Balancing Work, Family, and Graduate School: Amy Hovey’s Success Story

This week’s episode of Victors in Grad School features an insightful conversation between Dr. Christopher Lewis and Amy Hovey, CEO and Executive Director of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority. Amy shares her unique journey back to graduate education and offers invaluable advice for anyone considering elevating their career with an advanced degree.

Amy's story is one that resonates with working professionals, parents, and lifelong learners alike. After graduating from Alma College, Amy dove into her career—first in the for-profit sector, later discovering her true passion in nonprofit work. She candidly reveals the practical considerations many face: “I knew I wanted to go to graduate school right after undergrad, but I was hesitant because I didn’t have any money… I needed to work, and I’m glad I did it that way.”

Her decision to pursue a Master of Public Administration at the University of Michigan-Flint was guided by her desire to move into leadership roles within the nonprofit sector. Amy’s experience is a testament to the idea that it’s never too late to return to the classroom. She emphasizes flexibility—not just in the structure of graduate programs, but in balancing life’s many demands. By starting with one evening class while raising four children and working full time, Amy illustrates how setting manageable goals and seeking support can make graduate school an attainable reality.

One of the episode’s standout themes is the value of diverse perspectives. Amy describes the richness of conversations with peers from varied backgrounds: “We were all from different types of backgrounds… it really helped diversify my thinking.” She also notes how her studies deepened her understanding of complex government programs, which now directly inform her role in public administration.

Amy’s advice for prospective graduate students is both encouraging and practical: don’t be afraid to work first, take your time, and don’t hesitate to ask about program flexibility. “It’s not a one size fit all… Ask the questions.” Her experience shows how graduate education can be crafted around your life, not the other way around.

Whether you’re contemplating a return to school, navigating the balance of work, family, and personal growth, or seeking fresh inspiration, don’t miss this uplifting episode. Tune in to hear Amy’s full story and gather practical insights that could help shape your own graduate journey!

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Victors in Grad School, where we have conversations with students, alumni, and experts about what it takes to find success in graduate school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:11]:
Welcome back to Victors in Grad School. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Lewis, Director of Graduate programs at the University of Michigan, Flint. Really excited to have you back again this week. As always, every week, I love being able to talk to you about this journey that you're on. And it truly is a journey every individual that goes through graduate school is thinking about. Graduate school, is getting ready to graduate from graduate school, is going through their own personal journey, and every one of those journeys is going to be a little bit unique. But there are things that you can do today that will help you to be able to help yourself to find success in this journey, and that's why this podcast exists.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:54]:
I every week, I love being able to bring you different people with different experiences that can talk to you about the experience that they went through going through their own graduate school journey. So today we have another great guest with us. Amy Hovey is with us, and Amy is the CEO and executive director of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority. And I'm really excited to be able to talk to her about her own journey and have her share that with you. Amy, thanks so much for being here today.

Amy Hovey [00:01:25]:
Yes, thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:27]:
Well, I'm really looking forward to talking with you today as well. And I know a while back you ended. You did your bachelor's degree at Alma College, and then you went off. You went off and you started working, started having a lot of different experiences that allowed for you to be able to build upon your undergraduate degree. But at some point, at some point in that work journey, you identified for yourself that you wanted to go further in your education. Can you take me back in time? Take me back to that point in time where you said to yourself, I've got to do this. What was it? And what made you decide that graduate school was the next step?

Amy Hovey [00:02:08]:
Yeah, so I'm going to say I knew I wanted to go to graduate school right after I graduated from undergrad, but I was hesitant because I didn't have any money. Right. I had already accumulated debt from undergrad, felt like, you know what? I need to work, and I'm glad I did it that way. So I was working and went from for profit to the nonprofit world, which, quite honestly, I just didn't know, as I think most undergrads don't really know the different types of careers that are out there until you get out into the world. And so I found myself loving working for nonprofits. And at that point I realized if I wanted to continue to not just work for nonprofits, but lead nonprofits, I should look at continuing my education. And I actually got an email from U of M Flint that said, come and to our open house for graduate programs. And I thought, huh, Now I never went to that open house, but I still clicked on the links and I looked at the type of programs that were available because I was working in the city of Flint, right in downtown, looked at U of M's campus all the time.

