{"id":101521,"date":"2015-04-14T10:35:22","date_gmt":"2015-04-14T14:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=101521"},"modified":"2015-10-02T14:31:35","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T18:31:35","slug":"a-day-with-president-herbst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2015\/04\/a-day-with-president-herbst\/","title":{"rendered":"A Day with President Herbst"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Abdullah<\/a>
Abdullah Hasan \u201916 (CLAS) and Danielle Deschene \u201917 (CLAS) meet with President Susan Herbst and\u00a0Scott Jordan, executive vice president for administration and chief financial officer in Gulley Hall. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s not every day that students have a chance to discuss current events or the college search process with their university president, but Monday wasn\u2019t any typical day.<\/p>\n

Two undergraduate students were given a peek behind the curtain as \u201cPresidents for a Day,\u201d the first chance to spend a day with President Susan Herbst in the new Lead the Pack program.<\/p>\n

Danielle Deschene \u201917 (CLAS) and Abdullah Hasan \u201916 (CLAS) rose to the top among dozens of student applicants in a vigorous selection process for the inaugural job-shadow, which was organized by the Center for Career Development.<\/p>\n

Many schools have similar programs, but treating the selection process like a real job search makes UConn\u2019s unique, says Jim Lowe, assistant vice provost and executive director of career services. Aside from the benefit of learning what it\u2019s like to be UConn\u2019s President, all applicants received job application training and went through a formal job search that included finalist interviews.<\/p>\n

As they got ready for the jam-packed day, both Deschene and Hasan said they were intrigued by the opportunity to see what goes into managing an institution the size of UConn.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always had an interest in politics \u2026 and of course, have been interested in leadership roles. The president of such a large University has such a big role,\u201d said Deschene, an actuarial science major. \u201cI\u2019m interested in what it\u2019s like. I\u2019m sure it takes a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hasan, a human rights, political science, and women\u2019s studies triple-major who plans to attend law school and pursue a career in public service, said he hoped to gain an understanding of how Herbst works with diverse constituencies including the state of Connecticut and various on-campus communities.<\/p>\n

\"Abdullah<\/a>
Abdullah Hasan \u201916 (CLAS) and Danielle Deschene \u201917 (CLAS) look over the bonds just signed by President Herbst. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The two honors students met President Herbst in Gulley Hall about 10:30 a.m., just after she signed a series of bonds for Next Generation Connecticut projects. The three discussed the day’s national news, including the\u00a0recently announced presidential candidacies of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio. They shared thoughts on where Clinton\u00a0chose to declare her bid \u2013 the Center for Human Progress, where Hasan worked the summer after his freshman year.<\/p>\n

Both students said they attended Clinton\u2019s talk at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts last April.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the most nervous I ever was in my life,\u201d said Herbst, a political science scholar. \u201cBut we met her backstage beforehand. She was so nice and so warm, so I got through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later in the morning, conversations covered why both students chose UConn, student perceptions of UConn Athletics, and campus civility.<\/p>\n

Aside from the opportunity to have candid exchanges with President Herbst, Deschene and Hasan were given a primer on her day-to-day work experience. The busy schedule included a meeting with Scott Jordan, UConn\u2019s executive vice president for administration and chief financial officer, to go over the University\u2019s budget situation in advance of Herbst\u2019s presentation on the matter to the\u00a0University Senate Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The students sat in on the Senate meeting, and, in the evening, attended a reception at the Werth Family Champions Center to celebrate the women\u2019s basketball team\u2019s championship season.<\/p>\n

But the two shadows said they were most excited to sit in on the President\u2019s open office hours, which attracted so many students that they went into a third hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they were announced for Monday I was super excited,\u201d Hasan said Monday morning. \u201cI know what it\u2019s like coming from a student perspective, so it will be fascinating to see that from the administrative perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deschene reflected the sentiment. \u201cI think the thing I\u2019m most looking forward to are actually the student office hours, just to see what people have to say,\u201d she said. \u201cEspecially being on a different side of it today, to see how the one-on-one really works.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the “long” day was over, Hasan said he “was truly impressed by President Herbst’s ability to manage such a large institution with an unwavering passion for promoting student learning and achievement.”<\/p>\n

“There was one clear lesson from the day: President Herbst has to make many difficult decisions, and she somehow manages to do so while balancing all competing interests with one goal in mind \u2013\u00a0promoting a campus environment and structure that produces life-long learners ready to tackle life’s challenges,” he said.<\/p>\n

Herbst said the program, which will be held again in the fall, is mutually beneficial for both herself and the students.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey get the idea of how the University is run, and see a lot of the challenges. We can tell them some of the great things we hear about that aren\u2019t always widely shared,\u201d she said. \u201cOne of the best things is, we get to hear from the students directly and get their reactions to things.<\/p>\n

Added Herbst, \u201cI wish I could take all the students.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two undergraduates had an opportunity to see what goes into managing an institution the size of UConn as ‘Presidents for a Day’ on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":101523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1118],"class_list":["post-101521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-28 05:28:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101521"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101580,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101521\/revisions\/101580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/101523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101521"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=101521"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=101521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}