Under Development

What does it mean to grow? We know that students are on a journey of both professional and personal development during their time at college but the truth is, the growing never ends. Under Development is a storytelling podcast brought to you by the Office of Professional and Organizational Development (OPOD), dedicated to strengthening the connection between staff and faculty at PCC with the student population. We hope to accomplish this by creating a space with our student host Veronica Daniel, where faculty and staff can share their stories of missteps, perseverance, and both personal and professional experiences that led them to PCC. Hosted by Veronica Daniel, a Journalism & Communications student at PCC & Co-Hosted by Dr. Liesel Reinhart, a Mass Communications & TVR professor at PCC. This Podcast is made possible by a Pasadena City College Foundation Community Excellence Grant, thanks to a generous investment by philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott. Music by Podington Bear, songs used: Wonder Happens, Two Boys & A Girl This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.

Transcript- Episode 1: More than One Purpose with Stephán McGrue Educational Advisor Episode 1 03/27/2023

Transcript- Episode 1: More than One Purpose with Stephán McGrue Educational Advisor Episode 1 00:00:00 Stephán The department itself was giving me a hard time of finding a place to showcase the show. And I was just venting to a janitor that I made really good friends with over the semester. And he said, "You're trying to do what on what day?" And I remember he looked it up, he had the same access. And I had to go home that night and think to myself like "Is this what I think this is?" 00:00:19 Veronica You know, when it comes to a community college, as students, we're the reason why everyone else is here. I think a lot of times when people think of students, they're thinking about us growing and learning. But the one thing that I realize talking to my professors is that they are constantly also growing and learning as well, whether they want to admit it or not. I'm your host, Veronica Daniel, and I'm a journalism and communication student here on campus. 00:00:46 Liesel I'm Dr. Liesel Reinhart. I teach mass communication and TVR courses here at PCC and I am thrilled to co-host with my amazing former student, Veronica. 00:00:55 Veronica On this show, Liesel and I are going to talk with some remarkable individuals from our PCC campus community. These are people you may know, but stories you probably don't. 00:01:04 Liesel It can be tough, but we don't have to do it alone. 00:01:07 Veronica Exactly. Because in higher education, we are all under development, a podcast from the Office of Professional and Organizational Development at Pasadena City College and funded by a PCC Foundation Community Excellence Grant. 00:01:21 Veronica Hi Liesel. 00:01:25 Liesel How's it going, Veronica? 00:01:27 Veronica Good. Can you tell our audience how we met? 00:01:31 Liesel We met in class. You were a student in my mass media course about a year ago. 00:01:37 Veronica I know, and it was so amazing. That was actually my first class post-pandemic, if we can even say that. But since we obviously know each other pretty well, that's why we are co-hosting this podcast together, I have a question for you. 00:01:52 Liesel Okay. What is something I don't know about you? 00:01:56 Liesel Good question. Okay, I'll dig back into my past. Did you know that I was the first ever state champion in Colorado in Girls Extemporaneous Speaking? In my high school years in the eighties, they actually split up boys and girls, and it was current event speaking. 00:02:18 Liesel They literally had different division. It wasn't like Javelin, it was current events. So, I was the girls Extemporaneous Speaking champion and my whole speech in the final round was how it was so inappropriate that I had to compete separately than the boys. And I thought I could beat them if they just let me in that other room, and then they changed it the next year. 00:02:39 Veronica I love that. That definitely sounds like you, that sounds like something you would do. Honestly, that's hilarious. 00:02:46 Liesel Alright. Now, I need to know something I don't know about you. 00:02:49 Veronica I would say now that I'm transitioning into this new career path, I just keep thinking about my prior jobs. And the first thing that comes to mind is that I worked at this really small taco shop and I was telling my friend this the other day, and she's known me forever and had no idea that I used to just make the tacos from scratch, and I had to do everything. 00:03:10 Veronica When I was working there, it was in the summertime and there was no AC and it was always about 15 degrees hotter than outside, but it was so much fun. I loved it, and to this day, I like making tacos from scratch. 00:03:24 Liesel Alright, so you had to make tacos in the heat and I had to humbly speak in a round of women because I wasn't allowed to talk about current events with men. We've got our stories and more to tell than that I'm sure, that have helped form us into who we are today. 