“Meet 220” is a series of posts featuring staff of the Smeal Professional Graduate Programs. “220” refers to the suite of offices within the Business Building where the team is housed.

Sarah Woodward, MBA and MOL Education Program Assistant, Professional Graduate Programs

What’s your role with the Smeal PGP office?

I am the Education Program Assistant for the Residential Masters Programs in Business Administration (MBA) and Residential Management and Organizational Leadership (MOL). My responsibilities include managing student records from year of entry through graduation and assisting with the coordination of course offerings. My position also gives me the opportunity to contribute to the development and planning of student focused activities, such as, the MBA student board elections and leadership immersion trips. Along with assisting in the coordination of co-curricular events I participate along with students at events such as, Diwali, Lunar New Year, and Talent No Talent.

What did you do prior to coming to Smeal?

Prior to coming to Smeal, I worked in The College of Health and Human Development for 14 years. I had a wide range of duties that included administration and student services.

What’s your favorite thing about your role?

My favorite thing about my role in Smeal is working in the LionPATH system. I enjoy the administrative detail that LionPATH requires and find it to be rewarding helping students with such an integral piece of their education, the curriculum. The Co-curricular work is rewarding and fun, I am looking forward to my first dance at Diwali with the students.

What’s the most interesting thing about you that we wouldn’t learn from your resume alone?

I played softball in youth organizations, high school, and college. Every year in June, I along with my brother, a history teacher at our high school assist with the coordination of a senior project, a weekend long co-ed softball tournament. Not only do I get to recruit teams and donate food for the concession stand, I get to play third base again for a weekend.

If you could trade places with any other person for a week, famous or not, living or dead, real or fictional, with whom would it be and why?

For one week I would like to trade places with any woman like me from the late 1960’s. More common today is working moms, which I have the good fortune of doing. I wonder if I would have had the strength to enter the workforce or go to college in the late 1960’s. Today I am grateful for my husband and I’s partnership on work/family balance.