Dianna Gray, College of Business and Public Administration

What do you do?
“As the outreach coordinator, I’m part recruiter, part adviser, and part alumni connector for the graduate programs in the College of Business and Public Administration.”

What’s something you’re currently working on?
“Most people feel an affinity with their undergrad but maybe not their graduate school institution if they’re pursuing it part time. So we do semester kickoffs and events to tie them all together across the four grad programs in the CBPA. We do an annual networking event, and we also started the CBPA graduate association—of which I’m the co-adviser—that is made of students and led by students.”

Why do you do what you do?
“When I went to school, it wasn’t a matter of whether I was going to college, it was a question of where. I knew that I wanted to do something with nontraditional aged-students because both my husband and my mom went back as nontraditional students. While they had good jobs and worked hard, once they got their degrees, it was like boom, their career kind of exploded. I thought, ‘I want to be part of that and help those people.’”

“When you see the names of people that are graduating … it’s rewarding to see you can change somebody’s life by just having a conversation with them and telling them what the advantages of our programs are.”