Photo by Doug Prince,
UNH Photo Services

Every once in a while you get to come across someone who is a perfect fit for their position. Not simply someone who is qualified to handle the responsibilities of the job, but someone who has all that and much, much more. Amanda Powell is just that type of person.

Amanda grew up in a 'typical' Italian-American family in northeastern New Jersey - primarily working-class. With no aspirations for higher education, she dropped out of high school at age 16, but later went on to acquire her GED and began taking classes part-time at Montclair State University at the age of 23. In 1993, she moved to New Hampshire as a full-time English major at UNH and in 1997 participated in the UNH McNair Program, completing a research project on women filmmakers. After graduating cum laude in 1998 with a B.A. in English, Amanda joined the McNair staff as Peer Advisor for the summer program and was hired later that year as a Program Support Assistant. "I was a participant in the McNair Program back in 1997 and hung out in the office so much they eventually hired me!" she jokes. In 2001, Amanda completed her M.A. in English Writing and was promoted to her present position of Coordinator/Advisor.

"My primary duty is to advise and council our undergraduate participants in all matters relating to their aspirations to graduate and doctoral studies," Powell says. "I also teach an 'Intro to McNair' course and a workshop devoted to the graduate school application process. In the fall I travel a bit to colleges and universities in New England (URI, Keene State College, UNH-Manchester, Westfield State, and Brandeis University) to recruit for our summer program. During the 8-week summer program, I'm basically in charge of keeping everyone in line - it can get a bit crazy but the students are usually very sweet and a lot of fun." Who better to "thoroughly understand the obstacles that face low-income/first-generation and underrepresented students, as well as the ability to assess each individual's needs and goals" than someone who came from a similar background and situation? "I also need to be knowledgeable regarding the ever-growing fields of graduate/doctoral study and the credentials students must acquire in order to be admitted to appropriate graduate programs around the country," she states.

When speaking with Amanda it is extremely evident that the experiences she had, and the professors she met, while a student at UNH greatly shaped her current career goals. "I never wanted to graduate," she explains. "I wanted to take classes forever! I grew up in a family where nobody had ever gone to college and I was now involved in a community with all of these great writers and teachers. The professors I had as an undergraduate and graduate student in the UNH English Department - folks like James Krasner, Charlie Simic, Mekeel McBride, and Lisa MacFarlane, to name a few, not only helped to feed and shape my love of literature and writing, they taught me how to see and write about all the peculiar and beautiful secrets hidden in books and in our everyday lives."

"Bachelor Degree's are becoming much more common place," Powell explains. "Students are beginning to see that graduate degrees are tremendously helpful in gaining employment down the road. Many of the students we get have issues like money, stress from their families to finish college and get a job right away, etc. We try to help the students educate their families as to the importance of the graduate degree. Once they're in the program we help them define their needs and objectives. We're all about getting students where they want to go and helping them achieve their goals.

A Dover, NH resident, Amanda has 2 cats (Mina and Murray) and enjoys knitting, going to the beach, and "trying to keep up with the yard work." She has a lifelong interest in cinema, and says "I'm a movie buff, but I'm very, very picky as to what I watch. For the past year, I have developed an obsession for films made in Spain and various South American countries. Their context of film-making is very different. Even when they tell the exact same stories that American films are portraying they do it in a much more honest manner. They're not always trying to sell something. In the near future I hope to take some Spanish classes so I don't have to rely on subtitles anymore."