How a CCPA grad student’s initiative helped her win a national award

Most students wouldn’t expect a nationally acclaimed expert in their curriculum to agree to share her research with them personally.

But that didn’t stop Binghamton University’s Julia Rumsey, MPA, MS ‘22.

In the fall, she convinced Nancy Schlossberg, an expert in the areas of adult transitions, retirement and career development, to speak to fellow students.

That initiative, along with her overall contributions to her graduate program at Binghamton University, helped Rumsey win her first national recognition: the Outstanding Master’s Student award. The award was given by the American College Personnel Association Graduate Students and New Professionals Community of Practice, the national organization for those in the field of student affairs administration.

Rumsey, a 22-year-old Orange County, N.Y., native pursuing her master’s degree in student affairs administration and public administration, said taking theories from the classroom into real-life practice is the most important building block for developing students into professionals.

“I love working with people and I really love higher education,” Rumsey said. “I know I’m not going to solve all the world’s problems, but I know how good it makes me feel if I can help a few students. So, I think if that’s the approach everybody took, the world would be a better place.”

The ACPA is one of the larger national organizations in the field of student affairs. To qualify for the annual award, according to the ACPA, master’s students must be nominated for making a positive contribution through research or service to the profession in student affairs, or for making significant contributions to their graduate program and institution.

“It’s her enthusiasm, her dedication to getting things done,” said Deborah Taub, professor and chair of the Department of Student Affairs Administration (SAA), who nominated Rumsey for the award. “And it’s this ability that she has to look at things in a bigger way and say, ‘Well, why couldn’t we do that?’”

Rumsey said she was drawn to her program in the University’s College of Community and Public Affairs because it enabled her to pursue two master’s degrees in three years. She’s planning to graduate in May, and she’s hoping to pursue a career in student affairs. She’s also eager to explore any opportunities that might come along the way.

“Eventually, I’d like to be the U.S. Secretary of Education,” Rumsey said with a smile, “but oh, that’s way down. I don’t exactly have a five-year plan to get there.”

Last year, when Rumsey became president of the Student Affairs Graduate Association (SAGA), an organization for graduate students in her program, she decided to reinvigorate interest in the club and wanted to try something special for its biggest annual event in the fall. The organization had been faltering a bit in terms of student engagement, she said, so a priority in her new leadership role was to find opportunities to reinvigorate the group with a fresh take on ideas to entice more participation.

To help advance that goal, she hoped to gauge the interest of a special guest speaker, one whose research is one of the cornerstones of her graduate studies. Rumsey contacted Schlossberg, a researcher on theories on transition — strategies for how to tackle life changes ranging from entering college to retirement — and asked whether she’d be interested in speaking to Rumsey’s fellow students.

The worst that could happen, Rumsey thought, was that a nationally recognized expert in her field who regularly speaks to thousands of large groups would say “No.”

So it came as a pleasant surprise when Schlossberg agreed to give a presentation in November about her theories, via Zoom from Florida, to a group of about 50 of Rumsey’s fellow students in Binghamton.

Schlossberg, an 85-year-old psychologist and retired professor who has authored nine books, discussed her various research subjects, including how her transitional theories could be applied to living through the COVID-19 pandemic. She also touched on transitioning into different careers, and how college students transition to the working world. Theories such as those have been embraced by academics in Taub’s field.

While other SAA students have won state awards over the years, Taub said Rumsey is the first to earn this type of national recognition.

“I’m hoping that this inspires our students to dream big and reach out to folks that we’ve talked about, people we study,” Taub said. ”It’s just amazing that this expert, who speaks to thousands of people at conferences, was delighted to speak to a really small group in the big scheme of things.”

Rumsey, who will receive her award in March at the ACPA’s annual conference in Missouri, said she’s spent much of the past year during her leadership of SAGA to incentivize events in order to get more students involved so they can see the possibilities for professional development. She’s also worked, as part of her graduate assistantship, to bring other professionals into the classroom to discuss how student affairs students could grow in their field.

Among the events she helped with last year was a winter weather drive that was organized alongside the Family Enrichment Network of Binghamton. Together, they gathered about 15 large bins of winter hats, coats and gloves to hand out to local elementary school students and their families.

“I know that lots of students are doing lots of great things all over the country,” Rumsey said, ” so to get that national award, it kind of reassures me that everything I’m doing is actually making a difference in students’ lives.”