four-year institutions.
“The students are my focus, and supporting them in every way I am able is just who I am as a person,” Haney-Cech said. “I am honored to be asked to do this podcast, and I hope what I have to say will help someone else.”