This summer, we extended a warm welcome to Monte Stewart, our new Director of Student Life! A few weeks into his role, we met up with Monte to ask him some questions.
Get to know Monte in the Q&A, below!
Is this your first director role?
Nope, before landing at NHCC, I was a Program Director of the TRIO McNair Scholars Program at UW-Superior. I did that role for about four and a half years prior to this. I know a lot about the different TRIO programs, federal grants and working with the Department of Education. I’d say that was a more specific Director role and now being the Director of Student Life, I’ll have oversight of a bunch of different areas. Clubs and orgs fall under my direction…large events and programming, health and wellness and military and veteran’s services. The director role at NHCC seemed to really compliment my background. In one of my previous roles, I oversaw what was called the Veteran and Nontraditional Student Center at UW-Superior. There I worked with a lot of adult learners, parents, military connected students, and basically any adult learners who are coming back to school. I helped students with their college transition, put on a lot of events and helped them in as many ways as I could. I also worked with first generation, low-income students from the TRIO program and just lots of student sub-populations in general. I have a recreation background, and worked in campus recreation at one point, too! So, that ties into the health and wellness piece. I saw this position and I just thought, ‘Wow, this job seems like it was written for me!’ It felt like it was meant to be and this role complements a lot of my experiences really well.
I thought the way this job was structured was cool, too! Not all student life departments are structured the same way, regarding what falls under them. I’m happy with how it has worked out!
What does the Director of Student Life do every day?
Hmm, what does a Student Life Director do every day? I think it’s something different every day! Especially within Student Life, you're really adjusting to the needs of students and asking yourself, ‘What do students want to see?’ In this role, you're trying to put together those different programs and things to help complement what students want. From a clubs and organizations perspective, we want students to know that if there's a club they want to join that doesn't exist, they can come talk to us and we can help make it a reality. When our department hosts events and programs, we get the unique opportunity to collaborate with almost everybody across the campus; and I think that’s a very cool aspect of working in Student Life! Absolutely, there is something new to work on every single day. When you have oversight of all these different areas, you're able to focus on the student-centered piece to serve students where they're at, keep an eye on what their needs are, and act based on what they want to see. The work we do really encompasses all the cocurricular learning that happens outside of the classroom. Campus-wide, if anything happens outside the classroom, we’ll usually be part of it in some capacity. From a holistic perspective, it’s awesome that we get to be so involved! We have the health and wellness piece, we host some fun events,
as well as some learning events and I think we offer great opportunities through it all! At times it can feel like there's just a lot of moving parts, but I would say every day is different!
Can you share what first interested you about NHCC and in this role in general?
Yes, of course. So, I finished my doctorate last year, in the summer of 2023. At that point, I was kind of passively looking for something new. I worked at my previous institution for almost 11 years, in a lot of different capacities. I think getting down to the metro area was something I had in mind, we wanted to move, and we still wanted to be close to family (our family lives nearby and is generally dispersed between Wisconsin and Minnesota). I saw this Director of Student Life position, and it really hit on a lot of my past experiences from working with different student groups. I thought to myself, ‘Oh, I have to apply for this!’ It just seemed like a good thing and honestly, through the interview process, I really enjoyed all the people I was able to meet and connect with, too. It’s all great; the team that I work with now and my supervisor (Lindsay Fort is awesome). The campus community felt right, and I knew that this was something I wanted to do. NHCC is comparable, size wise to where I was before, too. I wouldn’t want to be at a bigger institution, like the University of Minnesota, or something like that. I like this size! It's got a small feel to it, but I think it’s just so much more personable that way. You can get to know your colleagues a little more, and you can get to know students more than you maybe would at a bigger institution. All those things were factored into my decision to go for this role!
What are your goals in this new job?
There are a few different goals that our team set. Looking into how we align with the Strategic Plan and revisiting what we’ve done, (for example, asking, ‘Does it make sense to continue to do what we’ve been doing?’) I want to make things better for the overall student experience and the campus experience! I know we’ve had staff and faculty involved in a lot of things that we do, as well. So, I think it’s a going to be a lot of asking, ‘How do we revise certain guidelines, policies and processes to make things better?’ I think if you take a hard look at that it will be beneficial. And I’m coming in with a new perspective, too. We can find that balance of the new things that are important that we want to push for but also keep some of the past things that make sense. It’s a goal of mine to revisit everything bit by bit, to see what’s important and see if it makes sense for the students we serve. I want to prioritize going into each day with a student-centered mindset, getting their perspectives and leaning on the expertise and experience of the staff around me to facilitate the process.
Do you have a proudest accomplishment?
My doctorate is definitely up there! (It’s funny, because as a first-generation student, when I was first starting school, a bachelor’s degree was a huge deal. Being the first one in the family to get that was big. After I got my bachelor’s degree, I didn't think I would go back to school again, but then it’s like, ‘Ok, a master’s degree, and then a doctorate.’ I never expected that to happen, and
I didn’t see college for myself at that time, you know?) It’s been a really cool experience. I think my doctorate is a big accomplishment from a professional standpoint. But ultimately, at the end of the day, my family is the most important thing. My family is always number one and everything else kind of falls into place after that! People’s lives absolutely change for the better once they have children. My daughter and my partner are my number one priority, for sure! Looking at it from a professional standpoint, my doctorate is really something that I’m proud of. Especially from the background I grew up in and I came from. It was a pretty neat experience. But otherwise, yes, my family is my proudest accomplishment, always.
