Day in the life

Stone at work en route to the mainland. PHOTO: Leah Stone

By Tara Sharpe

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF Leah Stone, UVic’s national recruitment liaison officer for the Lower Mainland, often involves a ferry trip or two. She has been on enough BC Ferries’ voyages that she can probably recite by memory the entire “welcome aboard” safety greeting.

Stone is also a UVic alumna, and her years on campus as a member of the Varsity Women’s Rowing team have lent a great deal of polish to the pep talks and enthusiasm that she brings daily to her job as a member of UVic’s Student Recruitment team—a role which involves enticing prospective students from across Canada to attend UVic just like she did.

Stone received her BA in English from UVic in 2007 and was able to explore a variety of disciplines throughout her undergrad years. She acknowledges that many of the students she works with have uncertainty about their future goals and the transition to post-secondary studies. She is there to help even before they step across Ring Road.

“The part of my job I especially love is when I can assist prospective students in finding their path to post-secondary studies and show them that the UVic experience is a chance to explore their goals and ambitions,” she says.

“It’s nice to be able to speak from the personal perspective. I chose to attend UVic too, and for me it was all about the community support, the academic possibilities, the athletics and other ways to get involved on campus.”

Stone grew up in Victoria and started rowing when she was 12 years old. She loved the team spirit—a characteristic that found a perfect match in her chosen vocation—and she was also travelling widely well before her frequent ferry trips for UVic. She lived in Australia as an exchange student in 2002, recently travelled to Kenya to be the maid of honour at her long-time pen pal’s wedding, and remembers well the exhilaration of racing down an English rowing course in Henley on Thames while the Queen and other spectators looked on.

Recently Stone has turned to swimming, hiking and photography as favourite pastimes. When she is on campus, not in a ferry line-up, she handles numerous in-office appointments and inquiries from prospective students, parents and high schools. Stone also works with various departments on campus to further develop recruitment initiatives at UVic.

Another important aspect of her job is event planning: she and her colleagues in the five-member national student recruitment team conduct information sessions and events for Grades 10, 11 and 12 students throughout Canada.

As UVic’s lower mainland liaison, Stone works primarily with high school students and counselors in Vancouver and surrounding areas, often attending three schools in one day and doing three 30- to 60-minute presentations at each school. This can mean she will start in one school at 8 a.m. and end up closing up her ninth and last session at 9 p.m.
Stone says the fall “is the busiest time of travel for our national recruitment team. Our national liaisons are on the road for over 35 weeks of combined travel during these four months and spend a significant amount of time in Canadian high schools.”

As she sets off for another journey by ferry to coax Lower Mainland high-school students to Vancouver Island with an array of UVic programs, it is no accident that she gets to enjoy the same spectacular ocean scenery that beckons prospective UVic students from around the world.