Brittany Watros was promoted to student organization business coordinator in the Ithaca College Office of Student Engagement (OSE) on Oct. 31. She formerly held the role of administrative assistant in the OSE since July 2015.
Before joining the college, Watros worked as a banker at Citizens Bank in New York and a substance abuse prevention specialist at Community Prevention Services in North Carolina. As student organization business coordinator for OSE, Watros is responsible for helping student organizations with finances and budget allocations. She is also an advisor on the Student Governance Council’s Appropriations Committee.
Staff Writer Noa Ran-Ressler sat down with Watros to discuss her goals for student organizations on campus.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Noa Ran-Ressler: How did being an administrative assistant prepare you for the role of business coordinator?
Brittany Watros: Working in OSE, I do a lot of the same things that the student organization business coordinator does. That’s like reconciling credit cards, paying invoices [and] just working with financial services in general. … The basis of both of those types of positions is really all the financial transactions. … I have had seven years of that baseline knowledge and then my position as an admin has evolved over the years. … I had a lot of experience in the travel coordinating and all of those processes, which help with this position because part of this is student organization travel. Really just being the admin for OSE, I pretty much see everything that happens in this position [as business coordinator] all day long. It was a lot of inside knowledge.
NR: What are you most excited for in this new position?
BW: I am excited to work with the student leadership consultants in a different way. Normally, I sit out at the front desk with them and mentor them through the day-to-day Office of Student Engagement stuff. … I was like a daily mentor to the whole team, where now I get to work with them closer [in a] smaller group — there’s four of them that is a finance team — so really working more closely with them to better their co-curricular experience here, working in the office. It’s just a new way to interact with them.
NR: What are your goals as student organization business coordinator?
BW: My goals are to simplify some processes that have existed in the past to make all of this easier for both student [organizations] in general and for the student leadership consultants that are on my team. … Just really streamlining things so that things don’t feel like they are frustrating either to the students or to us here at the office. My goals are to work with other offices on campus to make things feel less stressful or frustrating and so that these processes can be more enjoyable.
NR: How will you include student perspectives in your work?
BW: A really cool part of this position is being able to advise the Student Governance Council Appropriations Committee. With that comes working with that committee and going to their allocations meeting every Wednesday night and really seeing all of the budget requests come in and working with them throughout that meeting. I think that that will be a great time to communicate with the students who are requesting budgets, but also the Appropriations Committee [get] to hear what students aren’t happy with or what could change, things like that. That will be a great place to get those answers. Me and my team will also do things like [the] Student Leadership Institute where we teach [organizations] and students how to utilize our office and the finance part. We can get a lot of input from the students about what’s confusing, what’s not and things like that. That will be another great place to talk with students. … If anyone has any questions or just wants to come and meet me … they can come up and meet me in OSE to ask questions or just get to know where we are so they can feel more comfortable with the finance aspect of their student [organization] because I know sometimes it can be a little daunting.
