BDP:DA&M indirectly shaped my life path more than nearly any other experience at UT Austin. It served to lead me to many other such experiences, and was itself eye-opening. The Bridging Disciplines Program is what made me an interdisciplinarian, and thus made me into the professional version of what I have always been at heart. I couldn’t be more grateful for that.
Read below for details on my acceptance to, work in, and completion of the certificate.
The University of Texas at Austin’s yearbook, the Cactus, was a great way for me to return to my roots. At my high school in Marcellus, New York, I was the editor and nearly sole contributor to my senior year’s version of the yearbook. I will have to make a post on that soon as it was really a work of art.
For now though I will just discuss my job in the Cactus copywriting department. In Fall 2016, I wrote 8 articles. Each was presented as an idea, approved, and given a week-long deadline. None were submitted late, nor have any yet required editing despite going through at least two levels of revisions. I had to do research and some journalistic inquiring for each, but it was all very rewarding!
My essays to date are all linked here (Fall Commencement and Soccer Recap will be either added here later or in a later post):
I joined the Minutemen Creatives in Fall 2016. We are a UT Austin group that supplies logo designs for other organizations on campus. We are in fact a free version of an actual advertising agency.
STSP Account:
I was assigned to the Surgical Techniques and Skills Program account first, with our group lead Meredith Groom. We were told to come up with some designs based on the initial creative brief and present them at the next meeting. Here were mine:
After a series of group discussions and revisions we were told to refine our approach and repeat the process. My next submission was the following picture:
Among the other group members who submitted during this round of evaluations, mine received by far the most praise. It was then shown to the organization at large, who had very few critiques. This was then sent back to the account, which responded with “Thanks so much for the designs! We really like the first and third rows in the first paper [he’s referring to Rebekah’s sheet of diamond designs here] as well as the computer generated one [not mine], although we’d prefer if the logo were slightly wider.”
It has been a long process, but I’m excited to start actually designing digitally now that the client has narrowed down their options!
On December 1st, 2016, I was officially inducted into the NRHH of UT Austin. A prestigious society that accepts only the top 1% of students (with a membership cap of 80 out of a 55,000 student university) and requires a semester-long apprenticeship, their page can be found here.
To become an active member, I first had to fill out an application online with essay components. I was then invited to an interview, and finally to one of the general meetings, where I was selected to be a Chair for the Recognition Committee despite my lowly “mentee” status. I was also assigned a mentor, Jesus. To be inducted, I had to attend the rest of the general and committee meetings for the semester, complete 5 service hours (two with Jesus, providing hot chocolate at the Duren Winterfest December 2nd; and six providing directions and crowd control at the Jester East elevators, way back during Mooov-In Weekend, as part of a requirement as a Leadership Week 2016 attendee), present a Powtoon made of the pillars of NRHH (service and recognition) at the ceremony with the help of two other mentees–Lola and Murphy–and write an Of The Month essay for November, shown below.
We newly inducted members were awarded a plaque, a pin, a certificate, and the promise of graduation cords.
My other work in this organization so far has included the production of a new event to be held in the Spring 2016 semester. It will be a month in appreciation of the janitorial staff/building attendants: JAM or BAAM. There has also been a myriad of other minor things that are too many to list out even in a blog. For example, my monthly OTMs (visible by choosing “Nominator is Rebekah Mullins” and searching here, then ignoring the one from Texas Tech).
My work in NRHH has been frequently recognized since induction.Â
In January 2017, I was nominated for an OTM and won as best Executive Board Member across the entire campus of 55,000. Read my successful nomination below or at this link.
Rebekah is one of the Public Relations Officers for the Jester East Residence Hall Council (RHC) for the current academic year, and the words that come to mind when describing her tireless efforts (and those of the RHC officers in general) are dedicated, passionate and outstanding. From organizing and leading meetings with our floor representatives, to publishing weekly newsletters highlighting events at Jester East and around campus, Rebekah continuously shows great initiative and leads by example. By updating the entire Jester community about events happening at Jester East through social media such as Facebook in addition to her officer duties, she exceeds the expectations of her role in RHC to help residents feel more welcome in the hall. Rebekah’s commitment to improve residence life and initiatives to keep Jester East residents more involved in residence hall events are only a few examples of her selfless efforts, all for the benefit of the residents. Even since the beginning of the current Spring semester, Rebekah undertook the task of keeping Jester East residents updated about future events through the newsletters. In addition to her excellent contributions to RHC, Rebekah is also an active member of NRHH and successfully balances her schedule in an organized way to fulfill her commitments, making her efforts one of the integral parts of a successful year as a Residence Hall Council at Jester East.