Amy Hovey [00:03:22]:
You know, had had used the library before for events. And so I was familiar and comfortable there. And I noticed they had a Master's of Public administration where you could do an emphasis in nonprofit management. And so I set up a meeting and went and talked to an advisor and said, listen, you know, I'm interested in this program. I can't go full time. I had four children and I was working full time and needed to continue to work full time, but I really wanted to do this degree. And they said that was okay. I didn't have to graduate in two years.

Amy Hovey [00:03:58]:
Even though the typical program outline was to get your master's in two years, I could actually take longer than that. And so I said, why not? Let's give it a try. And I applied and started that December.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:04:11]:
Now, as I mentioned, you had been out of school for a little bit of time. So as you transition back into school, it is a transition. There are definite things that you have to do to be able to get back into that school mode and get your mind back into that school mode in many different ways. Talk to me about the mindset shifts that you had to do to be able to set yourself up for success in that graduate school journey.

Amy Hovey [00:04:38]:
Well, I was really excited. I'm like one of those people, I love school. So I was excited to get back into the classroom. And that was still when we purchased books and you had like a real actual book. And I was excited about getting my student ID with my picture on it. And. And so for me, it was an. It was an exciting time.

Amy Hovey [00:04:57]:
I was a little hesitant on how I would balance and make time for my studies. So I started with just one class. So I signed up for a single class. It was in the evening and it was one night a week, right. So it was a long class. It was like a three hour block, I think, but it was just one night a week. And I thought, well, I can do one night a week. And I had to, I think, reprioritize how I spent my downtime.

Amy Hovey [00:05:20]:
Right. And so instead of reading books for pleasure, you know, you start reading your homework. Right. Your textbook. You know, I traveled for work a lot during the time I was getting my degree, so I spent a lot of time on airplanes and I wrote my papers. Right. And so you just use the time that you have for school rather than for other things that might take up your time. And for me, it was not a hard shift, but it was something I was really dedicated to making happen.

Amy Hovey [00:05:53]:
I also really appreciated being able to just take one class and the flexibility in that. It worked not only for my time schedule, but it worked for my budget to be able to really spread out the cost of grad school and the impact on my family's daily expenses. So. So that was really helpful for me as well. I also just. I love the diversity of the class, the different types of students that were in my classes. You know, I was a Master's of Public Administration, so we had folks that worked for the government, we had folks that work for nonprofits, people who were fresh out of college, those that, like me, were returning. We had people who are like retired police officers that were coming back to get their degrees.

Amy Hovey [00:06:44]:
And so the conversations were very rich. It was just a great experience.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:06:50]:
Now, you talked a little bit about that work life balance, and with kids and with a job and balancing all of that. Throughout the entire graduate program, there had to have been some things that you had to set into motion for yourself to be able to balance all of that for yourself and for your family. Talk to me about that. And what were some of those building blocks that you had to put in place to be able to help you to balance all of those different aspects that would allow for you to be able to get through the program to graduation?

Amy Hovey [00:07:21]:
Yeah, I mean, I think primarily as a working mother, I had to make sure that I had childcare. And I'm very lucky. I married and my husband was able to be with the kids in the evenings. As I mentioned, I really took it slow so that I didn't feel like I was missing out on time with my children by doing just a single class a day. So I think that was really helpful, me in balancing being able to do all the things that were a priority for me and for my family. Again, I was lucky. Not everyone has childcare so readily available, but for me, that was like the number one priority was being able to make sure that my kids were cared for. And that allowed me to be Able to come and take classes.

