Close Up
Life at UB according to Jerry Godwin
Jerry Godwin shows his “roadmap” illustrating at a glance how a freshman navigates UB from acceptance through the first semester. Photo: NANCY J. PARISI
When student services advisor Jerry Godwin speaks, his voice is tinged with humor and a faint, almost imperceptible London accent. His words are thoughtful and enthusiastic. When he trains his camera on the shadows cast at Baird Point, or counsels a sophomore in the throes of class registration, that sense of wit and purpose carry through again.
“I’m a visual person, but also a linear thinker—I like to figure out the right process to ‘see’ a problem and solve it,” he says.
Godwin was born in England and has a master’s degree in college student personnel from Bowling Green State University. He has served UB for more than 20 years in various roles—as a hall director in residence life; as director of new student services in charge of all orientation programs on campus; and for the past decade, helping undecided students as a senior advisor in the Office of Student Advising Services (SAS).
In February, Godwin was asked to serve on the university-wide UB 2020 Student Services Transformation (SST) project. One of the SST team’s tasks has been to migrate the bulk of UB’s complex and disparate administrative systems in student services to PeopleSoft Solutions, a Web-based software platform that will modernize and integrate UB’s existing student-services systems, including academic advising, admissions, financial aid, grading and course registration. Godwin’s group within the larger SST team focuses on mapping out UB’s complicated course-registration process.
Godwin splits his time between advising freshmen, transfer and other new students in SAS’s bustling Norton Hall office and working at the SST headquarters—what he fondly calls “mission control”—in the former South library in the Ellicott Complex, not far from where he used to run student residential programs for Fargo Quad. “I feel like I’ve gone back, in a way, to learn the new information and move forward,” he says.
When he wears his SST hat, Godwin develops training modules to demonstrate PeopleSoft to UB staff members who originally were trained to use the older UB student information system (SIS). In each module there are “job aids,” or lists of instructions converted to PDFs, and each aid explains how to complete a discrete task. Once he creates a job aid, he tests it for accuracy and efficiency, and then posts it online for a user to access through the Web.
All legacy SIS systems eventually will be converted to the PeopleSoft platform, which will be phased in over the coming year. “It’s just cool stuff,” Godwin says of the transformation process—an experience he recommends to any UB employee. “It’s been a chance to see if I can think outside the box.”
Over the years, Godwin’s unofficial role at UB has been as a de facto documentarian. He takes pictures of people, places, events and countless sunsets on UB’s three campuses—anything that catches his eye.
He posts photos to a Flickr page called “UB as I see it.” Over the years, some of his images have been used to promote the university, while others have connected him to current students he advises or have resonated with alumni’s memories of school. “I guess I’m using social media in a way that sometimes blurs the professional and the personal,” he says.
An enthusiastic hockey fan, Godwin says his work gained further notice when he shot the Labatt pond hockey tournament on Lake Erie and posted the photos online. His most memorable photo request was a few years ago when Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown’s office called to request some images taken at Brown’s State of the City address.
Godwin’s online gallery goes back to when he used film; he has scanned many older photos of UB and life in Western New York. What he used to call a fascination with urban renewal is now an excitement fueled by signs of UB 2020’s progress—from the growing Downtown campus to the North Campus construction cranes at the new student residence hall and engineering building. “If there were one UB course I’d take, it would be Bob Shibley’s course on building Buffalo Niagara,” he says.
An avid hiker and “rambler,” Godwin is a long-time geography and history buff, who’s inspired by nature and influenced by British, Dutch and American landscape and seascape painters. He also enjoys keeping up with current events in Great Britain, America and Canada—he has family in Toronto.
This Renaissance approach to learning, Godwin believes, makes it easy for him to relate to the students he counsels. “Much like most advisors, I use my own interests and background as a component of the toolkit for advising students,” he says. “What we try to do here in SAS is help students learn how to be UB students—how to navigate the maze.”
These days, Godwin’s favorite activity outside work is navigating the world with his 5-year old son, Ian. They’re planning a trip to see the historic Welland Canal this summer. “Having a child changes everything,” he says. “When you see the world through their eyes, it looks entirely different.”
Reader Comments
Dalene M. Aylward says:
Jerry was one of the first people I met as a freshmen at UB in 1997, when he was working as Director of Orientation...I recall sorting through multiple office drawers full of photos for projects in Student Life! He is also one of the people who positively influenced my decision to work in higher education & why I am here today. UB is a better place (& we can see how beautiful it is) because of Jerry. So thank you!
Posted by Dalene M. Aylward, Prehealth Senior Academic Advisor, 04/15/10