Special thanks to Mounika for that commendation.
One month later in February 2017, my OTM for Jester East 6th Floor (a hotspot for reslife work and community) was also chosen as a campus winner.
In March 2017, I was given a mentee to train and prepare for induction. This was a great honor considering my relative lack of experience, as my own induction was only a few months before. I made myself available for Amanda’s questions, showed her how to submit OTMs and the rest of what I mentioned above as my own requirements, and performed service hours with her at the on-campus live music/food truck event Duren City Limits. It was a proud moment to witness her induction in May.
I also had the privilege of serving on the Alys Bodoin Scholarship Committee for some of my service hours. The award went to a deserving student living on campus and involved in residency leadership roles. When I entered my second year of college and became involved in organizations like the NRHH, my entire outlook changed and I became exponentially more inspired and productive. As such, this particular path holds great meaning for me, and it was an honor to choose a worthy student and reward them for making similar choices to better their lives and the lives of others.
While I was away studying in Mexico City and Queretaro during the Fall 2017 semester, I received word of another of my OTMs (about a wonderful program I had helped plan, promote, and host) becoming a regional winner. Read it here.
When I returned for the Spring 2018 semester, I was able to continue in the organization thanks to a new constitution allowing off-campus residents to participate. Just a few meetings in I was elected as the new Special Events and Social Media Coordinator. My new duties as a member of the executive board involve updating our website and all social media profiles, as well as promoting the events I help find and plan. While a lot of independent work is required, especially in design and planning capacities highly related to my career, much of this also involves in-depth discussion with not only my team but high-ranking faculty. It’s an honor and a challenge to be sure.
The culmination of my reslife experience was attendance at the 2018 NACURH (National Association of College and University Residence Halls) conference, a gathering of hundreds of schools and their delegate teams from Canada to Mexico. There, we attended lectures hosted from students and professionals to gain ideas to bring home for events, org expansion, and more.
My representative position those three days at Arizona State University was as The University of Texas at Austin’s NRHH (National Residence Hall Honorary) Rep. In this capacity, I skipped a few of the lecture slots on days 2 and 3 to instead attend higher-up meetings where we voted officially on next steps for the entire organization.
While this conference was incredibly fun–what with SWACURH’s (our region) joint dance at the closing ceremonies and giant rubber duck mascot, activities such as late-night drag shows and early-morning hikes, and lots of branded swag–it was also an example of the huge happenings UT NRHH has helped me attend. Pictures are included on the cover slide of the presentation in the following section.
My role in my senior year took on a distinctly mentor-like quality. I created the presentation above and showed it to the new recruits I helped get, then did my very best to be the welcoming and educational influence that made them want to stay in our organization that had in the past year lost so many of its members to graduation.
Beyond that role and my work on a new Constitution (and taking minutes at our General and Executive meetings) as the External Vice President, I will be stepping back in my final semester to work on other commitments and allow new leaders to stretch their wings in my place. It has been an honor and a pleasure, but it’s almost time to move on.
In Fall 2016 at the University of Texas at Austin, I was elected Public Relations Officer of the Jester East Residence Hall Council. My duties were initially fairly simply: requiring weekly Officer Meetings, biweekly General Meetings, biannual University Residence Hall Association meetings, and the creation and posting (physically and digitally) of various flyers/posters/cards for events around the Residence Hall.
However, I decided to add another duty that became wildly successful after the first week and will continue to be a Jester East tradition: a weekly publication of all the events/deadlines/happenings around Jester East and campus. As a Jester East resident I knew what residents wanted to know (and that they wanted to know it succinctly, not in a thousand posters on a bulletin board in a busy hallway), and as a Jester East Officer I had the opportunity to interview representatives from various organizations to learn what events were coming up, as well as access to a supply room and printer room.
