Meera Roy has spent her entire professional life in higher education. As an undergraduate she studied political science at McGill University in Montreal and received her B.A. at Albertus Magnus College, a tiny school in Connecticut where her instructors included nuns in the Dominican Order. She then pursued a master’s degree in political science at the University of Delaware. Even though she did not complete her graduate studies, the experience instilled a deep commitment to higher education. It also gave her an appreciation of what it takes to become an academic and the challenges that both undergraduate and graduate students encounter and must overcome as they pursue post-secondary education.
Meera then spent seven years working in the Registrar’s Office at the University of California at Santa Barbara, most notably as the campus’s classroom scheduler. Meera says that her background in political science “was invaluable as I managed fierce competition for one of the university’s most precious resources.”
About 20 years ago, she joined our Political Science Department as the Graduate Program Assistant and was later promoted to Director of Academic Services. As the Director she is primarily responsible for aligning the instructional needs of thousands of undergraduates and graduate students with faculty teaching. This is a very challenging and never-ending job that requires careful forward thinking, delicate negotiations, and a lot of patience. She also oversees the Advising Office, recruits and manages all of our graduate Teaching Assistants, serves as the UW’s liaison to The Washington Center’s D.C. internship program, and helps run the Department’s annual graduation ceremony.
After many years in academia, she says that advising students is still the best part of her job: “I LOVE meeting new students and seeing how they grow over time. I never get tired of that. And even though my career took a turn from the life of an academic, I’ve been fortunate to work for an outstanding department at a top-ranked university. The learning process never stops, and it doesn’t get better than that!”