When meeting Michelle Brown Nevers, you're immediately struck by the calm and confidence that she exudes. Why that's so, with all that she has on her plate, is a mystery.

She is not only the Director of Student Accounts, which in plain English means managing TC's accounts receivables. She is also the chair of the Management Network, which consists of 30 administrators across the College who review and provide feedback on salient issues addressed by the President's Cabinet, and a doctoral candidate who will be defending her dissertation in December.

"I realized I wanted to get involved in higher education during my sophomore year in college," Brown Nevers says. At that time, she was at Baruch College working as a peer counselor, providing insight to freshmen about college life. From then on she became an assistant financial aid counselor at New York City Technical College and then moved on to Union Seminary to become Director of Financial Aid.

After that, she took on the position of Director of Educational Financing and Compliance at Columbia, and then came to TC in 1996.

Brown Nevers is proud of what she and her staff have accomplished since coming on board. She says that "By our year-end report, we've been able to reduce receivables by 16%."

On the way to her way up the professional ladder, she received a Master's in Higher Education at Baruch and in 1992 applied and was accepted to TC's Higher Education Program. "I wanted my doctorate and I wanted to go to a stellar institution. TC was my first choice," she says, with a broad smile.

Brown Nevers is finishing the fifth and last chapter of her dissertation, which has the long title of "The Changing Leadership Role of the College President at New Jersey State Public Colleges as a Result of the Elimination of the New Jersey Department of Higher Education and its Board of Education." The idea for the dissertation came to her while taking a leadership course with Professor Sharon McDade, who assigned Brown Nevers to shadow the president of Jersey City State College, Carlos Hernandez, as he met with his cabinet members and trustees.

As she looks past the dissertation and to the future, Brown Nevers is thinking about the possibility of becoming a Vice President of Student Affairs or a Vice President of Program Development at a state agency or even a President of a liberal arts college.

Brown Nevers, who says she "loves the atmosphere of TC," became active in the Management Network because she wanted to get involved in the life of the TC community. She sees the Network as a "group of people who can assist TC as it is rebuilding because the membership has so much knowledge and experience."

The Management Network, along with the Faculty Executive Committee and academic departments, is actively engaged in responding to the Vice President for Finance and Administration's survey of "needs and priorities" for Budget '99. Brown Nevers says that the survey provided the Network with the opportunity to raise the issues of space and renovation.

For Brown Nevers, juggling all that she does at TC is a joy. But what gives her the most joy is juggling her professional life to fit her married life. She is the youngest of five children. None of her siblings had a traditional wedding but she was emphatic when she said, "My wedding had to be traditional."

Published Sunday, Apr. 7, 2002