By Jecko Arreglo and Karsten Widener
Jeanni Winston-Muir, Executive Director of Student Leadership and Engagement, retired on February 28th, after 35 years at FCC.
Instrumental in developing campus life at the College, Winston-Muir also served as Interim Dean of Students and as the Interim Associate Vice President. After a long career, she reflected on her long successful career and her favorite moments over the years.
When she started at FCC in the ‘90s, she began as a college activity specialist, prioritizing the development of campus life for students. In 1999, the Conference Center opened, mainly intended as a focused environment for meetings and conferences. However, the Student Government Association (SGA) and vocal students wanted a casual space for their everyday interests.
At the time, however, a “home base” for students did not exist yet. To solve this problem, Winston-Muir advocated for the construction of the Student Center.
“I felt it was so important for students to have a space that they could call their own,” Winston-Muir said. “[T]hey would have rooms available to them for events and activities, where you could have casual spaces and study lounges, vending and food options under a roof that students called ‘like their net.’”
Year after year, and after accumulating sufficient capital, the Student Center opened in 2009.
“[B]ecause of timing and because of some real creative ways of looking at engagement, [the Student Center] got put on the capital project plan and then built, so it was really cool,” Winston-Muir continued.
When Winston-Muir’s career at FCC began, there were only three student organizations: the SGA, International Honors Society Phi Theta Kappa (PTK), and the student-run College Activities Board, which was tasked to help program and fund social events for students.
Over the years, the efforts from the activities board under Winston-Muir’s supervision helped student life grow from two to around forty-five clubs and organizations today. Presently, as the diversity of the student body increases, the Student Center’s utility will continue to be relevant in the years to come.
In addition to her role in bringing the Student Center to life, she helped develop co-curricular learning at FCC.
“We had an independent documentary filmmaker and media studies scholar from the University of Iowa who came in, and his expertise was in talking about owning culture and freedom of expression,” Winston-Muir said. “We brought him to campus, and faculty in media studies and communications in arts brought their classes to the event.”
Various specialists ranging from artists to scientists created presentations that could fill up the JBK theater with 400 students from different classes.
“[At the time] that was like virtually everybody,” Winston-Muir continued. “And the really cool thing about it is when students would come from all the different classes, they would write about the experience as part of a classroom assignment and they would say how that lecturer related to what they were learning in the classroom.”
Co-curricular programs are events outside of class work that help expose students to various fields and cultivate a sense of curiosity and interest in an organic manner.
“Another way that I learned so much about students was what students were sharing about what they took from certain speakers, and it was fascinating,” she said. “You could read those papers forever. Faculty loved it. It made classroom assignments really exciting.”
While she found the development campus life to be an exciting endeavor, the most special moments for her were the student events. She mentioned how meaningful it was to watch students from all walks of life, some facing major economic and emotional struggles, grow through their experience at FCC.
“Every year that’s the big thing you look forward to,” Winston-Muir said. “Hundreds of them a year where I see a student that comes in with no confidence and then leaves having done something so special that it’s noted in an award ceremony…those are the banner moments.”
Jeanni has one final remark that she hopes current and incoming students carry with them through their academic career and beyond: “Have confidence in yourself.”
