Mindy Fine Wilson’s (98) work in both higher education and in nonprofit volunteer activation has impacted thousands of students in Kentucky — changing her community in ways big and small.
Graduating from PLNU in 1998 with a double major in Literature and Spanish, Wilson decided to stick around for a while. She served as an adjunct professor at PLNU for general education English and Spanish courses before moving into the nonprofit scene, working mainly with San Diego foster care youth.
“Then I decided that I wanted to go back to grad school,” Wilson said, “and I went back to my first love, literature. I went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and got my master’s in comparative literature.”
While teaching freshman composition as a TA, Wilson had a realization about her career. “I really loved higher education,” she said, “but I didn’t love the classroom, and so I finished with my masters and did not go on to my Ph.D., and wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. During that time, I met my husband. He got a job [as a professor] at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky…We moved here, and I ended up getting a job at Centre College.”
When interviewing, she was asked why she wanted to work there.
“Centre was a place that I really wanted to work because it reminded me of Point Loma,” Wilson said. “Point Loma’s focus on individual relationships really…impacts how I approach working with other people professionally or with students professionally…I still keep in touch with my old faculty members.”
Wilson mentioned Philip Bowles, Ph.D. and Dr. Carol Blessing by name as former professors she still keeps in touch with. She loved being challenged academically while at PLNU, and still uses writing skills she learned there. Even today she keeps up with friends she made in her hall her freshman year in Nease, and they’ve gone on a reunion trip this summer. These positive memories at PLNU played a huge role in her decision to work at Centre.
“I often think of Centre a lot like Point Loma,” Wilson said.
In her time at Centre College, Wilson worked in many areas, such as internship management, career counseling, employee relations, career services office, and supporting student success after graduation.
“I really, really loved the high impact practices in higher education,” Wilson said. “Things like internships and study abroad and community engagement…. I was there for 18 years.” But after 18 years, she was ready for a change. EngageKY provided a great opportunity to continue the career she loves, while offering a different angle.
“EngageKY is a nonprofit member organization that supports community engagement and civic engagement in higher education,” Wilson said. “So [it’s] kind of a long path towards where I ended up, but it combines my education, writing and analyzing skills. My practical experience working in social work and higher education has gotten me to this space.”
Wilson found that her background in higher education, working with students one-on-one, prepared her well to work on a larger scale with volunteerism and community engagement across the state.
“I felt like I made an impact on an individual basis,” she said. “And what I do now, I feel I make a bigger impact across the state. So it’s amplified in some ways. I mean, the drawback is I don’t get to talk to or see the students as often, which I do miss. But I really, really love being in a space where I can support the professionals doing this work on the campuses and helping them get connections or resources.”
“[I love] being able to see that they were able to fulfill their dreams and their plans from when they were students and be really successful.”
However, these resources might no longer be available. A $1 million AmeriCorps grant Wilson manages for Engage Kentucky was cancelled on April 25th because of larger government cuts the current administration is heading. A preliminary injunction was put in place June 10th, so they’re able to continue their work while the case is heard out in court.
“My grant is a Volunteer Generation Fund grant from AmeriCorps,” Wilson explained. “[It’s] to help build capacity for increasing the quality and quantity of volunteerism in whatever sector that the grant’s written for.
“So ours was for college students and then piloting for high school students. I was able to sub grant money out to colleges and high schools to help them get their students into volunteering opportunities…So I’m really excited the preliminary injunction is in effect so we can get back to that good work.”
While things are back to business as usual, there’s still an element of uncertainty—not only for them, but for other sectors as well.
“It’s kind of strange,” she said, “because it’s happened so suddenly, and it’s happening in so such different sectors, right?…like science and research, and now volunteerism and international aid…there just isn’t enough private foundation money to make up for what’s being lost. It can take one or two years to even get a grant, from conception to the point where you get the money in hand. So with the government grant cuts, it’s left a lot of people really scrambling.”
Wilson explained that grants which fund organizations like EngageKY don’t just fund that organization; they also support many other local nonprofits.
“It’s huge ripple effect,” she said, “because we’re supporting a lot of different things…a lot of these cuts that in the higher education realm really does trickle down to a negative effect for Students.”
When funded, her work at Centre College, and now EngageKY, impacts students for years to come. At a grant writing workshop, Wilson recognized a student she helped secure a law internship for, who’s now working as a lawyer.
“You know, we were talking about the negative ripple effects,” she said, “[but there are] these really positive ripple effects. My son went to the doctor the other day. He’s 19, so he went on his own, and he came back to tell me, ‘I saw a nurse practitioner.’ And then the nurse practitioner was a student at Centre who I was able to grant some internship funding to be able to do a summer internship in the medical field, and now she’s treating my son.”
“All these little stories, the individual stories, and seeing where people end up and still being in touch with them or running into them randomly, is really important to me.” Wilson said. Those continuing relationships in her community give her concrete examples of how her work impacts people into the future.
“[I love] being able to see that they were able to fulfill their dreams and their plans from when they were students and be really successful.”
