Position: Campus Director, Rutgers Learning Centers, College Avenue Campus
Length of Service: 11 years
Residence: Plainsboro
On a path to advancing careers: Mary Ann Cancio got her start working in career services. She credits her Rutgers undergraduate experience for her decision to pursue a career in higher education. After graduating Rutgers College in 1976, Cancio met with a counselor at the career services office to discuss career and graduate school options. “It was while talking to the counselor that I discovered what I wanted to do: become a career counselor on a college campus.” Cancio enrolled in the counseling psychology and guidance program at Rutgers’ Graduate School of Education. “It seemed to all come together for me,” she said. Cancio worked as an assistant director in career development at Saint Peter’s College in Jersey City and, shortly after, began working at the College of New Jersey, where she spent 15 years as an associate director in career services.
Returning to Rutgers: Ready for a change, Cancio welcomed the opportunity in 1996 to return to Rutgers as a director at the Rutgers Learning Centers. One of three campus directors – the Livingston and Cook/Douglass campuses also have learning centers – Cancio supervises a professional and student staff, including academic tutors and coaches and study group leaders, whom she also hires and schedules. At the learning center, undergraduates may receive writing assistance and group tutoring sessions in a variety of subjects, as well as participate in study groups and programs designed to bolster skills, such as exam prep and time management. Cancio meets daily with students who use the College Avenue center’s services and works collaboratively with other learning centers, faculty, and staff.
Helping students get through: One of the newer programs offered by the Rutgers Learning Centers is its online tutoring program, initiated in 2001. The program is designed and run by university students who provide the programming and tutoring. Over the years, Cancio has witnessed the centers’ impact on students. “Almost weekly students will email me or stop in to personally thank the centers or a particular tutor or academic coach for helping them get through a difficult course or semester,” she said. In 2007, the staff of all three learning centers received the President’s Recognition Program Bridge Award for demonstrating an exceptional spirit of collaboration while pursuing the broad goal of service to the benefit of the university.
Women and higher education: For the past five years, Cancio has served as a volunteer coordinator of the Rutgers chapter of the American Council on Education, a national network for advancing women in higher education and administration. One of her chapter’s favorite programs is the luncheon speakers’ series, held two or three times a semester, when both women and men from Rutgers share stories and advice for balancing careers and personal lives. “I’ve gotten to meet so many women at Rutgers I wouldn’t have the opportunity to meet otherwise,” Cancio said. In April 2007, the Rutgers ACENET chapter, established in 1977, received the New Jersey ACENET Ideals Award for Sustained Excellence (and $500), the first time a New Jersey chapter was so recognized. Cancio, a graduate of the first class of women at Rutgers College, said she was encouraged to pursue career opportunities beyond traditional positions and workplaces available to women, a mission central to ACENET. Cancio will step aside this year to allow another member, Colleen Georges, director of student support services at Rutgers, to coordinate, but she will continue as the institutional representative for the state chapter.
A little extra: Cancio volunteers with her town’s animal rescue group, and on Saturday mornings helps out with the pet adoption program at her local PetSmart. She has three cats: Spike, 17, Moe, 6, and Scarlet (named after the Scarlet Knights), a 4-year-old female tiger cat that Cancio rescued along with its four kittens in the summer of 2005 outside Milledoler Hall. All four kittens were adopted by Rutgers staff.