Student Profile: Ron Travenick

Ron Travenick is a current student working toward his EdD in Community College Leadership from GSOE. He is also associate vice president of student services of Ohlone Community College. He attends classes along with 12 of his Ohlone colleagues right on the Ohlone campus. This program is a product of the alliance between Ohlone and Alliant.

He sites his education at Alliant as giving him the practical knowledge and creative ideas to solve issues—such as those concerning diversity, enrollment and changing student needs—that he faces on a daily basis working at Ohlone. He and his classmates have even created new programs while they are earning their degrees. For example, they created a program to be run by Alliant on the Ohlone campus that would allow students who have received their AA degrees to complete a BA in International Relations.

He believes his education at Alliant has changed the way he does his job. After most of his classes, he applies what he learned (such as a new model of education) to his work right away. He finds it refreshes and revitalizes his career.

The accomplishment that he is most proud of is that when he came to Ohlone he was asked to help with automating student records, registration, etc., though he had no experience with the technology. Now he has become something of a leader in this area of student services. He is also very excited about being a part of creating a new student services building that will regenerate the student community and serve the Ohlone college community.

Travenick believes that his Alliant education is unique in that it gives him thorough theoretical background that is grounded in practical application. For example, he had a very demanding term as he was asked to take on a variety of high level tasks in his job. He told his professor that he would probably have to drop a class because he couldn’t keep up with the work load of both school and his career. She suggested that he use one of the projects that he was doing for work as the focus of his paper instead of creating a whole new topic. He found that applying what he was doing to his school project increased the depth of his understanding for both work and school.

Overall, he feels confident that his education is an important investment in his potential and learning. This will help him to serve students more effectively and meet the challenges of the increasingly complex educational system.