Flanders Impacted Student Success

Joy Flanders speaking at commencement in fall 2020

Flanders Impacted Success of Countless Students By EMILY KESEL

After more than 35 years of working at Central Methodist University, it took some time for Joy Flanders ’83 to clear out her office, her home away from home. It’s probably going to take a while longer for Central students to adjust fully to life without her.

Though she’s now working in customer service in the corporate world, the former student success coordinator has already been fielding emails and texts from students since stepping down from her role in August. One student told her he was thinking of dropping a class because he had already missed multiple assignments, and Flanders advised him not to give up.

“I said, ‘Okay, you know you won’t get an A in the class, but you can still get a C. Quit being lazy and do your homework,’ and he [told me he would],” Flanders said. Over the years, she’s learned how to motivate these students. “I will really miss helping the students see that they are, and can be, more than they think they are.”

Flanders has undoubtedly helped a great number of students to reach their potential. She remembers one in particular from about 20 years ago, when she was teaching CMU 101 for freshmen. At the end of the class, she was to reassign him to a new advisor in his major, as is the practice, but she thought it wouldn’t make a difference. He hadn’t shown much interest in school or the possibility of graduating. The following year, they met again and he asked about where the summer school classes he’d taken would fit into his track for graduation, he got “pretty angry” when she told him they only really counted toward his eligibility for football.

“He really kind of sat up and took note, and he eventually graduated,” Flanders recounted. “And he knows. He is now a Young Alumni Award-winner from a few years back, and he and I joke about that.

“If you talk with people and you keep them looking towards a goal, they’re much more likely to meet that goal. What I tried to do was keep putting stuff in front of somebody so they’ll reach further and they’ll do more.”

As the student success coordinator – Flanders’s most recent title after spending time in several different areas in many different roles at Central – she helped individuals and groups do just that. Everyone from sorority members to the baseball team has benefitted from her guidance. It was a responsibility she always took seriously, given how committed she was to upholding the values of the institution.

“Many can tell the story of the way Joy changed their lives: a conversation, a degree plan, a meal arranged, a friend in time of need,” said Maryann Rustemeyer, ’86, director of the Center for Learning and Teaching. “Her understanding of the history and the heart of CMU is at the core of the mission and values of the university.”

“Central felt like home to me because Central’s values matched my values so closely,” said Flanders, who noted that she felt as if she could have written the mission statement for the university herself. “I knew what was important [to the statement], because it closely aligned with my values and closely aligned with who I am and what I do.”

Central also felt like home in that it was a place she and her husband, business and economics professor John Flanders, met and worked together for years.

But what it all came down to, both for Flanders and for Central’s mission, was preparing students to have an impact after they moved on from the university.

“It’s 35 years, but there’s just not much story to tell,” she said humbly. “To me, the story’s about the students that were there and the students that were impacted and where they are and what they’re doing and how they’re making a difference in the world. My ministry was working at Central to impact lives, so they can go out and make a difference.”