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hello Blue Jays and welcome to the nest stories about life after Manor College I am your host Kelly Peiffer vice president of marketing Communications and this is the best part of my day my hope is that this podcast will encourage inform and inspire you making you feel like at Manor College you belong here always before we get to today's guest it is time for a segment of the show called did you know for today's did you know did you know the meaning behind our podcast has some symbolism in its logo yes often

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times logos are designed to communicate a message or an idea to an audience sometimes designers use hidden messages also known as Easter eggs and little things can be subtle imagery or clever word play um and you might not see it at first glance so when our team was designing the nest logo for this podcast we obviously wanted the logo to look like a bird's nest because it was called The Nest our mascots of blue jay so that's kind of naturally made sense but we wanted there to be some symbolism that we could point to as well so we

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wanted there to be feathers in the nest and the feathers really convey that a bird was once there and these are the feathers that remain so it's a symbolism for our students or blue jays who are in our Nest when they're students and they're on campus and they're they're in our you know they're in our area and then when they graduate they obviously fly away and they leave the nest but pieces of their feathers always remain with us that you know are alumni and our students no matter where they are in the

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world they always remain and they always have a home in our Nest at mayor College so I I love that symbolism that we created and if you look at the words Ness the E looks like a sideways decibel levels symbolizing volume and sound intensity um which kind of made sense because we wanted obviously the nest to be podcast where Audio and Sound is the main medium that it'll be conveyed I am now honored to welcome our alumni guest of the day today we have a wonderful guest joining us who was a true Testament to the power of hard work and

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dedication she's climbed the latter in the corporate world always staying true to her Roots she hails right from here in Philadelphia and is a proud graduate of Samuel Fels High School her journey took her to Manor College where she pursued her passion for business administration in 2017 she earned her associate in science degree in Business Administration and was an active member of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society she then transferred to Lasalle University to earn her bachelor's and masters in accounting

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and finance now she's Making Waves as an in senior internal auditor assistant VP of internal audit at Wells Fargo she credits her success in part due to the impactful faculty and staff that she had at Manor we are thrilled to have her with us today to share her story and insights with all of you welcome Deborah Turner hi everyone hi Kelly thank you for that intro yes hey hey Deb so let's start at the beginning how did you hear about Manor College and why did you choose to attend so I heard about

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Manor through Word of Mouth actually um I was actually at another school and the school that I was at the program that I was studying and was no longer uh available for me to continue my studies with so I needed to kind of think of where else to go and do it fast so one of my family members brought up Manor and I actually came in to see Manor and applied got in and the rest was history so September 20 15 I started classes and I finished in May of 2017 I love that I think that's great and I mean obviously uh one school

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closing one door closes another door opens kind of situation but I'm so happy that Manor was somewhere that you found and and could call home for a couple years to get your degree so so tell me what was it what was like a day in the life of being a student at Manor like for you um kind of take us back so very different um from anywhere that I've ever been um like you said I grew up in the inner city of Philadelphia so I always was accustomed to being in classrooms where there were a lot of students a lot

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of people a lot of movement um never really in an intimate learning environment until I got to Manor so Manor for me was the place where I kind of got to meet people um of course from all different cultural backgrounds but also I got to know my professors in a way that I think if I would have continued down my original path um I probably would not have taken some of the things that I've learned and acquired uh from Manor to other areas of my life understanding the importance of you know raising your hand

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being being community oriented in a school environment most of us don't look at school as a place where it's it's Community oriented but college for a lot of us is the place where you kind of go to learn how to build your community outside of the community that you've already been given or your family has cultivated for you so Manor was definitely influential in that uh respect for me of course and I think um talking about like Community style learning and Community being a community in a college

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setting is different than maybe a high school or an elementary school where like it's more school and you just kind of have different conceptions about it um so it's cool that you came to Manor and you were like oh because like people live here you eat here you study here you you maybe work here there's like everything's kind of in one so that's really neat to hear um what were your kind of what were your classes like and how do you feel that those classes kind of prepared you for then more schooling

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and getting a bachelor's and a master's and kind of giving you that foundation so my classes were very very again you'll probably hear me say it a lot but it was very intimate right I had people from all different ages people just beginning College people coming back to college making a career change or studying something that they might have wanted to study many moons ago and now they have an opportunity to kind of come in and learn in an intimate environment the professors that I had were really

