While pursuing a double major in political science and criminal justice studies at Kent State, D’Andra Mull, ’02, M.A., Ph.D., was on her way to law school. But a conversation with her mentor, vice president emerita of enrollment management and student affairs, Nancy Scott, Ph.D., changed the trajectory of her career path.
“I went to talk to her after interning with an attorney and said to her, ‘I no longer want to go to law school and am considering what I want to do next,’” said D’Andra. “She asked me if I wanted to serve and how I want to spend my life engaging, and I told her I love what I do here.”
As an undergraduate, D’Andra immersed herself in the Kent State college experience. She was a scholar in the Ronald E. McNair post-Baccalaureate Achievement program that prepares first-generation undergraduate students from designated income or underrepresented groups in graduate schools for doctoral study. She also served as a student leader and Student Ambassador, sang in the Voices of Testimony Gospel Choir and was involved with Undergraduate Student Government (USG) and Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. Based on D’Andra’s campus involvement, Nancy suggested a career in student affairs.
D’Andra now serves as vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of Colorado Boulder. She credits Kent State staff and student mentors with preparing her for a career in student affairs, and she is also grateful to the student mentors she met while earning her post-graduate degrees at Ohio State and Michigan State. Each person had a hand in preparing her for her more than 20-year career in higher education and student affairs.
In her current role as vice chancellor, D’Andra ensures students of all walks of life have an experience that shapes them for the world, similar to what others did for her while she was a student.
“Were it not for what I learned from a student affairs professional at Kent State, this journey would not be the path I’m on today. I can never pay it back, but I will always pay it forward.”
She named several of her staff and student mentors from her time at Kent State, including Sherice Freeman, her McNair Scholars advisor; her former undergraduate research advisor, Albert Liau, Ph.D.; Shana Lee, M.Ed. ’16, who was the director of the Student Multicultural Center at the time; Donna Carlton, a former special coordinator in Kent State student affairs and mentor to D’Andra during her time in USG, and Nancy Schiappa, ’85, M.Ed. ’90, who demonstrated how to get involved in student affairs. Though they all may not have looked like her, D’Andra says they all had her best interest at heart.
Perhaps one of the most influential people D’Andra encountered at Kent State was professor emeritus E. Timothy Moore, ’73, M.A. ’77, M.F.A. ’83, who was introduced to Kent State as a student in 1969 and taught courses in the College of Arts and Sciences for 37 years. He passed away in 2021.
“One of the very first times I met him, he had given a speech during Kupita/Transiciones (K/T) that I consider to be prolific and grounding for how I see myself as a Black professional today,” said D’Andra. “My pathway always led back to the academic side of what I was doing and continued to manifest itself in my relationship with Dean Moore.”
Moore compelled generations of students to feel seen and heard at Kent State. For D’Andra, being able to honor him the way he honored these students over the course of his career was an obvious decision. In 2022, she contributed philanthropically to the naming of the E. Timothy Moore Student Multicultural Center in the Kent State Student Center. She hopes the naming encourages students to learn more about the legacy of Moore.
“I think the beauty in naming something is that you believe it honors the legacy and memory of someone,” said D’Andra, “but it also creates a moment of either interest or intrigue to students about who that person is.”
Since graduating from Kent State, D’Andra has been honored by the Black Alumni Chapter with the Lifetime Achievement Award, an honor that she says was a humbling full-circle moment.
“The one thing Kent State made me aware of in the most positive way is that I was a Black woman navigating spaces that were redesigned for me to be successful,” said D’Andra. “Higher education was not originally conceptualized for Black women or people of color to thrive, but Kent State knew enough about who they wanted to educate to design and redesign spaces so that students like me could thrive also.”
D’Andra credits her mentors and sponsors with her current success in student affairs. All were influential in helping her navigate spaces as a young Black woman making her way in the world, an experience D’Andra says she will never disconnect from her current success.