What are one or two of your greatest business and/or community achievements?

One of my greatest community achievements has been designing and sustaining large-scale, award-winning cultural and leadership programs that foster belonging and connection at UL Lafayette and across Acadiana. Through initiatives such as Culture Fest, AfroFest, the Pride Resource Fair, and Greek Week, I have helped create inclusive, educational spaces that elevate student voices and celebrate global and local cultures. These programs have earned multiple state and national recognitions, including NACA and LACUSPA awards, while consistently engaging hundreds of students, faculty, and community partners each year.

Equally significant has been my leadership in building sustainable campus–community partnerships that extend student learning beyond the university. Through collaborations such as Ragin’ Cajuns Downtown Alive with Downtown Lafayette Unlimited, alongside my work with alumni groups, festivals, and local nonprofits, I connect students to experiential workforce development in event operations, marketing, hospitality, volunteer coordination, and civic engagement. These efforts strengthen UL Lafayette’s community presence, create professional pipelines, and ensure long-term, measurable impact for both students and Acadiana.

What’s your favorite thing about what you do for a living?

My favorite thing about what I do is the opportunity to build communities where people feel welcomed, valued, and empowered, while also walking closely with students as a mentor and advocate. I enjoy meeting students where they are and helping them transform their ideas into intentional programs, organizations, and experiences that truly make a difference. Whether I’m advising student leaders, navigating challenges alongside them, or connecting them with campus and community partners, I get to support their growth in meaningful ways. Seeing students gain confidence, develop their leadership skills, and recognize the influence they have on others is incredibly fulfilling. Knowing that they leave these experiences more prepared, self-assured, and connected to their community is what makes this work so rewarding.

You support 10+ student organizations and lead major events like Culture Fest and AfroFest. What’s one student story or event moment that reminds you why this work matters?

With my work with cultural organizations, I get to do a lot of pretty amazing collaborations, with the International Student Council, black student organizations, Arabic student organizations, the Spanish Club, etc. I think that’s pretty amazing. And with those collaborations does come those special moments during an event or a student impact story. There’s so many student stories that I could list, so I’ll go to the event part.

We put on Culture Fest – it ends International Education Week in November every year. The greatest thing that comes from that, from the student side and from my side, is seeing the educational pieces and getting to build that connection (because you don’t know what you don’t know, and sometimes students have preconceived notions of different people or things they’ve seen on the news or social media). To be able to break that down and have tables where students represent their culture, their country, their identities, and create that bridge where they can ask those questions. They can learn. They can get their name written in a bookmark. They can learn a sign language word or symbol. It gets back to basic human connection and seeing that happen in real time. Every year it grows and there’s more performances, and we even do a cultural fashion show.

We do assessment surveys, and you get to see what people got out of it, and the biggest thing is that they felt seen. That’s the biggest thing for me. That our students feel seen – that they felt more connected to campus. They felt like they’ve been able to talk to their peers where they might be scared before (especially with everything going on). So making sure that they feel seen, that they have a voice. Those stories matter a lot.