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really great they were people who have had experience in the field or they were still in the field and they were bringing real world experiences right to your classroom but furthermore they were actually rooting and invested into your success uh they wanted to see you do well and I think that's that really speaks to um my experience in class in classroom but outside of the classroom too right um everyone I would say every Professor that I had was really really invested in in My Success overall whether it was at Manor or wherever I

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went they were right there cheering me on providing opportunities whether it be advice or um making sure that I knew that I had options or opportunities and and it was just a matter of time yeah I love that I love um how you said like their your success was their success and kind of you know I think that that speaks so true and obviously as a college and as a college professor you know however well the students do is kind of reflection on on you as a professor and as an institution so obviously we want our students to be

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wildly successful um so it's really cool to hear that they were giving you that opportunity and kind of iron sharpens iron you know like you were you were doing things and they were helping you do that so that's really cool to hear so so obviously you know you work in the you got your degrees in accounting um started off in Business Administration and then kind of move into accounting how would you say that transition was was from business administration to accounting and why would you recommend

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accounting as a degree Focus for other people so uh business administration is a very broad um major or field or industry you have the option to either go into marketing Finance accounting uh for some people Information Systems data analytics because it's such a it gives you variety of everything so you're taking a number of different business courses um within one program I chose accounting because it was something that I was extremely passionate about before I um chose business administration so business

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administration was the test for me to see if I could not only academically keep up but if if it was something that I really wanted to continue pursuing and happened for me to be something that I kind of stuck with I recommend accounting as a major or a field to go into the opportunities are vast and many people have a misconception about the industry at large they think that Most accountants are tax professionals or we're and it's not the truth not all of us are tax professionals I've had the wonderful experience to kind of be in a

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lot of different areas within the accounting industry whether that be tax uh audit which I'm currently in now and the bulk of my career has been in advisory as well so Consulting and accounting has been an opportunity where I've met people from all walks of life but also it's something that's taken me around the world um and continues to be something that is important not only for me as a person of color but as a woman too as as well where you're in a male-dominated industry and you don't see many people like you but there is a

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real need for more of us to be in the industry but also in the room we can't effectively create change if we're not there yes 100% yes um I love that and I think I think it's so cool and inspiring to see you know you as a first generation college student from Philadelphia African-American woman kind of breaking barriers and getting into those so do you feel like you've had a seat at the table in some of your roles that you've had in your career and how do you feel um how is the outlook on that going do you feel

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like we're making progress or is there still a lot lot to be done um I do feel like in my current role out of all the roles that I've been in and I've been in a lot of different areas I feel that I've been really fortunate and blessed to be and I think I charge this to my upbringing and just being a Philadelphia native most of us are very um outspoken and growing up in the city and realizing like hey if sometimes you have to take the the initiative you have to kind of manage up you have to be the one

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that kind of speaks up so that people know that these things are going going on but also people are aware of what's going on people are just afraid to speak out about it or they don't speak out about it because it doesn't affect them so what I've been doing my entire career is to leave the door open like I I don't benefit from being the only uh and and let me preface that I'm I don't benefit being the only black woman at the table or the only black person in the room uh I don't benefit from that at all so it's

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important that I lift as I climb and also when I see other people that look like me even if they don't look like me too right my job is to be a collaborative team member so you are only going to be as good as your weakest link and your weakest link may not be because they lack skill or or tenacity or or the will to do it it just may be someone didn't think enough to pull them by the hand or pull them along with them so I do think we have a way to go a ways to go in respect of diversity and inclusion and what we can do to make the

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environment especially Corporate America as inclusive as possible uh we we got to start having the tough conversations and also being aware of what our implicit biases are what our l spots are and how so much of where we come from and where we go to school and our financial standing and all of that plays into how we treat one another on a daily basis when we come into the workplace or we're going into a school so but I do see that in some some some respects we are making progress right you you will find uh

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Partners um in particularly in my field you will find Partners you will find senior managers you will find people um who want to know what's going on and want to try to make it better for someone that doesn't look like them and they understand the importance of you know this being an environment that is accepting of of all people whether you're black white uh a Asian a Pacific Islander a woman train transgender whatever you are you know we need to make sure that we we make it inclusive for people to come and feel

