Powell wins Outstanding Adviser award

  Thursday, April 23, 2015 2:00 AM
  News

Pittsburg, KS

Brooke Powell, sexual assault advocate and adviser for Students For Violence Prevention at Pittsburg State University, was recently named Outstanding Adviser at the BACCHUS Area 5 Meeting of the Minds conference in Kansas City. The BACCHUS Network is a university and community-based organization focusing on comprehensive health and safety initiatives.

Powell, a 2007 Pittsburg State graduate who once dreamed of a career as an English teacher, said it is not a career path she expected to take.

Seven years ago, Powell found herself burned out with graduate school classes and looking for a new path to follow. She accepted a position at the local Safehouse Crisis Center, which serves victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Powell said she hoped to help make a difference in their lives, but she didn’t expect it to be a career.

“I was pretty much just burned out with grad school, and I was looking for other opportunities,” said Powell, who serves as the “I don’t think at the time I was looking at it as a huge career move.”

Now, Powell can’t imagine doing anything different.

“People aren’t often told about the ways they make a difference in others’ lives,” she said. “We don’t always hear the good things. But we know we do make that difference. We see it, and sometimes we do hear it.

“I truly feel I am where I’m supposed to be,” she said.

Powell said her nomination for the BACCHUS award was both unexpected and touching.

“It was incredibly unexpected,” she said. “I was listening to the nomination letter one of our students wrote, and I just lost it. It was an amazing feeling.”

In the nomination letter, a student who is also one of Powell’s clients, wrote that she sees Powell as a mentor and friend.

“Brooke is my adviser for Students for Violence Prevention but she’s more than that to me as a person,” the student wrote. “She is a safe place to go to when I need to talk. She’s a trustworthy friend with a lot of information most don’t know and she keeps it to herself.

“She deserves a heartfelt thank you, and to be used as an example because she doesn’t just follow her job description,” the student wrote. “She goes above and beyond because she cares, genuinely-that’s what an outstanding adviser does.”