“The more fun that students have, the more work that’s being done behind the scenes,” Kayla McKinney said.
She knows this firsthand, because she’s the one doing that work. As coordinator of student engagement for the Mary Frances Early College of Education, McKinney works daily to support students and make them feel welcomed.
McKinney’s role can be divided into three main buckets: student-focused events and programs, advising the college’s student ambassadors, and providing staff support to the college’s 20 student organizations. Events and programs can further be broken down into student appreciation, career preparation and engagement with the broader university, such as Homecoming.
Working with the student ambassadors is a constant for McKinney, between Monday night meetings, college events, tours and more.
“I see them every day,” she said. “They are amazing, and they always help. I could not do my job without them, because the events that I plan logistically could not take place without their additional hands.”
Coordinating student engagement keeps McKinney busy with an array of events and meetings, as illustrated by the large whiteboard calendar on her office wall.
“In between is preparing for whatever’s next,” she said.
The key to making it all work is staying organized. McKinney uses a large Excel sheet to keep track of various dates and progress on tasks.
While she loves the work she does, this wasn’t the career path McKinney originally planned for herself. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in creative writing — something she’s putting to use as she works on a novel she hopes to complete next year. But, while earning her bachelor’s degree, she served as president of the university’s Black Student Union and worked as a coordinator for a group with the school’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center.
Through those positions, McKinney became interested in the jobs of the various staff members she worked with.
“Student affairs is not something people go into college knowing they want to do,” she said. “It kind of just finds you.”
So, she came to UGA to pursue a master’s degree in higher education administration. During that time, she served as a graduate assistant for student engagement at the Office of Development and Alumni Relations, working with the Student Alumni Council. Not long before McKinney graduated, the position of coordinator of student engagement became available. She applied and has been in the job since 2022.
“I knew I wanted to stay in student engagement and keep up with working student groups and keep working on student events,” McKinney said.
Now, McKinney hopes to be to her students what her BSU advisor was to her: an adult who students feel they can go to and trust.
“That is my biggest goal when I leave this world — I hope people describe me as kind,” she said.
The College of Education is the third largest school at UGA, but McKinney works to make it “feel like a second home on campus.”
“I think we accomplish that pretty well,” she said.
The college seems to agree, as McKinney was just recently given an Unsung Hero Award in recognition of the work she does.