Dear ladies and gentlemen of The Benjamin School, our very own Mrs. Loretta Corey is now on The Foundation Board at the University of Central Florida, better known as UCF.  Technically, Corey’s new title is “University of Central Florida Foundation Board Member.”  According to UCF’s website (ucf.edu), the sole mission of the board is to “…encourage stewards and celebrate charitable contributions from alumni and friends to support The University of Central Florida.”

Corey, who is the Middle School’s Student Council advisor and director of the division’s Career Day program, recently spoke to The Neersyde, describing her new position.  With regard to some of her future goals as a board member, Corey said, “As a Foundation Board Member, I will be giving ideas and suggestions [in regard to] moving some of the different schools at the university to downtown Orlando, such as Nursing and Political Science.”  The move has to do with the fact that the Board recently acquired land in downtown Orlando.  Corey went on to say that UCF wants to “…devise a plan that keeps the[se] students [in downtown Orlando] involved with the main campus.”  So far, Corey says she is extremely excited about her new position, and she exclaimed, “What a great honor to be part of UCF!”  Jokingly she went on to say, “…how disappointed [her] children would be if [she] didn’t get the position.”  Corey has two sons, JB and Matthew, who are both UCF alumni and a daughter, Jamie, who is currently a senior at the university.  Because of her family’s longstanding relationship with the university, she is very excited about the  opportunity to be a member of the Board.

Corey’s first meeting with the Board will be March 20, 2015.  She shared some recent Board discussions during our interview about UCF’s plans to cultivate a group of future students from the local Orlando area. Specifically, she said, “Plans were suggested to have students filter in from [a] local  sixth-twelfth grade school and then attend UCF.” Corey went on to say that she will “be a big part of this …possible future school” plan.  Corey also asserted that  if this plan goes through, students at the school who filter into UCF will also have the privilege of taking part in a career program that she will run much like the one she runs at The Benjamin School.  Corey also plans “to take graduating students from [the] UCF Education Department to teach at [Benjamin].”

However, Corey explains her own interview was quite a day in and of itself.  She explained that the last time she sat down for a job  interview was more than twenty years ago.  She told us that as she prepared for her interview for the UCF Board position, she realized she was now putting to use all the career and interviewing tools she has been teaching at The Benjamin School over the years.  She was obviously nervous at the thought of an interview, and she let us in on some of her worries that day. For instance, she initially did not know that the interview was occurring over lunch, and she had to navigate this issue: “I wasn’t planning on eating and talking.  Now I had to think about what I would order; salad [was certainly] out of the question.  [I] couldn’t take a chance on having a green leaf in my tooth, or a burger and ending up with ketchup on [my] lap.” Mrs. Corey ended up ordering a chopped salad that was chopped very small ,and she didn’t end up eating it.  During the interview for the board member position, Corey says she was asked a variety of questions such as why she was so committed to UCF, what she did at The Benjamin School, what she knew about the UCF Board, how she worked with people, and she was even asked a bit about her three children.

The questions Mrs. Corey was asked sound like those in the pages of the career workbook she hands out each year to middle schoolers to prepare for Career Day. As a result, it is easy to see that the packet Corey designed for Career Day at The Benjamin School is leading us in the right direction, and the tips and hints in the packet come from her own true professional experience.

So, seventh graders, you need to listen up when Mrs. Corey teaches you how to prep for interviews because her strategies obviously  work like a charm in the real world.  We know this because Corey used her own interview tips to get herself a new job at UCF!  Even though she was nervous, she says, “[I] went in telling myself [that if] it didn’t happen, it wasn’t meant to be.”  Now that she is an official board member at UCF, Corey is working on how she plans to utilize what she is learning from her experience at UCF to help improve the Career Day program she runs at The Benjamin School.  “This [new position] gives me first hand information as to what is going on at the college level.  I can bring this information back to the career program, which I update every year.”  So while Corey is working on the Board at UCF, she hasn’t forgotten about The Benjamin School.

As far as her new position as board member,  Corey says she actually wound up being a perfect fit for her position.  Her plan to automatically move students from the school she has in mind into UCF was very appealing to the board.  She told The Neersyde, “I knew once I gave suggestions and my opinion about having a middle and upper school eventually go to UCF, I was exactly what they were looking for.  They had no idea about some things I recommended, and at that point said they were looking for someone just like me.”

This new position has not failed to impress various  Benjamin students and make them proud that their teacher has accomplished so much thus far.  “Mrs. Corey is a dedicated faculty member and deserves the position,” said seventh grader Alex Goetschius. “She represents the Benjamin School and everything the school strives for. I feel that she will be very useful as a UCF board member.”

Another student, middle school Student Council Treasurer Maks Silagy, happens to share that viewpoint. “I think that Mrs  Corey’s being inducted on the board of the University of Central Florida is great! I could not be happier for her.”  Silagy also added a personal note to the end of the interview: “Corey, in my opinion, is the best teacher on the campus. Also, she has taught me so many lessons that I will never forget for my entire life.”