Amy Hovey [00:08:04]:
I think the other thing that really struck me was the fact that this was really adding to my work experience, right. And I found the professors at U of M Flint were very flexible. So the program allowed for me to take a couple classes from another school and bring those credits in. And at the time, all of the pro program was in person, right? Every class was in person. But because it allowed me to get approval to bring in a couple additional classes, I was able to look at other universities that had online classes, get preapproval to take those classes. And so I was able to take two classes online from another university and count them towards my graduating credits at U of M Flint. Super helpful to me during a period where my life got very busy and I could not afford that three hours solid an evening, once a week. So that flexibility was helpful to me in being able to balance.

Amy Hovey [00:09:10]:
I also took an independent study. So one of the professors connected with me allowed me to take an independent study, which was really great. That was very flexible. It was really at my own pace and having meetings with my professor and. And that allowed me to then that semester do two classes. So, you know, I was able to double up, which allowed me to graduate just a little bit faster than taking one class per. So I found it was a wonderful program. And anytime I had an issue with anything being able to sit down and talk to folks, the professors were easy to work with.

Amy Hovey [00:09:47]:
The administrators of the deans of the college. It's very easy to work with, to find solutions to make that balance work.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:55]:
Now you also, when you're going through graduate school, there are things that you learn inside the classroom, that hard knowledge that they want to make sure that you leave the classroom with. But there's a lot of things that you learn outside of the classroom as well, whether it be from other students, other individuals at the university itself, other contacts, etc. What was the most valuable thing you feel that you learned outside the classroom during graduate school?

Amy Hovey [00:10:23]:
Well, that's an interesting question. I mentioned that my classes were full with very diverse students, right. We were all different. We were all from different types of backgrounds. And so we were able to have conversations and relate our lives and our work experiences differently. And it really helped diversify my thinking. I will tell you that, you know, we tend to live in our own boxes and we're impacted by how our lives live and things that impact our lives. But able to listen and connect with people that are different, that have different experiences, help me look at things completely differently, whether it's how nonprofits are ran and the use of those nonprofits, how it is to balance our time and how other people balance our time, how we read and interpret readings completely differently, really helped me to be much more open minded, and it helped me be better at my current job and being able to do outreach and connect and understand folks within the Flint community as a whole, which was really important to the work I was doing at the time.

Amy Hovey [00:11:32]:
I will also say, even though you didn't ask the question yet, Chris, that I learned a lot in the classroom that impacted my work life and how I looked at the things I worked with. So being from a nonprofit, I had worked with the government a lot. Not in government at the time, but outside government. And I was always very frustrated with the bureaucracy, all the regulations, how slow things go, and, you know, had very little patience for that. But in the classes I took through the Master's of Public Administration program, I learned why there are so many regulations around many of the government programs, how those evolved, the purpose of. Of those regulations. And it gave me a different mindset and some patience in dealing with the governmental entities and programs that I was working with at the time, which was super helpful. So I remember reading a book and going, oh, this is why they do what they do.

Amy Hovey [00:12:34]:
They're not just trying to be painful and make it difficult to use these programs. There's actually 30, 40, 50 years of influence on these programs is how they got where they are today. And I actually wrote a paper on the Community Development Block Grant program when I was in grad school, and it was an analysis of the history of the program and how I might make that program better, really forcing me to think analytically. And now I find myself working and leading the state agency that administers those same, same CDBG programs from a state level. So, I mean, you really can't get more connected than that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:13:15]:
I think that is great because, I mean, having those opportunities to be able to really connect the neurons. Right. And being able to see how one thing really equates to the next can lead you in so many different directions. Now, as you think about, think back to the experience that you had in graduate school and you think to what you're doing today. Talk to me about how you feel that your graduate school experience impacted what you're doing today and how you pull from that experience on a daily basis.

