Julie Stocks

By RAY WYCHE
Staff Writer

On Julie Stocks’ desk at Southeastern Community College is a photo taken on Sept. 7, 1966, of Stocks and her freshman roommate at Duke University.

The girls are attired in prim dresses with pinned-on name tags as per regulation for new students. It was their first day of college, and Stocks keeps the picture visible for that reason.
“I remember how I felt that day,” she says, as a brand new college freshman from West Virginia, with all the accompanying apprehensions and uncertainties she would face for the next four years (even though she knew something of college life since her mother graduated from Duke.) The photo reminds her, she says, of her responsibilities as SCC vice president of student development services, a job that eases students’ transition into college life.

“I’m the chief advocate for students,” she says of the many duties her job entails. “My job is to take care of students, and they give me motivation to serve them as best we can.”
Activities of her office touch students in many different ways, all aimed at making the college life productive and positive for them.

Stocks’ office is responsible for all aspects of student life; she handles admissions, counseling, financial aid, institutional advancement, public information (web site), and serves as registrar and keeper of student records. The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, student activities, the student center, student discipline and grievances, switchboard (team COM), talent search and Upward Bound are all under her umbrella.

She serves on various college committees, including the all-important scholarship committee.
“The college now has close to 200 scholarships, most based on academic merit,” she says.
It’s a full plate and on July 31, Stocks is giving it up after 34 years with Southeastern. She will now spend more time at her beloved Lake Waccamaw, where she and her husband Donald live on Waccamaw Shores.

Stocks is one of four women with a combined service totaling 130 years who have retired from Southeastern since spring.

Her tenure at Southeastern follows a two-year stay as a counselor at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, after she had earned a master’s degree in counseling at Duke. She feels that she joined the Southeastern staff at an opportune time.

“I was real fortunate,” she says, in that the community college movement was gathering momentum when she arrived at Southeastern in 1973.

“The whole idea of community colleges was accessibility, accountability and affordability,” she says. This original concept is still in place, and Stocks has worked through many changes relating to this ideal in her 34 years.

“Success stories abound. Some students who started out here had no high school diplomas,” Stocks says of SCC’s philosophy of taking students where they are and taking them as far as they want to go.

Stocks has helped three generations of Southeastern scholars. She has worked under six of the eight presidents the college has had, and with four interim presidents.

“I benefited from all these presidents as I consider myself as a team player,” she says.
She helped former president Steve Scott inaugurate a foreign student exchange program “that has been wonderful,” she says. She also had a hand in establishing the Ambassador program in which outstanding students chosen for their leadership potential represent the college in public functions.

Through the years, Stocks has seen many changes at the college.

“Probably the biggest change is in student population age. When I came here the average age was 22; now it’s 29. It was predominantly male. Now it’s 63 percent female.”
Most of the students today are Columbus County residents but when Southeastern began in 1965, it was classed as a comprehensive school with locations in three counties — Columbus, Brunswick and Pender. The first classes were held in the old Chadbourn High School building, vacated when West Columbus High School was built.

In 1965, the college offered the basic technical and college transfer courses but new courses have been added in keeping with advancements in science and society. Now the college offers allied health programs that include the usual medical facility personnel training as well as new programs such as pharmacy technician training and a two-year early childhood development course. Courses in new technologies in computer sciences and in biotechnologies are also available now.

Southeastern has kept up with changes in the area’s economy. When sewing plants closed, the college stepped in with evaluations of the laid-off workers and trained them for new jobs in keeping with the workers’ abilities.

Enrollment peaked during the Vietnam War era and SCC stood ready to help the returning veterans, streamlining the enrollment process, among other changes.

When Stocks arrived, students registered on card forms. “Now they do it online,” she says.
Student development, which touches every area of the student’s life, is part of Stocks’ job and has kept up with the times. Since 62 percent of SCC students work at part-time jobs (and some have family duties as well), time management is an important component of the orientation process, another one of Stocks’ responsibilities.

Administrative duties of the college are spread among four vice presidents — continuing education and economic development (Beverlee Nance), curriculum (Dr. Morgan Phillips), operations and finance (Betty Jo Sanders), and student development, Stocks’ bailiwick.

“It was male-dominated,” Stocks says of the early administration. “I am the first woman vice president, and I have been under pressure to be on top of my game.”

There are 36 employees in student development services, and counseling is a big part of what these people do. Peer counselors — students trained to help other students — are a valuable asset to the counseling program.

“They know where to refer cases,” Stocks says.

Stocks thinks her position, many-faceted as it has been, made for a satisfactory career.
“I feel that my calling was to help students to look at themselves and to assess themselves and learn what their strengths are. We do a lot of evaluating.”

From a life with a multitude of tasks that she had to make sure were done, Stocks is looking forward to a slower pace on the shores of the lake.

“I don’t really have any plans,” she says, on how she’ll spend her retirement other than helping husband Donald with his golf cart business, which he developed after retiring from banking and is growing.

“It’s been a joy to work here but I had no idea I’d be here forever. I gave up the hills of West Virginia for Lake Waccamaw, and I don’t think I could have made the adjustment without the lake.”

She will stay at the lake and she intends to enjoy the swap in scenery.