This past year, some faculty and staff at the Boone DMACC Campus have come and gone. In June of last year, DMACC hired Jodi Abshire as the new Administrative Assistant to campus Provost, Drew Nelson.
“As the Administrative Assistant I am here to support the Provost, faculty, staff and students in any way that I can,” she said. “I perform a variety of tasks from setting up meetings to scheduling classes and monitoring faculty loads.”
Jodi said that there are challenges with starting a new job during a pandemic. “Starting my new position during a pandemic has had its challenges because we have not been on campus where I could easily ask for assistance or be trained. I was very lucky that my predecessor left me great notes on what to do and when,” she said.
She continued, “The faculty and staff have been very welcoming and friendly and you can tell that they truly are a family. They have been very patient and encouraging with me as I have learned my position. I think that the smaller campus makes a more intimate setting where faculty, staff and students can all get to know one another and work together to help students succeed and build a better community.”
Jodi graduated from DMACC in 2013 with an Associates in Liberal Arts. She then went on to Grand View University for a Bachelor’s in Business and graduated in 2015.
“When I was at DMACC I was a pre-education major, but I switched to business when I went to Grandview because the upper education courses would not fit my schedule as a single mom that worked a full-time job. My thought at the time was that the business degree would help me advance in the job that I had, and it did serve me well, but I soon realized that my heart was in education,” she said.
She continued, “As I considered switching from business to education, I looked at the different positions that I could do that would fit my personality and where I could help students the most. I began to focus on higher ed and DMACC. I had always been very appreciative of the opportunities that I had because of my time here as a student and how DMACC made my goals possible by offering classes that worked with my schedule and staff that was very encouraging.”
But Jodi isn’t the only DMACC graduate in the family. Her son Billy graduated from the Iowa Culinary Institute in 2016 and her son Brian graduated in 2019 with his degree in Graphic Design. Her daughter, Breanna, is currently enrolled at DMACC.
“I would not be where I am today if I had not started my educational journey at DMACC,” she said, “so I want to give back to a school that has given me so much.” Not only does she want to help students with their education but she is currently working on her own.
“I have been working on my Master’s in Higher Education at Dakota Wesleyan University and I hope to finish that in the next year,” she said.
“So far, my experience has been really great,” she said, “I feel like everyone has been very welcoming and encouraging. I enjoy being on campus and I look forward to the end of this pandemic when the students and staff will all be here.”