Amy Hovey [00:13:50]:
Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I don't think I would be in my position today without having that degree on my resume. It is meaningful that being in public Administration was important to me enough that I took the time to get a degree and some additional learning in that area. And I think that showed, you know, the folks that hired me that this line of work is important and that I took the time to learn. I did not know when I took this program that I would be leaving the nonprofit world and moving into government. So I was very fortunate to me that this master's program really covered both nonprofit and government work and public authority work. So it really got me to where I am today. That being said, it also, in my current role, really taught me a lot about the history of these programs, what they mean, how as a public official, I have responsibilities to the public and to listening to the public, as well as taking utmost care of taxpayer dollars, which a lot of these books talk about the history of programs, how they're appropriated and why they're appropriated. And so it really gave me a sense of importance of what the role the government should be playing and the intended uses of the programs that I administer today.

Amy Hovey [00:15:16]:
So it couldn't be any more closely related to my learning in grad school, to my job today than it is. Right. There's direction. Connect there. And I'm really, really appreciative for the learning I did at U of M. Flint.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:15:29]:
As you think about your graduate school experience, what's something that you wish that someone had told you before you started graduate school?

Amy Hovey [00:15:37]:
I think it's important to work first. And I know I said the only reason I worked first was because I didn't have funding to do it, which is the truth. But lucky for me, it's really important, in my opinion, to have some work experience, because how I approach grad school was totally, totally different than I approached undergrad. Right. Like, this was important learning for me. I was much more engaged in learning in grad school than I was in undergrad, even though I graduated with honors from both. So it wasn't about getting the good grades, but it was really about being able to do a deeper level of analytical thinking and understanding the application of what you're learning to, to what you do day to day in your career. I don't think I made that connection on undergrad, but I certainly did in grad school.

Amy Hovey [00:16:30]:
So one of the things that I wish I would have known and been less worried about was it's great to work a little bit before you go to grad school. It also helped me refine the type of program I wanted. Had I went right after, I probably would have went into an MBA program, which would have been fine. I'm sure I would have had a great learning experience experience in an MBA program, but it wouldn't have been aligned to where my passion was because I didn't know what my passion was going to be when I was 21 and first graduated from undergraduate school. So I think it's important. And something I learned was, it's not bad. It's actually great to get a little work experience under your belt before you return to grad school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:17:10]:
Finally, as you look back on your own graduate school experience and you think about others, others that are thinking about graduate school. And you've given some tips already. But what are, what are some additional tips that you might want to offer others that are considering graduate education that would help them find success sooner?

Amy Hovey [00:17:27]:
Yeah, I mean, I think just do it. Just do it. If you have a passion for learning, there are so many ways in which you can approach graduate school. It's not a one size fit all. If you're worried about being able to fit it within your schedule or within your financial budget, sit down with the university, go through what those options may look like and go on a plan that does work for you. U of M Flint was so flexible when I was there that if I had to take a semester off because I had something going on with work or with my family, I could take a semester off and not be thrown out of the program. Right. There was extra time built in to allow for me to do what I needed to do to graduate.

Amy Hovey [00:18:10]:
And I don't know that everyone knows that. I think folks think that it's pretty rigid and it's unattainable, but I think it really is attainable for almost everyone who's interested in doing it and being able to fit it in to their budget as well as into their work schedule and really working with. Can I get credits for work? I do? Can I, can I bring in some credits from a different program? I mean, if you don't ask the questions, you won't get the good answers. So ask the questions.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:42]:
Well, Amy, I just want to say thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your own journey today, for sharing the experiences that you had as you were working and going to school and how that impacted what you're doing today. I truly appreciate your time and for what you shared and I wish you all the best.

Amy Hovey [00:19:02]:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Christopher Lewis [00:19:03]:
The University of Michigan Flint has a full array of master's and doctorate programs. If you are interested in continuing your education, whether you're looking for in person or online learning options. The University of Michigan Flint has programs that will meet your needs. For more than information on any of our graduate programs, visit umflint.edu/graduateprograms to find out more. Thanks again for spending time with me as you prepare to be a victor in grad school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:32]:
I look forward to speaking with you.

Christopher Lewis [00:19:33]:
Again soon as we embark together on your graduate school journey. If you have any questions or want to reach out, email me at [e-mail].