Alumni Spotlight – Rachael Gerber

For our first Alumni Spotlight of the spring semester, we are featuring Rachael Gerber! She served as a Resident Assistant at Kerr Hall for 2 years and graduated with her Bachelor’s in Accounting in 2013. She also holds her Master’s in Accounting and joined us for a Housing Alumni Dinner this past November!

Being a part of Housing was a huge game changer for me. I learned to be comfortable with who I was, and how to communicate my own beliefs while being able to show others I was able to listen and understand theirs. For the “real world”, I learned the art of communication, understanding of how to approach wide variety of people, expanded my creativity skills, and got great interview skills (thank you for all those crazy questions, West).

After leaving housing, I worked as a lifeguard and later as a head lifeguard at the Rec Center. I also interned at two accounting firms in Dallas during college. I am now a full-time Staff at Montgomery Coscia Greilich, LLP, where communication skills, being able to mitigate awkward situations, good organization skills and multi-tasking are essential to every day.

I was a member of RLAC and represented my cluster on the Ethics & Concerns Committee during my last semester.  I really enjoyed participating in the meetings and being a representative for my cluster on the ECC. It helped prepare me to be president of Beta Alpha Psi, a student accounting organization, when I was in graduate school. Also, I had the honor of being the first RA to lead the REAL Business Community. I’m so proud to see some of my former residents now being involved in the business department.

I was heavily involved in Beta Alpha Psi as a member, candidate director, and eventual president. While president, I was a guest at UNT Accounting Advisory Board meetings and able to participate in key discussions for the department’s future.

By far some of my favorite memories are from dinners with my Kerr family. Training with everyone was always a blast. Small programs with my girls. Big programs with the hall. Snowpocalypse. Basketball games with the family. Homecoming. All of these bring smiles to my face.

I am working as a full-time tax associate at Montgomery Coscia Greilich, LLP in Plano and am almost a fully certified CPA. I still happily live in little d and love getting together with my Kerrific family on a regular basis.

Rachael joined us back at Kerr Hall in November for one of our Housing Alumni Dinners, and we had a great time hearing about her experiences as an RA and how it has impacted her life.

Rachael got to see the Kerr Family Tree of Mentors and Mentees over the past few years that was put together by a recent Kerr RA!

She even got to meet some of the KERR-ent staff and helped them put together a poster for an upcoming program.

Thank you so much to Rachael for your time, service and continuing dedication to UNT Housing. We are so happy to have you as an alumna of our department!

Alumni Spotlight – Marquita Farmer

This time around for our Alumni Spotlight, we are catching up with Marquita Farmer. She was an RA at West Hall, graduated from UNT in 2006 and has many awesome memories and stories to share (and some hilarious pictures!) Check it out below to read all about Marquita’s good times in the best housing department!

Name: Marquita Farmer

Position: West Hall RA

Major: Elementary Education

Involvements: RLAC, RHA, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.

Skills Housing Gave You: One of the major things I’ve learned is how to work with different types of people. In my professional career I’ve come across so many different personalities and work styles. Being an RA was really helpful in that I learned how to use my strengths in partnership with other people’s strengths to create a team that is successful and loves coming to work every day.

How have you used those skills? I began my post college career as a 4^th grade teacher. I taught for 4 years and used a lot of the creativity that I discovered I had when I was an RA to engage my students in the learning process. Currently I am the Program Director for a non-profit in New York City. The leadership skills I learned as an RA have been so incredibly helpful when it comes to supervising my staff and ensuring that the work environment is one that everyone enjoys coming to each and every day.

 What were your experiences in our housing organizations? I started off as secretary for Maple Street Hall Association (it was called MSHA back then, is it still called that? – YES!). I was also the Vice President for the Residence Life Advisor Council my last semester as an RA. I made some of my best friends through these organizations and I am still close with many of them today! I just loved to be creative and being a student leader that worked for the good of all the RAs. It was just fun!

 

Favorite Memory: I think my favorite memories involve working with Eugene Frier. I knew him first as an RA at Maple Hall, then as my Hall Director at West. He would do this thing called “The Claw” on our staff where he would palm people’s faces and push them down to the ground. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure he was bullying us. But it was fun at the time!

 Favorite program: I think my favorite program/project that I worked on as an RA was a week long program we would do every semester. We would do a different program each night. It included an RA fight night where the RAs would box with these blow up gloves and we also had a film festival one night. We encouraged the residents to make short films and we would show them in the lobby and provide popcorn for the spectators. It was SO FUN! I believe we called it Westfest.

We did a lot of programming for our residents so it was also important that we made time as a staff so I helped implement a “Chilax-o” night specifically for RAs. We would hang out and catch up on each others lives. It was really fun and I definitely saw the importance of having a time where we could rejuvenate as a staff.

 

“I really did love housing way more than people should love things, probably… but seriously, my fellow West Hall friends are still my best friends to this very day. We’ve scattered since working at West but we travel to see each other and are still extremely close. I don’t have to miss college as much because I still have those relationships.”

 What are you up to now? I work for a non-profit called Center for Student Missions that facilitates service trips to different urban cities. We work with local organizations that serve the poor and marginalized in 10 cities across the US and provide a volunteer base for them through recruiting churches and schools/colleges to come and serve in our cities. I’m the Director for the New York City site.

 

 We want to thank Marquita for sharing some amazing memories (and awesome pictures) from her time in housing! It is so cool to see the impact that your staff, residents, programs, hall and involvements can have on you. Thank you for all that you do, Marquita!