Meet the new Admissions team members

Bringing in new staff members is always a challenge, which makes the Fletcher Admissions old-timers even happier that our summer of hiring yielded a great trio of new colleagues!  I’ve asked our new team members to introduce themselves.  Without further ado, please meet Katherine (who started on August 15, two weeks ahead of her fellow newbies), Christine, and Liz.

Katherine
As a Tufts undergraduate, I’ll admit I didn’t know much about Fletcher.  I remember walking up and down Packard Ave. several times a day, occasionally puzzling over the sign that said “Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.”  Tufts didn’t have a law school, did it?  I made it through four years without ever breaking into the Fletcher bubble, aside from attending a few sessions in ASEAN Auditorium.

I was a sociology major with a focus on social inequalities and social change, and I have a great affinity for both sociological data and education-related issues.  After graduation, I took a job in Washington, D.C. as a contractor for the National Center for Education Statistics, focusing on the state of primary education in the U.S.  Though I enjoyed the research, I deeply missed my Boston community and craved qualitative work that focused on the individual stories behind the statistics.

Enter The Fletcher School.  Though my path to Fletcher was atypical in the sense that I did not discover a profound passion for international affairs while living abroad (yet), I am thrilled to be a part of this incredible community of brilliant and inspiring people, absorbing stories about their experiences (and of course, poring over all of the sociological data that flows through the Admissions Office).  I am always happy to talk to students and visitors about Tufts and my intense love of Cambridge/Somerville, and I am excited to take on this new role as admissions season gets underway!

Christine
There is nothing quite like the smell of manufactured air, the taste of slightly questionable food, or the feeling you get as the wheels leave the runway.  Growing up in a traditional setting north of Boston, I had a less than traditional start in the world.  My mother was a flight attendant for Eastern Airlines, and I spent my early years accompanying her on trips, enjoying every minute of it.  Whether they realized it or not, this is how my parents gave me the travel bug.  My appetite for new experiences both here and abroad is what drove me to take many trips across the pond and indulge in everything Europe had to offer.  Even the thrill of almost being hit by a London black cab, as I looked the wrong way to cross the street, was worth it!

At my college in upstate New York, and then moving into the world as a starry-eyed graduate, I knew I had to keep an international perspective in my life.  After a brief period coordinating visas for 200 MBA students, I made my way to Fletcher.  I have enjoyed every moment of my work in the Admissions Office so far, and am looking forward to learning more about our fantastic student body.  And as I keep adding to my travel wish list, feel free to stop in and share your stories!

Liz
When people ask me where I’m from, I sometimes laugh and tell them, “all over.”  I was born in Salt Lake City, lived in Montana and Wyoming (Jackson Hole anyone?!), and then moved east, all before elementary school.  Moving was a theme when I was a child, and I spent time in several states around New England, though I consider New Hampshire “home.”

I attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine (GO BOBCATS) for my undergrad studies, where I majored in rhetoric.  (Yes, that was indeed a major!)  I loved my time at Bates, where I played varsity squash and was lucky enough to live abroad in London.  London afforded me lots of travel opportunities, and weekends were spent visiting every country I could, which is where my love of travel (and IR) originated.

Post college I found myself in “beantown,” working for Boston University in graduate business school admissions.  During my seven years at BU, I traveled quite a bit, recruiting all over India, Asia, and Europe, and most major cities in the U.S.  Favorite destinations include Seattle, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.  While working, I also pursued my master’s in education, focused on higher education administration.  All that aside, my other favorite part of my time at BU was definitely working with our public & nonprofit (PNP) MBA program, as I really connected with those students in particular.  It was through my work with PNP that I became interested in working for a program like Fletcher, and I’m thrilled to be a part of the great admissions team here!  It was the people of Fletcher — the faculty, staff, students and alums — that were the draw for me.  Each person I have met has been incredible; the Fletcher community is infectious and so inspiring and makes me excited to go to work each day.  I’m looking forward to the upcoming admissions cycle and am excited to become an active member of the Fletcher community myself!