Last semester I met with Dr. Angela Lindner in the Office of the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs office in Tigert, which she has definitely made her own. From the tasteful pillows to the bowl of single serve prunes (not to be mistaken for candy) the office felt inviting. In an open and candid manner, she answered the following questions.
For me, as a book nerd, I want to know first – Who is your favorite author? Any particular book from them?
Oh my gosh, that’s too complicated! Because I read a lot. I will just say I have different categories or buckets. I was an avid reader of fiction, and I still love fiction, but I’m not reading it as much now. I’m just blanking on his name*, but he wrote “A Lesson Before Dying”. He is my go to, and I’ll pick up his books a good bit. And of course, “To Kill a Mockingbird” is my favorite book of all time. I have not read the sequel yet, or the prequel, but that’s on my list for Christmas. *The author is Ernest J. Gaines.
From another perspective, I am a big fan of Parker Palmer. If I’m looking at leadership or spirituality or interweaving the work that I do with the higher meaning, Parker Palmer is fantastic. Richard Rohr is another that I read a lot. The list can go on and on but right now I’m focusing a lot on interweaving the greater purpose in our lives and how this is incorporated into our work.
If you could do anything at all, what would your perfect day look like?
Wow, that’s not easy. I’ll tell you what it would include. It would include a really good workout at the YMCA with my good friends. I have to call that my fourth place – I have home, work, church and I have the YMCA. It would include very good interaction with undergraduate students. It has to have some type of interaction. I am selfish in the sense that I try to work in some meeting or meaningful interaction with undergraduate students every day. As a reminder of why I’m here, what my purpose is. It would include a little bit of art. I do mosaic art and on my days off I’ll carve out time to do art or play the piano. Those are my peaceful activities. It would also include prayer. Absolutely. Every day is that. I think in the middle of that it shows you that I’m multitasking even on my days off.
How would your friends describe you?
Ok, so I’ve got some good friends. How do they describe me? Very active. “Sit down!” is a common refrain. Playful. Mischievous. I like playing pranks on people. Sometimes fierce. It doesn’t come out much but there are times when that does come out, when the values that I believe in should be upheld. These are actual words that friends have used, I’m not making them up!
What’s one thing that UF undergraduates need to learn, but aren’t? That they should be learning but aren’t right now?
We hear a lot about of talk about the lack of communication skills. I think that that may be true to the extent of writing. I think what makes our University of Florida students so unique is that I believe that, at least in my interactions with most of the students, that their speaking skills as they progress through their discipline are honed quite well. We have good communicators in that regard. I think it is related in part to the largeness of the university, so you have to survive, and to survive you’ve got to communicate. Writing skills I think we can always improve, and texting doesn’t help in that regard.
I think at a more philosophical level, where I am most concerned about our undergraduate students is their not having as much of a premium on human to human interaction. I think that they’ve grown up in an age of electronics, so they are defining who their friends are much more liberally than previous generations. So, I worry about their deeper connections with each other. And part of the reason is that any discipline, any major on campus, if we don’t learn to have a feeling for other humans, we’re irrelevant. My objective is to engage students in that way – develop programs and encourage students to engage in the human to human level. We will lose this quickly as more and more of our courses become online. That doesn’t meant that online courses are bad, it just means that we need to be cautious about what’s left behind and then how to conserve that.
Ask any faculty member- fewer and fewer students come to office hours. That’s one tangible sign that they don’t value that connection as previous generations have. I’ll just say that the greatest influence that students have is interacting with faculty outside of the classroom. Most of what we learn is caught and not taught, and how you catch things is that basic human to human interaction – with mentors, with good friends. They keep us straight. So I think from that more philosophical basis that’s a concern that I have.
This article is going to reach advisors in every college and program, all across campus. Is there anything else you want us (The UF Advising community) to know about you?
Well, I’ve come out of the College of Engineering, and so I encourage the other advisors in other colleges to talk to the Engineering advisors, and believe me, they’ll tell you the truth, they know how I interact with advisors. My belief is advisors play the most critical role in retaining students here on this campus. Advisors are at the front line of working with students. This is an obvious statement, but I think it’s often the case that advisors forget this. From Day 1 all the way through to graduation, the advisor is the only common thread to which students can grasp through their entire time here. I think it’s often the case that students forget this. We need to remind them.
What I would like advisors to know is that we value deeply the work of advising. Advisors, like any other administrators on this campus, are here to serve. That’s a reminder to advisors. We are here to serve the student and not self. I say this to myself every morning when I come in. We need to be in a place of humility to be able to work with the students, not only in their victories but also, most especially, in their vulnerabilities. My hope is in that taking on this role and working with advisors across campus, we can all remind ourselves of this tremendous value of advising.
Where I hope we can go is towards finding a means of working together, building consensus, and assessing advising. [Assessing advising] is for the primary purpose of being able to show first ourselves and then the rest of the campus community, especially the students, that tremendous value of advising. So we need to focus inward into our good work and then assess where we are at and be honest with ourselves. Where are we in terms of advising, where do we need to go, and where are we in terms of those stronger outcomes that ideally we are all working together to make? What do we want to be the outcomes of our good work in serving the students? That will be the question I have for advisors – what’s the positive outcome of work well done by advisors? Again, talk to the engineering advisors – they can help you sift through that. But that’s where I sit today.
Thank you so much for sitting down with me. This was really informative, illuminating.
Mary Kate Meese
Web Developer, Dual Enrollment Coordinator and Advisor
Office of the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs
mkmeese@cpet.ufl.edu
The UF Advisor 
Nice job with this interview and article Katie!
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