Kate Lehman has always been fascinated by students’ college experiences and trying to find the sweet spot between academics and student affairs.
Her work has led her to places like Ohio State and Miami University and UCLA — where she earned her doctorate — before ultimately guiding her to the University of South Carolina as the next director of the National Resource Center.
“I think this is an opportunity for the National Resource Center as a center but also for me professionally to keep pushing forward on these issues around how we can make the first-year experience really excellent,” Lehman says. “Not just for students here at Carolina, but nationwide.”
As director, she’ll spearhead research on first-year experiences across the world and continue building on USC’s top-ranked first year experience in the country.
She’ll also work with the center to publish journals and books as well as host conferences for faculty and staff to learn more about improving the first-year experience.
How would you describe the National Resource Center and what it adds to USC?
Kate Lehman: The goal of the National Resource Center is to be a research-to-practice partnership. We have the number one first-year experience program in the United States. We want to take what we’re learning about best practices here and share that beyond the bounds of our university. Then in turn, we take what other universities share they are doing at our conferences, as well as what scholars and researchers are sharing in National Resource Center publications, and take that back to USC so we can continually build and improve.
As long as I have been aware of it, we've been at the top of the first-year experience ranking. It's not easy to stay there, and I think the center helps facilitate that by bringing in research so folks can put it into practice here. I think it should be a real feather in the cap of all of our alumni and all of our faculty and staff that the National Resource Center is situated here at USC. We really want folks to know who we are, what we do, and to engage with us so that we can be supportive of efforts here on campus.
How did working at schools like UCLA and Ohio State prepare you for your role at USC?
In all of these different universities the student populations are a little bit different. The challenges are a little bit different. But at the core the work is the same. At the core, the work is building relationships and teaching people to build relationships. I previously did a lot of work with faculty in computing fields and I often found that I was an evangelist for student affairs.
There's not a lot of training about student success and student support for faculty in STEM fields, so I often found myself in the position of saying to STEM faculty, ‘Have you talked to your residence life colleagues? Have you talked to your orientation team about how you can partner?’
There are folks who end up sort of siloed in different departments or different schools. Students succeed best when we can break down some of those barriers and build relationships across faculty, staff and students. And then we must also support others in building relationships: teach students how to build relationships so that they find their community; help faculty build relationships with their students. I think that's at the core of what we do.
What was it about the National Resource Center that attracted you to this role?
The history of the center is really interesting and valuable. USC President Thomas Jones and John Gardner helped invent the idea of a first-year experience with the establishment of U101. John took the success of U101 and shared it widely by establishing the first-year experience conference. The FYE conference ultimately led to the National Resource Center and is our flagship event still to this day.
For me, it’s that history and that place that Carolina holds in this conversation about how we help students have a really excellent first-year experience, which we know is transformative. The previous center director, Dr. Jennifer Keup, was another reason I wanted to come to the National Resource Center. Seeing what Jennifer had done, what an advocate she was in building the center's reputation nationally and internationally, was inspirational. I saw her at literally every conference. She was always speaking at conferences and bringing the research that was done here to share with other universities.
And finally, coming to the National Resource Center allows me to do something that's really important to me: research that can then be used to effect change. I saw the opportunity here to build on this foundation, this storied history, and to keep doing that work that really matters to me.
What are some long term goals you’d like to see the center reach?
I think there are some areas where we need to learn more. I think our student population is shifting. College student enrollment is expected to decline over the next few years.
That means retention becomes very important. I think this is already where USC is headed with the Carolina Experience. How do we make sure that it's not just their first-year experience that's exceptional, but every time point after that? I think a lot of college students experience this tremendous surge of energy in their first year. This has been studied for a long time, but there's this idea of the sophomore slump where things kind of fall off. We want to support our colleagues in providing resources and research around how we sustain that energy.
Where do we as an institution put our resources and energy? What's going to be the most effective and efficient way? Because you can't do everything. So what are the experiences that really seem to shape students’ trajectories? I'm also interested in making sure that anything that we do, we understand how it works for different groups of students.
Because we know that there are certain practices that may play out differently from students of different socioeconomic backgrounds or first-generation students or students from other different demographic groups. I want to make sure that we understand how anything that we're studying plays out for all students, so that everyone has the support they need to be really successful.
What’s your message to the Gamecock community?
I hope that they'll check out the National Resource Center. I feel like everyone knows about U101, and we're really proud to be affiliated with U101. We're one department, U101 and the National Resource Center. The center is widely known outside of the university, but I want to make sure that my new colleagues and all the students know that the center is also here to collaborate with and to learn with. And we're really excited to serve faculty, staff and students here as well as our colleagues beyond the university and around the world.