Sterling Terrain V02 - Flipbook - Page 44
42 | Sterling College
An Interview
with Barb Stuart
Director of Financial Aid &
a Sterling Constant
Interviewed By
Nakasi Fortune ‘20,
Director of Continuing Education
Let’s start with your history here at Sterling, can you tell us a bit about that?
Back in June of 1979, my mother came
home one day and said, “Sterling is
looking for someone to clean for the
summer.” So I said, why not? I set up a
meeting, and we had this very casual conversation in the lounge and then
asked, “Can you be here Monday?”
1979. That’s a long time ago.
A long time ago. At the end of that summer, they decided they would offer me a
full time job. For 11 years, I cleaned three
days a week as well as cooked. For the
last few years of that stretch I was also
the kitchen manager.
But what I really liked was working
during the summer for the maintenance
crew. We mowed lawns and dug burdock, scraped and painted buildings, and
cleaned the dorms. The variety of jobs
needing to be done made it fun. Then my
doctor said that I had developed tendinitis in both my arms and told me I needed
to change my profession.
At the same time, Sterling happened to
come up with what used to be called a
girl Friday position where you bounced
around to all the different offices that
needed help. I answered phones and
helped with mailings or filing or whatever needed done. Of course, back then
we had transcription machines – that
was always fun. I did that for a year or
two and ended up in admissions as the
office manager for several years where
I helped the then financial aid director
with logging their mail and filing, and I
started learning more about financial aid.
Photo: Mark Washburn
Sterling outsourced the financial aid
function to VSAC, and I was the liaison
between the students and VSAC for a
number of years. And then they decided
to bring financial aid back in so I had the
pleasure of setting it all back up again.
Wow. That was not fun, but it was an experience.
I thought you were going to say that it was
so fun to put all that knowledge and skill
to use…
After it was set up, it was okay. It was
just all the millions of little pieces that
needed to come together. At this point
I was named the Assistant Director of
Financial Aid; I managed IT until Mr. Ned
(aka Ned Houston) decided to retire, and
that is when I took over as the Director of
Financial Aid.
Barb, that is quite the progression from
summer employee to the role that you’re
currently in now. Learning skills across
so many departments. You truly are
multifaceted and multitalented. As it
pertains to the financial aid piece, what
has kept you inspired across all these
years?
I’ve been involved in some aspect of financial aid for 32 years. What keeps me
inspired is the students, working with
them and their parents and helping them
navigate all those forms they have to fill
out. I encourage them. College sounds
like a lot of money, but there are resources out there to make this affordable.
Financial aid is a very real part of the
student experience here at Sterling, in
addition to the federal student aid that
you facilitate, how does philanthropy fit
into this?
It absolutely does. It’s because of the
work of the development office. There
are some specialty scholarships that
are paid for by outside donors that make
it possible for many of our students to
attend college. So that is huge. And we
also have some students who work very
hard on their own and find their own
outside scholarship funding. So yeah,
philanthropy is a huge piece of this.
I can only imagine what percentage of
Sterling students receive financial aid.
Because of the Sterling grants we offer,
other federal, state, and local scholarships and our membership with the Work
College Consortium, we can proudly say
that nearly 100% of our students receive
some form of financial aid.
I don’t think a lot of other places can say
that. I’m certain that financial aid has
helped everybody who’s been a recipient.