According the American Heritage Dictionary, an educator who advises students in academic and personal matters is an academic advisor. Additionally, they may be known as mentors, employers at times, collaborators on research projects, and perhaps even life-long friends. And yet it may come as a surprise to some of us to find data in support of the hypothesis that academic advisors are also humans, just like you and I.I am very pleased to introduce all of you, dear fellow students, to my academic advisor, Dr. Andrea Tapia, a young, affable and yet ambitious scholar with an impressive portfolio of accomplishments behind her belt that opens with her becoming a Community Ambassador to Spain in 1986 and continues to her winning a prestigious Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Arizona in 2000-2001.
I had a chance to interview Dr. Tapia in her office just a couple days ago, when she managed to carve a chunk of time out of her extremely busy schedule. That is one of the things I admire about my advisor: her apparent ability to manage time. This ability now appears to me even more astounding once I discovered some previously unknown facts about her life beyond academia.
As I found out, Dr. Tapia is happily married to Ron Tapia and has two adorable little boys: one is only 6 and a half, and the other one is 3 and a half years old. There is also a couple of semi-retired New-Mexican cats in the Tapia's household, Dis and Dose (10 and 8 years old respectively). These cats are the only members of the Tapia family who can afford long hours of relaxation and undisturbed sleep. But even cats, in rare moments of exploding energy, get into the family spirit of hunt, hard work and adventure.
Ronald Tapia is a mathematician and is currently working in the Applied Research Lab (ARL) as a computer scientist, thus representing the hard sciences' side of the family, while Dr. Tapia brings in an interdisciplinary flavor of the IST, although it's mostly rooted in social sciences and humanities (e.g., cultural anthropology, sociology, and language arts).
Dr. Tapia's ancestry represents a fascinating mix of different European ethnic origins. Andrea's maternal great-grandparents came from Poland, but her paternal ancestors used live in Spain, Italy, and, perhaps, even Greece. Dr. Tapia's maiden name was Hoplight (retained to this day as a middle name). If spelled a bit differently, hoplite, it could have explained the missing Greek branch in her ancestral family tree. And it brings back to life some fascinating stories about Ancient Greece and Spartans.
Andrea Tapia was born and raised in the Empire State of New York, in the Buffalo area, near the world famous Niagara Falls. From early childhood, she was plunged into the world of books, languages, and rich ethnic traditions. I suppose, it was no wonder when young Andrea, the proud recipient of the Presidential Scholarship, has decided to design her own undergraduate major at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Potsdam by bundling up all her academic passions: modern languages, political science and cultural anthropology. She successfully studied several languages including Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, French and Greek. English is clearly Dr. Tapia's first language, but at the same time, Spanish comes in as a very close second. Here is an interesting tidbit of information: Andrea's mother not only liked Spanish language, she has also been teaching Spanish on the HS level for nearly 30 years, on top of it, she has been very successful in infusing her young daughter with love of languages and reading.
During the interview, I was curious to find out about Dr. Tapia's connections to the State of New Mexico. And, as I found out later, there was an interesting story of friendship and adventure behind. Andrea and a group of her friends the Potsdam College have decided to travel cross-country for two months, after getting their BA degrees, and it's just so happened that New Mexico has immediately won Andrea's life-long affection.
On the other hand, it was quite serendipitous that the state had one of the best graduate programs in sociology in the country at the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM), and, at the same time, it's where the Tapia family has lived for the last 500 hundred years.
As we all know, several years later Andrea Hoplight has become Dr. Andrea Tapia.
Although Dr. Tapia is describing her life at present as mostly "all work and all kids", there is still some time left for fun (maybe about 10%). Fun is primarily reading science fiction and fantasy books. Neil Gaiman, Diana Gabaldon, John R.R. Tolkien, C.J Cherryh are among her favorite authors. Costuming (Middle Ages in particular) is yet another fun activity that requires a great deal of creativity.
When I asked Dr. Tapia how she envisioned her life 20-30 years later, and she was convinced that she would be still actively involved in research and teaching, but would spend a lot more time tapping into her internal wells of creativity (e.g., singing, cello playing, writing fiction), and would find enough time to visit her children and travel all over the world. She mentioned that it would be wonderful to be able to spend up to 6 months in a different country every year.
During the interview, I was curious to find out about Dr. Tapia's connections to the State of New Mexico. And, as I found out later, there was an interesting story of friendship and adventure behind. Andrea and a group of her friends the Potsdam College have decided to travel cross-country for two months, after getting their BA degrees, and it's just so happened that New Mexico has immediately won Andrea's life-long affection.
On the other hand, it was quite serendipitous that the state had one of the best graduate programs in sociology in the country at the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM), and, at the same time, it's where the Tapia family has lived for the last 500 hundred years.
As we all know, several years later Andrea Hoplight has become Dr. Andrea Tapia.
Although Dr. Tapia is describing her life at present as mostly "all work and all kids", there is still some time left for fun (maybe about 10%). Fun is primarily reading science fiction and fantasy books. Neil Gaiman, Diana Gabaldon, John R.R. Tolkien, C.J Cherryh are among her favorite authors. Costuming (Middle Ages in particular) is yet another fun activity that requires a great deal of creativity.
When I asked Dr. Tapia how she envisioned her life 20-30 years later, and she was convinced that she would be still actively involved in research and teaching, but would spend a lot more time tapping into her internal wells of creativity (e.g., singing, cello playing, writing fiction), and would find enough time to visit her children and travel all over the world. She mentioned that it would be wonderful to be able to spend up to 6 months in a different country every year.
Anna,
you did a wonderful job blogging about your advisors. instead of just stating facts, you actually brought the facts to life. I enjoyed reading it.