Today's Tribute Tuesday goes to Cristina Winterton (Villanova University) for excellence in her role as a new advisor, and Keith Schweiger (Temple University) for excellence in his role as a primary advisor. Both honorees received certificates of merit.
Christina Winterton joined Villanova University in July 2020 as the Faculty Advisor for Exploratory Science (undeclared) students and external science transfer students. She is also an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Biology. In her short time at Villanova, Christina has contributed to important new initiatives to promote engagement in STEM, such as advising for a new learning community called “Science, Inquiry, and Self” as well as developing and implementing a General Biology Peer Mentoring program. Recently, she has begun researching different aspects of the interactions between academic advisors and advisees in the STEM field to learn what advisees are hoping to gain during advising appointments. She hopes this research will add to the literature on STEM retention and recruitment. Christina is looking forward to continuing advising science students and guiding them as they discover their talents.
Growing up, Keith never saw himself becoming an Academic Advisor. Keith faced a lot of adversity growing up, and had it not been for some incredibly talented and caring teachers in high school, Keith probably would not have gone to college. One of those teachers was a high school math teacher, and this inspired Keith to become a high school math teacher. However, Keith then encountered Calculus, and those plans changed quickly. Keith still wanted to be in education, and decided to lean more towards elementary education until some field experiences said otherwise. It was his on-campus job in Residence Life at Montclair State University that sparked Keith's passion of helping college students succeed and pivoted his career in this direction. Keith finished his Bachelor's degree in 2009 and then went straight into the MA in Counseling with a concentration in Student Affairs at Montclair State University. Keith finished that degree in 2013 while completing internships through Montclair's Educational Opportunity Fund Office and NJIT's College of Computing Sciences Academic Advising office. After this, Keith began working professionally as an Academic Advisor in the Center for Advising & Student Transitions at Montclair State University. Keith then accepted a full-time employment offer working as an Academic Advisor in the College of Science & Technology (CST) at Temple University in early 2014, and Keith has been here ever since rising through the ranks. Keith is very proud of developing a number of initiatives at Temple, including organizing and implementing CST's first majors & minors fair, developing and implementing a living learning community to increase CST student engagement, leading all aspects of first year orientation in CST including the redesign of the student experience to accommodate the pandemic, redesigning a student position that existed in our college to get the most out of the position and what it can be, developing and redesigning curriculum for a probation-type version of our first year seminar, and developing the curriculum and launching a professional development course for the student worker position he oversees. Keith's fascination with student learning and student success has led to his interest in pursuing a Ph.D. in Education with a concentration in Educational Psychology, which Keith began at Temple University in Fall 2020 officially. Keith hopes to be able to produce scholarly research related to student motivation in higher education, especially as it relates to Academic Advising.
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Congratulations to our certificate of merit holders!
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