{"id":13789,"date":"2016-09-12T09:57:24","date_gmt":"2016-09-12T14:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=13789"},"modified":"2016-09-12T09:57:24","modified_gmt":"2016-09-12T14:57:24","slug":"unsung-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2016\/09\/12\/unsung-heroes\/","title":{"rendered":"Unsung Heroes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0An Administrative Assistant never lives the same day more than once. Lora Bowling, the administrative assistant for the Humanities Department said that there is always typical office work to take care of such as responding to emails, phone calls and preparing faculty work, but the students seem to always keep her busy with different tasks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cWhen I interact with students, I try to make it the best possible experience they can have. Most of the time when students come into the office they are distressed because they aren\u2019t sure if they are taking the right class, or they are frustrated because they don\u2019t believe a teacher is working with them, so you can get many different student problems every day,\u201d said Valerie Mayfield, the Administrative Assistant of the Psychology and African American Studies department.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"valerie-mayfield\"
Valerie Mayfield, Administrative Assistant for Psychology and African American studies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Mayfield and Bowling both agreed that they often play the role of the mediator between the teacher and the student. Mayfield said that when a student enters the office, the first step is usually to calm them down, identify the issue and then troubleshoot.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cI try to figure out what is really going on with the student and teacher. I enjoy it because I am a problem solving kind of person, it can feel kind of like detective work,\u201d Mayfield said. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Some of the responsibilities administrative assistants deal with are making sure students get the right textbook, that students are being graded fairly, teachers are following protocol and helping students get into closed classes. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Mayfield said that the hardest part of being an assistant is when she has to turns students down for something that they may need for their education.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cWhen you have to say no to what a student is asking for, but you understand their situation. I want to be able to fix everything, I want people to feel good, but at the end of the day there are things I have to follow,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cIt is hard to tell a student we cannot add them to an already full class. I know they need the class however we have safety policies,\u201d said Carey Brown, the administrative assistant of the Biology department. Despite the potential \u201cno\u201d you could hear from an Administrative Assistant, they work incredibly hard to help you in any way they are capable of.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"lora-bowling\"
Lora Bowling, Administrative Assistant for the Humanities Department<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cAdministrative Assistants play the frontline of the department. We become advocates for the students a lot of the time.\u201d \u00a0An Administrative Assistant also does their best to keep the issue in the office, so it can be resolved thoroughly and quickly for the convenience of everyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Brown said her job is challenging and rewarding. When asked what the best part of her job was Brown said, \u201cEverything\u2026 I wouldn\u2019t trade this job for anything. I work for a wonderful department and enjoy coming to work each day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Now that Fall semester has started, all too many issues can arise with teachers, scheduling, textbooks and grading. You can get help from an Administrative Assistant, just go onto <\/span>https:\/\/www.sinclair.edu\/academics\/divisions\/<\/span><\/a> and find the Administrative Assistant that belongs to the department of your major or class subject. Walk-ins are accepted, but be mindful of their office hours.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hannah Hamlin<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0An Administrative Assistant never lives the same day more than once. Lora Bowling, the administrative assistant for the Humanities Department said that there is always typical office work to take care of such as responding to emails, phone calls and preparing faculty work, but the students seem to always keep her busy with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1440,1439,1418,944,595,1438],"class_list":["post-13789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-administrative-assistants","tag-african-american-studies","tag-campus-life","tag-humanities","tag-psychology","tag-spotlight"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-3Ap","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13791,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13789\/revisions\/13791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}