A bittersweet farewell to Liz

At the blog-reading stage, some readers may have a vague familiarity with Liz’s name, but you’d be hard-pressed to find any Fletcher students over the past 7 years who don’t know her well. We’ve been aware for nearly a month that Liz is moving on to an exciting new admissions opportunity, but the reality of her departure is setting in for real as she spends her final days on our team. Liz’s impact in our office has been enormous, encompassing (but not limited to) administering the Map Your Future program, managing our interview program and Admissions committee process, overseeing our communications strategy, and organizing our annual Open House events (practically a full-time job by itself). We’ll all miss her greatly, and personally I’ll be at something of a loss for a while, as I still learn things from her regularly even after all this time. But enough of my yakking…I’ll take advantage of one last opportunity to turn something over to Liz for her to do the heavy lifting:

Hi everyone-  I’m writing with some bittersweet news, as I officially sign off with my last official blog post! I recently accepted a new job and though I’m very excited about my new opportunity, I’m going to miss Fletcher and the students so much! Typically when I write for the blog, I talk about my travel (see here, here, and here), but today, I thought I would take some time to reflect on some of my favorite Fletcher moments and experiences.

One of my most favorite events of the year is the annual Faculty and Staff Waits on You Dinner. You can see my comments from last years event via this link.  Essentially, each year students purchase tickets to a dinner in the Hall of Flags, where faculty and staff – you guessed it – serve as waiters and waitresses for the evening. As the dinner is concluding, an auction kicks off with donated items from the community. All proceeds go to a local charity selected by the school. It’s always such a fun event – not only is it for a great and deserving cause, but it’s fun to wait on the students, and watch as they bid on auction items! It’s always a highlight for me.

Another one of my favorite events is the annual Fletcher Follies. Now, I can’t tell you what happens at Follies (only those that go get to know!). But I will share that each year at Follies, the students debut a Where in the Hell is Fletcher video. The students cut together videos of each other dancing all around the world. It’s always fun to see where our students have been – and if you look really closely you may even spot your admissions pals in some of the videos! Here is a link to the most recent video – and you can search the name and find previous years. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Lastly, one of my favorite things about my time at Fletcher has been traveling – and meeting all of you! I really love hitting the road and meeting prospective students from all over the world. It’s always fun to stay in touch, help them through the application process, and then admit them to join us at Fletcher! The best part though, is when I get to then see them arrive at Fletcher, thrive and then go out into the world and do incredible things. I feel so lucky to have been a small part in so many student’s stories. All of this is to say I will miss the people the most! It’s been a true joy getting to know some of you and I wish you all the best in your future plans, whatever they may be!

Thanks for the memories, Fletcher!

And thank you, Liz, from all of us!