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 – David Savage

For this Alumni Spotlight, we are catching up with David Savage, who graduated in 2008 and worked at Kerr Hall and Maple Hall and served both as a Resident Assistant and Housing Ambassador in his time with UNT housing! Let’s see what David has been up to and hear about his time as an RLA!

Where did you work? Kerr and Maple!

What did you study? Bachelors in Radio, Television and Film, and a Masters of Interactive Technology

  What skills did you gain while working in UNT housing? Team skills, interpersonal skills, conflict resolution (this helped me greatly as a team lead in grad school)!

 And how did you apply those skills after college? In grad school, I served as a producer on a lot of team projects.  My time as an RA really prepared me for dealing with interpersonal conflicts and team morale issues that cropped up. I’ve spent the last two years making games, and the similarities between a game development team and the housing family are striking.  Interpersonal relations, working towards a common goal, celebrating each other’s successes: sometimes I get flashbacks of RLT!

Favorite memories: We did a lot of well received programs at Maple. My two favorites were the Maple coffee shop every Friday where we made nice coffee and talked about a specific topic (sexism, privilege, etc.), and the Rock Band program which had an insane turnout. We also put together Dencon, which was a pretty small but fun comic book convention in Clark.

Do you have any advice for current housing staff members (RA’s, HA’s, FA’s, etc.)? Enjoy it now!  Every morning I wake up to the Maple RA/HA/HD/FA group picture from 2007-2008 and I really do miss everyone.  Life takes you in so many different places, so enjoy the time you spend with your fellow RLAs.

Dressed up like former UNT Football Coach Todd Dodge for Yell Like Hell!

What else were you involved in at UNT? MEK (the Anime Club), Abyss South(World of Warcraft raiding group made entirely of UNT Housing employees)

What are you up to now? I am making games at Infinity Ward (just finished Call of Duty: Ghosts’ awesome DLC season), and soaking up the sun in Southern California!  And you’d better believe I have a UNT flag hanging from my desk.  I also may have sung the fight song at a sports bar during the Rice game last week.

Thank you, David, for sharing some of your UNT housing experience with us! We hope to see you again soon!

Alumni Spotlight – Jennifer Steward

For this Alumni Spotlight, we are catching up with Jennifer Steward! She worked at Crumley and Mozart Square and was involved in NRHH for three years. Check out what Jennifer has been up to and read about her amazing time in UNT housing!

Name: Jennifer Steward

Positions: Crumley Hall RA, Mozart Square Senior RA

Major: Psychology

Years in Housing: Fall 2005 – Summer 2010

Skills Housing Gave You: I definitely learned a lot of good communication skills, conflict management, crisis procedures and interventions, customer services skills (through working desk shifts.) I even still use a lot of the event planning skills I picked up as an RA.

What were your experiences in our housing organizations? RHA Advisor for Mozart Square Hall Association and NRHH executive officer for three years. (I actually held all exec positions at one point or another.)

 What is your favorite memory from working in housing? One of my favorite memories from Housing is when the UNT chapter of NRHH one Chapter of the Year. It was a goal that we had been working towards for a very long time and I was so proud of our team! In the 3 years I was involved in NRHH, I was able to watch an amazing transformation within the organization. It is amazing what you can do with a team of wonderfully motivated housing people!

The most powerful thing I took away from my experience in Housing was the relationships I developed. I met my best friends there and made so many connections with inspiring people. I wouldn’t trade those relationships for anything.  

What are you up to now? After my time in Housing, I went to work as a Service Coordinator at Denton County MHMR for a year. I left this position to pursue my graduate work at the University of Tulsa. I am currently finishing my 3rd year as a doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology program studying the impact of traumatic events and the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. I am particularly interested in designing outreach programs to educate people about trauma, its consequences, and to prevent certain forms of violence such as physical and sexual assault.

Jennifer also attended one of our spring Housing Alumni Dinners this year! She came back to see us at UNT and share her experiences in housing with our current staff. Ian Michaud, a former Facility Assistant, also joined us in the newly renovated Bruce cafeteria. 

A huge thank you to Jennifer for sharing her experiences with us, visiting us back at UNT housing and contributing so greatly to our past and current staff’s development and enrichment as Residence Life Advisors. We can’t wait to see you again!