How do you like to spend your free time?
I’m currently figuring that out! Haha! With a toddler running around, I spend most of my free time with my family. I like music and going to concerts when I get the chance. Sports and movies, too, I’d say those are the biggest things for me!
What motivated you to continue going to school?
I think it was just a matter of working in higher education. As an undergrad student, I worked in the recreation and first year experience areas, so I had experience working with other students.
I graduated from University of Wisconsin-Superior with my bachelor’s degree in communications, and after that I worked in radio for a while. Then one day I got a call from the Dean of Students at UW-Superior who asked me if I wanted to come back and work there in an interim role. I missed working with students, so I said, “Yes” and came back. During that time, I felt a push to continue my education. Lifelong learning is important to me; that was a big piece of why I kept going back to school. I also had really great mentors along the way, who would say, “Hey, I think this is a good opportunity for you. Have you thought about going back for your doctorate?” The people in my life gave me the motivation I needed to continue on in my studies. Without the people who mentored me, I don’t think I would've had the push I needed to go back and get those degrees. My doctorate specifically has helped me, it’s an EdD in Student Affairs Administration & Leadership that I got through the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse (you can call me either Monte, or Dr. Stewart, but Monte is preferred.) My doctorate program was a great focus for me, and I worked continuously on it every day. I got to learn from other amazing individuals across the country and we got to have awesome, synchronous discussions with one another. Even though it was online, I connected with the people in my cohort every week. We were all together, in the same cohort throughout the entire process. They are all some of the most amazing people I have ever met. My master’s degree was from the University of Mary (out of Bismarck, North Dakota) in Strategic Leadership. That program was also done online, while I was working in higher ed. I really loved my doctorate program though! I can’t say enough good things about the faculty and the entire experience!
Did you have any mentors as a student who now inspire you professionally?
Yes, there are so many people who have been good mentors to me throughout the years!
You know how some people kind of come in and out of your life? It’s been neat to see that play out with my mentors! Dr. Harry Anderson, who is the Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs at UW-Superior, he was a mentor to me during my undergrad years. I enjoyed watching him rise up in the ranks over the years. Jen Bird, as well, who has worked at UW-Superior for a long time. They both work in the Dean of Student’s Office. They were big mentors to me. Dr. Jerel Benton was the one who really pushed me to go for the doctorate. I worked with him for three plus years, while he was the Director of EDI at UW-Superior. He was a huge mentor! And Dr. Mickey Fitch-Collins, she’s great too! She was a former supervisor of mine, and she was on my dissertation committee when
I did my doctorate. (My dissertation focused on first-generation students from rural backgrounds, who served in the military. My older brother was in the navy and he kind of inspired that project.
I tried to focus on an intersection of different student identities and subpopulations and how that would look. Especially for first-generation students, there’s a lot of deficit literature out there, that paints being a first-gen student in a negative light. There are unfortunate articles that exist online with titles like, ‘Why First-Gen Students Don’t Succeed’ ‘Why Student Veterans Don’t Succeed’ or ‘Why College Students from Rural Backgrounds are Less Likely to Succeed.’ My dissertation was specifically a positive piece of work, that highlighted the impact of why people were persisting in college. I focused on upperclassmen students, that were in programs at four-year institutions.
The students I talked to needed to fit all of those identities, while also being in their junior, or senior year, (because that meant, technically, they were succeeding and persisting). I was able to highlight why these students succeeded and it served as a qualitative study, meaning it was a really long study, with a lot of writing, quantitative is more numbers. I collected oral stories from interviews I conducted with each student. I had nine participants, and I interviewed each of them three times. At the very end I had over 30 hours of data to sift through. It was a lot; but I enjoyed highlighting them! I just really wanted to put a positive spin on their situation, instead of sharing what can sometimes have a negative connotation tied to it within those populations). I’ve always been very grateful for all of those people and for the mentors that I’ve had. Very thankful!
How does your department know what students need, do you find out using surveys?
You can do surveys, yes. But I think there's a lot of other ways, too. There are students who will be more upfront with you and they’ll tell you what they need. You can try out different methods and see how you like to engage with students. There are many ways to connect. You can reach out via email, (that could be hit or miss), talk face-to face, or on social media…there are a lot of different ways to gather feedback. But we try to do that at different events and remember that everybody has their own assessment evaluation plans, too. They use their evaluation plans to see what their event looked like and if it was successful. Through the assessments, you can ask and gauge ‘Are students learning what we hope they learn from what we’re offering through our department?’ And if not, can we tweak some things? You can do needs assessments based on populations; that's one thing we're looking to do this year. We’ll focus on the student subpopulations that fit within our strategic plan and continue to support BIPOC students and nontraditional students through the work that Dylan's doing in our Military and Veteran Services area, too. Later, we will do an assessment, to really find out if what we're offering is what the students want, and we’ll find out the good and the bad after that!
In this role will you also serve as the advisor to Student Senate?
Yes, I will be advising Student Senate through this role. That’ll be a lot of fun. It will be great to connect with those students and talk about what their priorities are. Student Senate plays such
an important role on campus and I’m excited for that! We meet in a couple of weeks to do a little retreat and gear up for fall semester! I can’t wait to hear from their perspective what they want to focus on this year. They’re a core, driving force in a lot of what we do and in what we can continue to do for students. I’m looking forward to working with them!
We enjoyed getting to know you, Monte! Thanks for making the time to answer our questions.