Student Services here at Lake Land welcomed Valerie Lynch as the new Vice President in mid-October. She is very student oriented and really excited to continue to help students here at Lake Land.

Lynch is a Lake Land College alumni that graduated in 1999. She has two sons, one of which is also a Lake Land alumni. Lynch started working with kids in a K-12 setting as a Special-Ed teacher. After that, she started working for the TRiO Talent Search Program in 2006 and has worked for the college ever since.

“It was through all of that experience that it just kind of was the logical progression after I had spent 15 years at the college,” says Lynch. After being involved with Lake Land College for over 15 years, she felt that it was the right time to take the position as Vice President. 

She is now continuing her education. “I am in a Doctoral program right now in Higher Ed Administration and Leadership. So when the position became available about a year or so ago as an interim position, I thought ‘I might as well try!’ because it’s something I had as a goal eventually.” Lynch jumped at this opportunity even though she is still in school to get her Doctorate. 

It’s been a little over a year since she got the position as Interim Vice President of Student Services. As of Monday, October 18, she will no longer be interim and will have the position full time! For the first six months of the position, the previous Student Services Vice President, Dr. Tina Stovall, came out of retirement to help Lynch transition to the position. “She was kind enough to come back and help that transition and came out of retirement to help me. So I’m feeling pretty good about the new position,” says Lynch.

Lynch states that “there’s a lot of things that we’ve been planning. One of the things we’re working on is implementation of a new software called Navigate,” says Lynch. This is very “student-oriented” and will be there to help students with college. In about eighteen months, this new student success tool will hopefully be available. Her goals are to improve student enrollment and keep the students that Lake Land already has. 

Lynch is a very student-oriented person. She is excited about her new position and can’t wait to see how things turn out over the coming years. She is an advocate for community colleges, as she went to one and really enjoyed her time there. We can’t wait to see what Valerie does here as the Vice President of Student Services!