The NIU College of Education’s Office for Student Success is officially under new management.
Chris Lowe, who served as assistant director from December through April, is now the director. Alex Owens, who joined NIU in November of 2021 as an academic advisor in the Department of Special and Early Education, has been named assistant director and will begin Sept. 1.
Launched in August 2021, the office provides a comprehensive hub of intentional assistance to promote retention and graduation by harnessing resources of the college while also connecting to, and collaborating with, university-level programs.
“Our focus is on decreasing barriers to success, whether that’s in recruitment – where we’re trying to help students understand who we are, what programs we have, how they might be a fit and then helping smooth that process of getting here and getting enrolled,” Lowe says.
“And, with existing students, it’s about navigating all of the issues that they face and helping them feel like they’re part of our larger College of Ed team, knowing that they have someone in their corner and that they can always come here to us for whatever support they need.”
He calls the operation “vital.”
“The reality is that our students need support beyond just what they get from their individual instructors and their individual courses,” says Lowe, who holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, and M.A. in English from McNeese State University and a B.A. in English from Mississippi University for Women.
“For the College of Education, our office is really the hub all of the rest of the support that they get, whether it’s advising or finding avenues for connections across the university for other resources,” he adds. “Different things that might help our students often happen out of our space, and we can help students filter to the right space and then help guide them.”
Students also can find “that connection with the college” and build “that sense of community” through the Office for Student Success, says Owens, who earned her M.S. in Student Affairs in Higher Education and her B.S. in Professional Writing from Missouri State University.
“If you bring all of the College of Education licensure students together, you know that a lot of them have the same, shared passions,” she says.
“They have different grade levels they want to teach, but if they have the centralized hub where they can all come together to have activities where they can connect – where there might be organizations that we can advertise – they’re getting more of that sense of community and feeling like there’s this place where they can get that identity as a College of Education student.”
Professors and instructors should also consider the office as their partner, Lowe says.
“We’re also here to help them navigate student-related issues that they are encountering. They are not alone. It’s not just them and the student trying to figure out how to solve a problem. We are a resource for them, and we can help direct them toward different resources on campus,” he says.
“And, quite often, there has to be collaboration between faculty and advisors because faculty are rightfully very focused on their particular area .The course that they are teaching should be at the forefront of their thoughts,” he adds. “But part of the advising role is to have the bigger-picture view of student’s academic plan in mind, so we can help fill that gap for faculty as they’re working with students and if they need some of that bigger-picture understanding.”
Meanwhile, Owens says, faculty hoping to recruit more students to their classrooms can turn to Gabel 138 for assistance.
“Bring those requests to us,” she says. “That’s something we can look into – if we need to get those enrollments up; if we need to do some more recruitment and get out there to get more students interested in that particular program.”
LOWE CAME TO NIU in the summer of 2021 as a program adviser in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
He had spent the bulk of his career as a faculty member and program coordinator in English and Creative Writing at his alma mater McNeese State in Lake Charles, La., where, in addition to teaching, he also took part in student success work such as recruitment, advising and retention.
But after two hurricanes soaked Lake Charles in the fall of 2020, Lowe and his family decided it was time to relocate somewhere not prone to tropical storms.
“I was ready to being a new phase of my careers, and so I was looking specifically at student-facing roles, and that’s what really brought me to NIU,” he says. “My focus has always been on helping students engage with their college experience – making sure they are prepared and successful; helping them get past barriers to success – and so this feels like a natural fit for where my career’s been pointing, even when I was in more teaching-based roles.”
Most of that teaching was in creative writing, something he practices himself as a widely published and prolific author of short fiction.
Among his works are three prose chapbooks, including “A Guest of the Program” (which won the Iron Horse Literary Chapbook Prize), “Those Like Us,” and the forthcoming “Make Some Wretched Fool to Pay.” He’s currently penning a new collection of thematically linked stories set in Louisiana and Illinois.
“I’m very interested in narrative theory – how we tell stories and why – and I see a lot of overlap between what I like to explore in my writing with my academic interests and the work that I do in student services,” Lowe says.
“So much of what, in my mind, makes for good fiction is an ability to engage with the human experience. Understanding people. Empathy. Engaging with how we live our lives,” he adds. “The work that we do in student success is very much in that same realm – engaging with each student on their own terms, making sure that we understand who they are, what their story is and what their background is.”
Owens also has spent her career in higher education.
Before coming to Illinois, she worked in various areas of academic support and student affairs in the Show Me State, including at Missouri Western State University, where she was an academic advisor, supervised student-tutors and even participated in admissions efforts.
“Everyone wore multiple hats there,” she says. “I did a lot with advising and with recruitment and retention; just a lot of things that would fall under the umbrella of enrollment management of getting students to the university and then making sure that they are successful while there.”
After five years, she moved on to the University of Missouri, where she worked in residential life.
Duties included overseeing one of the residence hall complexes, supervision of resident assistants and “just helping students feel comfortable and establishing a sense of belonging.”
“I did that for about a year-and-a-half, and then I was really looking for kind of a change of scenery overall,” says Owens, who is pursuing a second master’s degree in English at NIU. “I was very drawn to the northern Illinois region, so that’s what brought me here.”
PLANS FOR THIS YEAR naturally include nurturing a sense of belonging for students.
“We’re addressing that in a variety of ways, including different events and initiatives, and faculty and staff are always welcome to help with those,” Lowe says.
“If we’re having a student event, it’s a great opportunity for faculty to get to know these students outside of the classroom and to show they that they’re invested in them as individuals and not just as people in the seats when they’re lecturing,” he adds. “Come mingle with the students. Let them know you’re engaged, and that you care about them, because that really does foster that sense of belonging.”
Owens is keeping an open mind – and an open ear – to what students want.
She looks forward to chats with College of Education majors about what they would like from the office, “and that doesn’t mean it all has to be academic.” Included in that list are their interests, their aspirations and their expectations.
“We want to meet them where they’re at,” she says. “We can do fun things, too, like if they just want a pizza party where they can all talk and get to know each other and talk about the concert they’re going to next.”
Meanwhile, she’s ready to return to her roots in recruitment – especially now that operations can return to normal after COVID-19 forced those interactions online.
“I’m excited to meet the high school students who are interested in coming to NIU, and talking to transfer students,” Owens says, “so that they can have those conversations and really feel like they know everything they need to know so that they can feel confident when they begin the process of coming to NIU.”