I have since been complimented on multiple occasions by residents who claim they love reading my newsletter, as well as gotten the green light by management and my immediate peers and superiors. Perhaps best of all, the Complex Coordinator overseeing Jester East gave me exclusive permission to post the physical copies of my newsletter not only one each floor and around the lobby, but within the elevators. I currently create the only publication allowed this honor and was asked to take down anyone else’s work in the elevators if I see it while putting up mine.
Leading 20 Floor Representatives
As Public Relations Officer of the second largest of 14 on-campus dorms, I was put completely in charge of the 20 Floor Representatives (there are two per floor and they primarily serve to build a sense of community on theirs). I was responsible for all of their work at Jester East, and allowed to delegate various tasks to them. To manage this, I held roughly bimonthly meetings and utilized GroupMe for notifications on the status of each task. 20 was too many to personally handle daily on top of my other duties, so I created the position of Head Floor Rep and bestowed it upon the two most worthy applicants.
Unfortunately, while they by-and-large attended my brief but informative meetings and responded in the chat, I was facing a low success rate on task completion for awhile. For example, I would find that days after I asked them to hang up a few of my newsletters on their respective floors, I would find a stack still remaining on the front desk. To fix this, I held a meeting and responded personally to each of their reasons for slacking. I then held them more accountable for future tasks by creating a quick sign in sheet to leave beside stacks of flyers to hang up, asking for them to signature beside their name to indicate they hung up the required number that day. I also encouraged them to take further responsibility by offering to hold a party for the most consistently helpful reps, making the sign in sheet an opportunity to earn pizza at the end of the year rather than a punishment meted out by a distrustful overseer.
Sadly, this group faced other problems over the year. One of the Head Floor Reps became frustrated with low turnout rates and became a little too overbearing in the chat, prompting complaints through email. I spoke to her to ensure a softer touch in the future, and held another meeting to address the issue with the rest of the floor reps and make sure they were okay with the new arrangement. We also faced recruitment problems; although Jester East is a large building with many residents, most are not easily convinced to contribute. To solve this problem and meet our required number of reps, I personally tabled in the lobby, handing out shirts and rapidly reciting a quick elevator speech about the benefits of signing on–then pointing them to my newsletters for my email to apply, successfully promoting two things at once. Thankfully this had a good effect and we gained multiple new hardworking reps from the event.
Before I took over, I don’t believe floor reps were ever used to their full potential. In fact, in the year before I joined the Residence Hall Council, I hadn’t even heard of their existence. Their duties were simply to hang up the flyers that the Public Relations Officer created. First I just added my newsletter to the mix, but I quickly realized what a wasted resource they were. To begin, as part of a campaign I helped initiate to improve residents’ attendance at our General Meetings every other week, I included in my newsletter that at the end of each month the floor with the most attendees (we kept track at each meeting with sign in sheets) would win a party. I then placed floor reps in charge of these parties, helping them fill out event planners to request funds and assisting with the planning and execution of the details of their actual event. This helped promote the community-building throughout floors that I felt floor reps were really about (not just hanging posters). Another way I achieved this goal was getting floor reps in contact with the Resident Assistants on their floors and getting permission for them to send emails about events coming up for the residence hall. This ensured more personal emails for each floor that helped improve attendance at the events and raised the overall sense of family as these residents learned about and went to things together. Finally, I gave the floor reps some more interesting tasks on special occasions to increase their interest in volunteering with other events. For example, a few RHC-led events in April required large promotional banners to be made; I left this task to the more creative floor reps. Similarly, a new event was created for the end of the year called Floor Feuds, in which the floors could create teams to compete in a few festival-style challenges. I put reps in charge of these teams, to help lead and guide them.
Although leading a group of 20 busy college students was at times frustrating and discouraging, it was a very educational and rewarding experience in the end. I know my hard work and constant attention helped change the workings of their organization for the better, and I can proudly point to individual times on campus that I helped make a little better through it.
Other Duties
There were of course also uncountable meetings, late-night crises, and so much more. From leading events to attending seminars, it was a long and busy ride that taught me so much and made me feel for the first time like I belonged in the vast UT Austin network. For relevancy to my portfolio though I’ll try to keep those memories brief and instead just post some of the flyers I made throughout my reign in public relations.
