50 for 50: Kelly Farmer

 

 

Kelly Farmer

Director of Admissions, Stevenson University (MD)

2014-2015 PCACAC President

 

How long have you been in your current position at Stevenson?

 

I’ve been in my current position for three years and am closing in on 12 years at Stevenson total.

 

 

How did you get started in college admissions?

I was the first person in my family to attend college and like many other people I’ve met in our profession, being a first-generation college student inspired me to want to help other students navigate this process. I distinctly remember walking the campus of Ohio University with my family just after a tour during my college search and having my mom turn to me and say something close to, “I could see you being a tour guide wherever you go to school. I think you’d be happy to go to college and never leave.” Whether she was prescient, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, I succumbed to the power of suggestion, or she just knew me too well, that’s exactly what happened. It’s a fairly traditional college admissions story, I suppose. I’m a proud alumna of the University of Maryland where I was honored to be selected for Maryland Images, the volunteer student ambassador organization, at the end of my freshman year. I loved talking with the students and families so much that I started asking the staff about other ways to get involved with the Office of Undergraduate Admissions (OUA). They hired me as a student worker, but treated me like a colleague. They gave me great opportunities to learn and helped me realize that admissions was something I could do as a career and love. I’m so grateful to that Maryland OUA staff for the way they launched me into this profession and think about it all the time when working with my students now.

 

What's your favorite admissions memory?

 

There are lots of things about admissions that sustain me on a day-to-day basis, but all my favorite memories revolve around our professional community. The people who choose to do this work are energetic, bright, fascinating, and talented ‘people people’ and I love spending time with you. So – my two favorite admissions memories are being part of the Local Arrangements Committee for the 2009 NACAC Conference in Baltimore with those infamous crab hats (so fun to host NACAC in my own city!) and the four years I spent as a co-host on the Maryland Crab Crawl counselor tour. Hosting 50+ college counselors on a 5-day bus tour of 11 colleges is exhausting, but so much fun.    

 

What advice would you give to someone looking to pursue leadership in PCACAC and/or NACAC?

 

Dive right in and don’t be shy about your interest! Pursue the work and leadership will follow. Volunteer for a committee (conference planning was how I first got involved) and learn more about the work we do. Take on a project and show you’re committed to it. Do some grunt work and do it well and it won’t take long for people to ask what else you might like to do.

 

If not working in admissions, what else could you see yourself pursuing?

 

I majored in journalism and public relations as an undergrad and thought about going into PR for a non-profit organization after college if I didn’t go into admissions. I have a number of friends with very successful careers in corporate communications. Mainly, though, I love learning and I think no matter what my work would be connected to education somehow. When I was a kid I wanted to go to law school and that’s still something I think about doing one day – higher ed law was one of my favorite classes in grad school. My master’s thesis was on perceptions of cost in higher education and I could see myself getting a PhD. in economics because I’d love to dig into the finance of higher education from a purely econometric perspective. Taking either of those backgrounds into a career with a higher education policy group or into higher ed consulting is something that could possibly appeal to me. If I had any talent whatsoever, though, I’d parlay those 12 years of tap and jazz lessons I took as a kid into a career as a Broadway performer.    

 

What's one thing that most people don't know about you?

 

The worst kept secret about me is that I have a black belt in Tang Soo Do, a Korean martial art. I took a beginning martial arts class my senior year of college and earned my first-degree black belt when I was 24. I’m not training toward a second degree, but I keep my skills up enough to allow me to teach four classes one night a week at my studio.

 

What's a current trend or future issue you're passionate about right now?

 

There’s nothing more pressing on my mind than affordability and financial access to a college education. Tuition prices are rising far faster than inflation or family incomes, the Pell Grant program has lost almost all of the purchasing power it once had, and sticker prices are so out of sync with actual costs that it is nearly impossible for families to understand which schools will be a financial reality once they get to the end of the process. If students don’t have access to a knowledgeable school counselor with time to help them, they are lost. A handful of our most elite universities have an endowment and student base that allows them to be both need-blind and meet 100% of demonstrated financial need. The rest don’t have this luxury. This isn’t just an issue in private higher education, either. States all across the nation are essentially divesting their interest in public higher education. It worries me that higher education is coming to be seen as a private good where the benefits accrue to the individual rather than a public good where benefits accrue to society. As a private good, higher education doesn’t deserve to be funded. As a public good, it does.

*** To Celebrate Potomac Chesapeake's 50th Conference Anniversary, we're highlighting some of our current members. Each week until the conference at The Homestead in Spring 2015, a new member will be posted. Interested in participating? Email Aundra Weissert at aweissert2@washcoll.edu to get started.***