A Day in the Life: Charlene Lobo Soriano, Assoc. Director, Academic Support Services

Today’s “A Day in the Life” is major.  Really.  You know how we profile university employees that our students may have heard of , to show what they do in their positions here at the university, and to highlight the many programs we have on campus?  Well, many of you may know the subject of today’s post, although you may not know you know her.  Why?  Because today we are revealing the identity of the person behind @itweetUSF! 

Yes, @itweetUSF, the most frequent tweeter for USF.  The one who inspired me to join twitter.  Who is she?  None other than Charlene Lobo Soriano, whose official title is the Associate Director of Academic Support Services, where she works with students and their families to ensure a successful first year of college and beyond.  Charlene has been at USF for 11 years.  She earned her BA in French from UC Davis, her MA in Counseling from San Francisco State, and her Ed.D in International and Multicultural Education from USF.  Here’s “A Day in the Life” of Charlene: March 31, 2011:

0720 Wake up…daughter wakes up and wants to play Dora Coloring games on the iPad.
0745 Read book and distribute potty prizes (she’s potty training!)
0800 Make breakfast
0840 Hit the pavement for commute
0900 Arrive in office
0915 Check tweets, send out weather report, and check work email. Consult with student assistant regarding day’s projects

Char working with a student assistant

0930 Walk out to car because I forgot something…always happens
0955 Meet with Shawn Calhoun (Gleeson Library), Alex Hochman (Career Services) to present to David Silver’s Golden Gate Park class in his absence
1015 Show class my awesome LinkedIn page as an example
1030 Do my song and dance about Stress and hope that it connects with students
1055 Tell class that I was once subject to dismissal in college. Ultimately, it gets better. Everything will be alright. And it was.
1115 Head back to office to get my gear for World’s Best Office Hours
1130 Start World’s Best Office Hours in the Cafeteria with some knitting, conversation and greetings to students. Update Twitter to let students know I’m here. Consume an banana and a pear. Fruit is good for you.

Charlene in the world's best office hours

1210 Watch the flash mob
1215 Teach students how  to bind off for knitting. This is particularly exciting because I taught them how to knit a few weeks ago!
1235 Get lunch (tofu, rice, edamame) Make epic decision to eat outside (I’m normally an indoors person)
1300 Meet with colleagues Alex Sciarappa and Tom Merrell (both of Student Disability Services) to eat outside Fromm. Discuss Frank Sinatra. Check tweets/personal email
1315 Review midterm grades for class today
1340 Take a deep breath. Sometimes people say things and don’t think about how that impacts the person who is receiving the message.
1410 Watched/Listened to The Oatlmean’s presentation on slideshare.net (http://www.slideshare.net/jessedee/viral-marketing-with-the-oatmeal-matthew-inman-sxsw)
1430 Headphones on to review information for lecture this afternoon. It’s on “self-discipline” and I question my own ability to be self-disciplined as I dig through my iTunes for the perfect song to get started

Char working hard

1500 Eat an apple.
1518 Testing software for class (polleverywhere.com)
1538 Discussed with coworkers whether or not it’s okay to eat expired Clif Bars (they were expired in March 2010; eaten just last week)
1600 Move car to Hayes Garage
1625 Catch up with students in class while setting up equipment (projector, laptop and clicker responder base)
1635 Commence lecture with acknowledgment that it is a nice day and I was going to try to finish in a reasonable amount of time so they can go outside and/or catch the Giants game

Charlene teaching... persistence is key!

1715 Wind up lecture
1725 Commute home
1800 Arrive home
1815 Pack up family into car to go to our new home and pick up the keys from our Realtor

New home owners!

1900 Get back to Old Home, fix dinner for family
1930 Downtime with family
2000 Begin wrestling match to put Little One to bed
2045 Read 4 books to Little One – while she sleeps I catch up with tweets and google reader (I have over 66 subscriptions and finish it off every night!)
2200 Catch up with husband about furniture and watch KTVU news
Somewhere around 2330 Hit the shower and get to bed!

Thanks, Charlene, for taking us through your day!  Isn’t it fun to see the woman behind the twitter account?  Charlene is a pro and one of my “twitter profs”!  You can also keep up with Charlene on her blog, “And so it begins…A blog about the first year at USF” here: http://blogs.usfca.edu/fyss/.  And you can find out more about Charlene’s office, First Year Student Services, here: http://www.usfca.edu/acadsupport/firstyear/