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like it's okay to be them definitely I I love how you said um I need to lift as I grow or lift as I climb I mean definitely not just um you know growing yourself but also bringing others along with you and mentoring them and that's really neat to see so have you have you found in your career Journey um moments where you've kind of reflected back and thought like wow something that I I learned at Manor or at Lal or in my higher ed years did help me in this career thing or in this project or in this experience

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I'm doing right now absolutely absolutely I would say um a few of those things and I will say Dr Perry has really been influential in this respect not only as during my time there he was the president but just as a mentor or someone that you can you can talk to about not only college but real life things I remember when I was a senior in college at Lal coming from Manor going to Lal and having to make a decision about where I was going to spend the next few years of my career professionally and I had a phone call

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with him that day and he shared with me some insight around you know it's a tough decision no matter where you go you'll land on your feet but one of the pieces of pieces of advice that he gave me was when you go off to be widely successful in whatever you do don't forget to reach back it is extremely critical not only to your success but to someone else's SU to someone else's success to pay it forward sometimes it's not that people haven't done the work they're waiting for the opportunity they're waiting for someone

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to show up to open the door for them so as you get these as uh Tony Morrison says too and Dr Perry said in so many world words as you get these jobs that you so brilliantly trained for don't forget about the other people who will will come behind you and if you're not focusing on equity and equity in people right if you're not focusing on that then all you've done has been for nothing you need to be mindful about how you're treating people how you are making people feel but also realizing that you're not responsible for that and

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there will be people who just don't get it right but don't focus on that make sure you leave the door open leave the light on so as someone is traveling around along their Journey they have a safe house to stop by right and I think that's that's such good advice um so good kudos to Dr Perry who's our our president current currently too but just you know remember those who can benefit from from what you've gone through and can kind of learn and and like you said um lift as you like I think you know that's really

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kind of is a nice kind of tie in there so so so Deborah what um what advice would you give to current Manor college students about you know who are going through it midterms are coming up soon um you know maybe they're maybe they're feeling a little unmotivated right now just what advice would you give them to kind of encourage them as someone who's kind of been there done that and kind of on the other side uh piece of advice I would give them is twofold one none of it's permanent how you are feeling right now

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today in this moment whether you're overwhelmed with studying or life and having to study working whatever it is it's temporary this feeling that you have will pass however remember your why while you're going through midterms and you probably probably are ready to just throw the towel in or feeling like oh I don't need to study as hard or as much remember your purpose for why you're doing this and so many of us at Manor are not there just for ourselves so many of us are first generation graduates and we are becoming now we're

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becoming the role models for people coming behind us and we want to make sure that they look at our path and say that they can do it because we've done it so do the work nothing beats the work but the work there are no shortcuts study hard um do your best and as long as you do your best then you've done you've done all that you can do I love that I love um working hard obviously is is a crucial part of of college life but also being reminded that like this is temporary you know you're not always going to be in in a

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grind studying for something or working late at night or you know what I mean it's temporary it's a maybe a temporary sacrifice for absolutely something some fruit to be to you know come later on so that's that's really good and a good reminder because it can feel when you're in it like oh my gosh I'm just I'm tired or I'm exhausted I'm over it I'm done um but you know that it'll it'll it'll be worth it in the end you'll be grateful that you did it in the end um thank you so much Deborah for talking to us today

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I think your your story is one that will resonate with a lot of our students and certainly it's it's really inspiring and encouraging to hear how your life after Manor College has been so thank you so much for being with us you're so welcome thank you for having me and as always it's a pleasure uh I love coming back and getting to do these types of things is really important to me it's also a part of um why I get to do so much that I do is by paying it forward and remembering that it's not robbery don't

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don't find it robbery to to come back to the places that um have poured so deeply into you and have invested in in you and your a success and Manor has been influential and my start and and as a major part of My Success too thank you for tuning in today if you like what you heard listen And subscribe on Spotify or YouTube and stay up to date with all new episodes by following Manor College on Instagram at at Manor College and that's a wrap on another episode of The Nest stories about life after Manor College

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remember Blue Jays you belong here always [Music]