Pictured is Valerie Lynch, Vice President of Student Services. Photo by Tanatswa Mutamira.
Valerie Lynch, the Vice President of Student Services at Lake Land College, has navigated a dynamic career path dedicated to student success. Beginning her journey as a teacher of dance, drama, and reading in Springfield, Illinois, she soon discovered her passion for education and commitment to students’ well-being.
Valerie is a mother of two boys and a dog and lives in Pana, Illinois, which is an hour’s drive away from Lake Land College. She has been working for Lake Land College since 2006, which is nearly two decades now. She is the vice president of student services, and part of her job is to support student units to ensure that they have everything they need to function properly. Student services is an umbrella term that includes financial aid, admissions and records, career services, counseling services, mental health, physical health, food pantry, the trio program, student life, tutoring and testing, marketing and public relations, international studies, and athletics. How did she get here?
She graduated from Lake Land College in 1999 with a major in elementary education and then transferred to Eastern to get a bachelor’s degree in the same field. Her first teaching job was in Springfield, where she taught dance, drama, and reading for a few years. Later, she went back to school to get her special education degree to work with children with special needs. She then worked for Mid-State Special Education for three years teaching elementary education.
In 2006, she saw an advertisement in the newspaper for the trio program, which Lake Land College had not started yet. She signed up to be the person to help start-up that branch. Her role was to work with students with lower income or those who were the first generation in their family to attend college. She helped them figure out what they wanted to do, work on careers, where they wanted to go for college, study skills, etc. She worked in the trio program for about 5 to 6 years and, during that time, she went back to school to get her master’s degree in student affairs. She realized that she loved working in higher education and would love to continue doing that and have more job opportunities if she had a master’s degree. She went to Indiana State University while still working at Trio full-time and finished her degree in student affairs and higher education.
In 2011, a job opening for a director of student life came up, so she made a jump from Trio to director of student life. She worked in student life for almost 11 years. It was a fun job for her as she really enjoyed working with Student Government Association (SGA), Student Activity Board (SAB), The National Society of Leadership and Success (NSLS), and the Navigator students. At the time, she also oversaw intramurals and was overseeing the cheerleading budget, but that has moved to the athletics department completely. Then the pandemic hit, and she reflected and thought she wanted to get a doctorate and saw it as an opportunity to achieve that. She started her doctorate degree in August of 2020. She found it hard to do student life activities at home, so they got creative and would do events on Zoom and do craft activities where they would mail people the materials to work with. It took her two years and eight months to get her doctorate.
During the first six months of starting her doctoral program, the position of interim vice president of student services came open. They wanted to hire someone temporarily and see how it would work out. She gave it a go for the experience and got the job. It was a big change for her, and she was an intern for one year. The next year, she was evaluated and the board approved her to be the permanent full-time vice president.
Valerie’s story is a narrative of resilience, innovation, and a profound belief in the transformative power of education.
