Susan Graham-Handley

Susan Graham-Handley, a Bachelor of General Studies Academic Counselor at UConn's Greater Hartford campus thinks highly of her advisees. "I consider myself honored to be invited into their lives... The students I work with are amazing individuals," she says. The University Continuing Education Association (UCEA) obviously agrees. BGS graduates Robert Cruz and Charlene Perez, both of whom were counseled by Graham-Handley during their undergraduate careers at UConn, were honored for their outstanding academic achievements with the UCEA's Continuing Student Education Award for the New England Region, in 2007 and 2008 respectively.

"Two years in a row I had students who I couldn't not nominate," Graham-Handley explains. "I was delighted that both times, the students I nominated won." Graham-Handley, who has earned two UConn Masters Degrees (in Sociology and Communication Science), has been counseling BGS students on the Greater Hartford Campus since 2004. She is a member of the BGS Oversight Committee as well as the Greater Hartford Campus Service Learning Committee and she participates in the Provost Outreach and Public Engagement Colloquiums.

Counseling has been part of Graham-Handley's career for many years. Before coming to the BGS Program, she served as a Program Consultant at the Connecticut Department of Higher Education, advising enrolled and prospective students in the Alternate Route to Teacher Certification program. In that capacity, she was also responsible for arranging student teaching placements for more than 300 students annually. Additionally, Graham-Handley has held the position of Assistant Director of the non-profit Vermont Parent Information Center; has worked as a service coordinator for the Connecticut Birth to Three Program; and has taught Sociology at UConn's Avery Point campus and at the University of Hartford. As a former UConn student as well as a former UConn instructor, she brings a unique perspective that she feels helps her in her role as an academic counselor for the BGS Program.

Graham-Handley favors the straightforward route to learning what BGS students hope to achieve: she asks them. "My philosophy is that I work with adult students and I treat them like the adults they are," she says. "My role is to help give them the tools that they need to get to wherever they want to go. Each student's story is different."

Most of Graham-Handley's advisees are working adult students, many of whom had to put their education on hold for several years. She notes that several of her students have taken time off from school to raise families or to make their mark in workplace, or both. "Some of them haven't been in the classroom for awhile, so no matter how successful they've been in their personal and professional lives, it can be daunting for them to get back in the classroom," she adds. Graham-Handley tries to help relieve some of that stress by encouraging her advisees to ease back into the academic environment.

Nevertheless, she points out that BGS students are high achievers with marked advantages that come from maturity. "The life experience these students bring to their academic work is remarkable," Graham-Handley says, adding that she has heard from many professors who "love having BGS students in their classes because they bring a richness to the discussions that you're not going to find anywhere else." Her adult students also demonstrate tremendous resolve, and are in the classroom because they want to be there -- not because of expectations from family or friends -- whether it's for their own personal satisfaction, job security, or job advancement.

"Adult students tend to be keenly focused on their studies, and are also expert multi-taskers who know how to juggle the various home/school/work/community activities that compete for their attention," she says. "I have students who are working full time, have families, are involved with their communities, and are doing volunteer work. The students I work with have incredibly full plates. It's remarkable how well they're able to manage things." Although Graham-Handley talks with her new students about their personal and academic goals when they start the BGS program, she explains that these goals often evolve as a student moves through the program. "It's not uncommon for a student to find the content of a class so exciting and absorbing that it sends them off in a completely different academic or career direction than they had originally planned," she says. "Isn't that what education should be all about?"