00:03:41 Veronica Exactly. I really asked this question because there are so many faculty and staff members here on campus who have background stories that brought them here that we will never know about. 00:03:52 Liesel Or will we? This podcast gives us an opportunity to find out some of those stories, doesn't it? 00:03:57 Veronica Exactly. We get amazing people who are a part of this campus community, telling us their amazing stories. 00:04:04 Liesel So, who's our guest today? 00:04:06 Veronica Our guest today is an educational advisor whose past experiences and acting at entertainment turned him into a prominent leader and organizer here on campus. I'm so excited. 00:04:17 Liesel Secret acting background? This is going to be juicy. 00:04:19 Veronica I know. I can't wait. 00:04:21 Liesel Absolutely. Well, I can't wait to hear your conversation. 00:04:24 Veronica Let's get into it. So, I am here with Stephán McGrue. I'm so excited. 00:04:32 Stephán I'm excited too. 00:04:33 Veronica Nice to see you again. 00:04:34 Stephán Same. 00:04:34 Veronica Can you just tell me about what you do here at PCC? 00:04:40 Stephán Yeah, so again, my name is Stephán McGrue. I am an educational advisor here at Pasadena City College. The division I am under is called TRIO. It is one of the few pre-college programs here at PCC. So, I basically work with high school students and help them get into college, particularly first generation low-income students. 00:05:01 Stephán And then another role that I do here is I event coordinate as well. Get asked to do a couple of different events here, outreach events, and activities that will just bring engagement to the campus and bring campus community almost, like so those are like my two big roles here. 00:05:21 Veronica Those are both big roles. I feel like each one individually could just go for one person. 00:05:26 Stephán I don't know how to do it. They're both a hundred percent type jobs. So, I just make a hundred percent work times two. Honestly, I don't know how to do it. 00:05:34 Veronica And you do, you do. So, going back to your first position, how many students would you say in the TRIO program that you have brought over here? 00:05:44 Stephán So, I have been working as an education ... I got hired here full-time in 2014. I was working in the TRIO Program what they call at the time, college assistant, starting in 2011. So, it's over 10 years of TRIO experience of working as an employee. So, since 2014, I have to meet a 60 count of number of students every summer, every year. 00:06:10 Stephán And so, I'm recruiting that much, pretty much every year. So, if few times that by the nine years I've been here, that's hundreds of students that I've seen. And last year, I think last year I just hit my first cohort that graduated from college. 00:06:27 Stephán So, I now have students that are probably going to be running ... I'm going to be running into in the near future saying, "I have this career because of you." Or, "I'm excited to see that happening." 00:06:39 Veronica That's incredible. I mean, to be able to see the growth that those people have experienced and the fact that you played such an integral part in that, it is so amazing. Congratulations, I'm really happy for you on that. 00:06:51 Stephán Thank you. Thank you. It means a lot to me because it's the same program that I was a part of when I was a student in the city, I went to John Muir High School in this very same program, which has existed since the nineties. 00:07:05 Stephán And so, I had an advisor pretty much do the same thing for me that I'm doing for the kids now. And fortunately, he's still around here. He's the counselor now, so it's a beautiful journey for him to witness and see a product of what he helped mature and grow over the years, and I'm doing the same thing. So, it's pretty enlightening to have that experience and see that generational replica happen. 00:07:32 Veronica Definitely a full circle moment. So, with that being said, can you tell me about your academic background? 00:07:39 Stephán Yes, yes. So, I grew up here in Pasadena. I went to pretty much a lot of the different elementary schools and high schools here. Well, just one high school, but many different elementary and middle schools. And then my high school was John Muir High School. So, I'm a Mustang who's house for those Mustangs that know and listening on. 00:07:59 Stephán And then I joined Upward Bound in my sophomore year. My grandmother put me a part of the Upper Bound program at the time, was Math and Science Upward Bound, because there's two Upward Bound Programs here on campus. There's Math and Science Upward Bound and Classic. 00:08:15 Stephán And the program I currently work for right now is Classic, but I was enrolled in the Math and Science Upward Bound Program and my grandmother had this idea to help me increase my math and science grades because they weren't my favorites. 