Meet a Hokie: Sabrina Sturgeon

"I love knowledge. I love learning, and higher education." When Sabrina Sturgeon wasn't sure what she wanted to do after earning her bachelor's... "It's a place that I felt I've always thrived." Working to earn her master's in university administration at Virginia Tech was a great next step. "I felt so welcome. There's such a strong community and sense of, the Hokie pride was incredible and I loved that. So that's kind of what drew me to this university versus others. I really enjoy learning. I think that we all have the opportunity to pursue perpetual growth and be a better person everyday. And I see higher education as one of many means that someone can take to develop and learn and be better." Becoming the Graduate Student Representative to the Board of Visitors was a perfect fit. "A lot of my interest in higher ed lies in the big picture of things. I want to look at things from the top and think, OK, how can we make these large systems work better for our students? And the Board of Visitors is the highest governing body at the university. So I figured what better place to have the opportunity to create a better experience for students than starting there." Spending the next year as the graduate representatives gives Sabrina the opportunity to bring attention to issues important to her and her peers. "The way I see it is, I'm dealing with a large, diverse constituency group of graduate students. So part of that's going to involve just rolling with the punches and learning what they need and how I can work to make that happen at the university. Some of the base level things I have that I'm focusing on in-between. all of that are for one, focusing on graduate student mental health access. I want to continue the work that my predecessor, Ryan King has done with food insecurity. That's a base need that I think we really need to address. And finally, I want to look at graduate assistantship security. In the era of COVID-19, there's budget cuts everywhere." Sabrina knows serving during a pandemic will bring its own challenges. But it's nothing she's not equipped and ready to handle. "I kind of approach it with the mindset that I want to jump off the cliff and build the airplane on the way down. It's definitely going to come with some things that I'm not expecting but I trust my ability to adapt and learn along the way and do the best that I can to serve students because at the end of the day, all I can do is be the best that I can be."