MARION — Laura Emerick cannot imagine doing anything else. As associate vice president of student success and engagement and chief student affairs officer at Marion Technical College, she leads the team charged with helping students plan their studies, push through academic and personal challenges, and stay on track to graduate — work she traces back to a childhood spent playing school at her grandmother’s house.
Emerick comes from a family of teachers: her grandmother taught fourth grade and her mother taught sixth grade. “One of my favorite things to do was go to my grandma’s house on the weekends because she would let me help grade papers,” she told The Marion Star, which profiled her this week in its Aces of Trades series. She even kept her own gradebook for playing school with her younger sister. “It came naturally to me,” she told The Marion Star. “At my core I have always been a teacher.”
Emerick grew up in Arlington Heights, Illinois, a northwest suburb of Chicago, and graduated from high school in 2001. She earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in student development in postsecondary education from the University of Iowa, then added a second bachelor’s degree in community health while working at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. She is now pursuing a doctor of education in educational leadership and practice at the University of North Dakota, which she hopes to complete in December 2027.
She arrived at Marion Tech in March 2018 as the college’s inaugural director of advising, despite having spent only two or three days in Ohio before moving here after her husband took a position at Ohio Wesleyan University. She told The Marion Star she had never seriously considered a community college before, but was drawn to Marion Tech’s mission and its emphasis on student success and uplifting the regional workforce and economy.
Colleagues say that mission-first approach defines her work. “Laura is one of the most dedicated professionals I have ever worked with,” Craig Sohl, the college’s executive director of grants, told The Marion Star. “Everything Laura does is grounded in research and best practices. She is our north star. She’s led many efforts at the college to ensure students have guidance and support every step of the way, whether they’re transferring to a four-year university or entering the workforce.”
In her current role, Emerick describes the essence of her division as supporting students outside the classroom — developing meaningful relationships, removing barriers, fostering a sense of belonging, and empowering students to succeed. “Relationships matter,” she told The Marion Star. “It only takes one person who cares to help a student feel like they matter and believe they can do hard things.”
She often repeats a line from Marion Tech president Dr. Ryan McCall: “We are in the business of changing family trees.” Emerick told The Marion Star the phrase stuck with her the first time she heard it and now serves as a reminder of why she does the work. Aces of Trades is a weekly series spotlighting people in the Marion area and the jobs they do; suggestions for future profiles can be sent to The Marion Star.
Photo: JBTHEMILKER, CC BY-SA 4.0