Name: Mary-David Fox
Job title: Assistant to the vice president of student affairs and student ombudsman

Background: Native of Beaufort; bachelor of arts degree in English, 1986, and master's degree in education administration, 2005, both from USC; assistant manager, Faculty House, 1978-81; scheduler, Department of Space Utilization and Classroom Scheduling, Office of the Registrar, Columbia, 1981-1983; registrar, USC Beaufort, 1993-2004; named assistant to the vice president of student affairs and student ombudsman in 2004.

Family: Married to Mark Fox, technician with First Vehicle Services, Columbia; two grown stepsons, Steven, 40; and Rodney, 38.

Describe your job. I'm a troubleshooter. A lot of what I do is communicating with students and their parents about problems they might be having at the University. It might be a frustrated parent who is not getting answers about an academic or non-academic issue a child is dealing with on campus, or it might be a student who is having difficulty with something else. I try to help them understand what they need to do to solve the problem. Sometimes I'll intercede and call an office to find out what's going on and then will get back with the parent or student to work through the difficulty.

Do you have more students or more parents coming to you for help? I would say it's about 50-50. And sometimes faculty or other staff members will refer students to me.

Given the nature of this work, is there any such thing as a typical day on the job? Some days are calm, cool, and collected and other days are Katie Bar The Door. On one recent day it was totally quiet until 3:30 p.m. and then until 5:20 it was one call after another with different problems. Some of the things the students see as problems we realize aren't really problems, but we still have to help individuals deal with them.

What's the most unusual case you've ever worked on? I had a parent who called me several times during the semester to let me know her daughter was having personal problems that were affecting her academic work. The parent eventually decided to take the student home and when I agreed with her that she needed to help the student get better so she could come back to school later, the parent told me my counsel had made her decision easier. She appreciated that someone cared enough to put the student's welfare above everything else. Her husband also called with a word of appreciation for supporting his wife.

What jobs skills do you have to draw on most often? Counseling, listening, and reading between the lines to analyze and figure out hidden problems that might be bothering people. I've always liked helping students solve their problems while realizing they can solve most of their problems themselves. It often boils down to just nudging them in the right direction.

How do you unwind? I like to play tennis, ride my bike, read romances and mysteries, and spend time with my husband.

Do you like this work? I love it because I have always felt at home in an academic environment and have always felt the atmosphere at the University feeds me psychologically and emotionally. I feel more alive here and more like I'm doing something that matters. There's energy on campus that comes from the faculty, staff, and students that you don't find at a lot of other places. The people here enjoy what they're doing and they're stimulating each other to learn and to grow.

3/06