00:08:28 Stephán She saw a sign that said Upward Bound Math and Science. So, she assumed that the program was geared towards improving students' grades in the STEM-related fields, and it had nothing to do with that. It was, "Hey, let's help you get into a STEM-related career." And which I had no interest in. 00:08:44 Stephán I was a performing art student. I love acting, I loved performing, I have been doing it since I was a child, doing a lot of TV shows and commercials as a kid. And so, when my parents stopped me going out for those roles, because they wanted me to focus more on education, this is where Upward Bound came into my life in high school and Upward Bound geared my focus to more college-driven initiatives and goals. 00:09:13 Stephán I didn't have that goal. I just knew I wanted to act and perform. So, I did a lot of theater work in high school at the same time as being in Upward Bound. So, Upward Bound helped me get into college. They helped me get into San Francisco State University where I got to go and get my degree and drama with an emphasis in performance and minor in communications. 00:09:32 Stephán And between that time, I was coming back during the summer to work at Upward Bound to make a little money. And then I ended up moving back here and figuring out how to get into the industry here, the entertainment industry, get back into it actually, because I was in it from the age that I was like 4 until like 11 or 12. And I was doing a lot of work. I had an agent, I was missing a lot of school, honestly. 00:10:00 Stephán I was in trailers, getting tutoring in the trailer rooms and stuff like that. So, I missed it. I missed it a lot. And so, coming back and now, being out of college and getting my degree, I really wanted to still venture into that. But of course, if you all know what it's like to be an artist, it's not like you can go out for an interview and get the job and then you're set for the rest of your life or whatever with benefits and stuff. 00:10:26 Stephán It's a whole spontaneous process that you have to be ready for and have the patience for. So, in between the time that I'm auditioning and looking for an agent and I'm kind of creating my own content, I continued working here at PCC and I found a balance where I was working part-time here and I was doing part-time stuff with my creativity and my creative arts. 00:10:50 Stephán And so, I got suggested by my advisor who became the director at the time, to go after the full-time position as an educational advisor for the program because the position had opened up. And I was a little weary about it because I felt that if I give a hundred percent to one thing, then it would take away from my true passion, which is acting and performing and writing scripts and being a producer and stuff like that. 00:11:15 Stephán And so, I took a lot of time to think about it and I figured I can do anything I put my mind to. And so, I went ahead and went for it because one, the one thing my parents taught me was you never know unless you try. So, why would I want to strip away an opportunity that I don't even know I would even be accepted for if I don't even interview for it? 00:11:39 Stephán So, I just went ahead and interviewed for the position and I got in. I got the role and I was extremely excited but also scared at the same time. Because I was like, "What did I just get myself into because I know that my passion is acting." This road changed my entire life, literally my entire life. 00:11:59 Stephán I had no interest of going into education as a full-time career. And what it also led me to do was it influenced me to get my masters , and I ended up getting my masters in educational leadership at Asuza Pacific University. And thereafter, is where I started. 00:12:16 Stephán And I started to really understand what my purpose was because if I would've failed, I would've realized that that wasn't a purpose for me. It was just a journey that I was just supposed to go through and then figure out what's the next step from here. 00:12:30 Stephán But for some reason, I was excelling more in the educational realm than I was in the acting realm. And I figured that it was all for a purpose. I was supposed to be here to stick with kids that needed that person to relate to, that person that went through what they went through. 00:12:49 Stephán Sometimes, more importantly though, who look like them as well. And when I was in the program, I was actually the only African American male in the program. And so, since I've been a part of Upward Bound, I've helped the percentage of African American students in the program increase. 00:13:05 Stephán And I learned that just by experience, they saw a reflection and that inflection happened and I just figured I can do both. So, I've been able to balance out both my educational stuff and my performing art stuff in this journey that I'm figuring out because you have more than one purpose in this life 00:13:25 Veronica And that it's never too late to do what you want to do, to do what you love, to find that new passion. I do have a question, can you explain exactly what the Upward Bound program is for those who might not know.... /episode/index/show/39b6aa02-d663-4d6d-b1ab-1582477e00a5/id/26307135

More than One Purpose with Stephán McGrue Educational Advisor Episode 1 03/27/2023

Presenting: Under Development 03/17/2023

Under Development

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