March 18, 2018

To Whom It May Concern:

I write to endorse Paola Carrera’s potential as a higher education professional. As a current

graduate student in Loyola’s PhD higher education program, I have spent the last two years
considering what it means to be an educator and a learner, a leader, and a researcher. Much of
this reflection has often been compared to and evaluated against the two decades I spent as a
student-affairs professional.

A theme that has been driven home in graduate school has been that students learn in different
ways and in different places. As a long-time student-affairs professional it has been especially
easy to see the latter. Learning, as a social activity that involves participation in a community and
in social systems, is quite obvious when you work in residential life, student activities, or
academic advising (Lattuca & Stark, 2009).

Meeting Paola in the Rome program gave me great insight into both her formal and informal
style of learning. We met in classrooms and engaged in discussion for hours on end, but we also
walked the very hot streets of Rome and learned in ways that were, yes informal, but also,
sometimes uncomfortable. We were in a country unknown to us, navigating in a language
unfamiliar to us. My clearest memory of Paola was how relaxed she appeared to be. We waited
long, agonizingly hot hours for buses that never came or were overflowing when they did arrive.
While we waited she comfortably engaged in conversations as we all got to know each other or
encouraged each other to explore Rome by reinforcing our information about bus or train routes.
She compared notes about how sometimes knowing Spanish helped and sometimes gave us false
confidence. It is hard to believe that through this already somewhat challenging situation, Paola
was also dealing with the fact that her luggage was lost! I had almost forgotten. She participated
in this learning community so effortlessly and with such an enduring sense of humor, despite all
of the above.

Another realization I had long ago was that to be an educator meant I would be a life-long
learner, but what I had not contemplated much was the role vulnerability plays in this process. It
seems obvious now, that “while learning involves risk-taking, teaching involves trust building”
(Lattuca & Stark, 2009, p. 194). Students make themselves vulnerable when they enter a learning
situation and if educators are also always learning then they are both taking risks and building
trust at the same time. This can be a complicated process and one that I think many student
affairs professionals learn along the way and practice, possibly without knowing or reflecting on
it.

In our time in Rome, I observed Paola inquire about ideas and disagree about concepts. She was
vulnerable and took risks but also encouraged trust with her beaming smile and easy-going
nature. She shared stories about her upbringing and her time as an undergraduate student at
Loyola. In my leadership class we argued at length about how much information sharing was
needed in order to build trust with our students. There may not be a bar to measure this, but I do
think it necessary to a different extent with different students, and it is no easy task to gauge this.
The ease with which Paola did this and in an environment that was by no means undemanding,
made me aware of her incredible potential as a higher education professional. I jumped at the
chance to write this letter for her because I would have hired her in a heartbeat when I was
working in a university setting. Paola’s capacity to grow in the field is obvious to anyone who
interacts with her.

Best wishes,

Norma Lopez