Profile: Shaylin Hogan
Shaylin Hogan is the senior program manager in the Office of Graduate Studies. She oversees the daily operations of Emerson’s 16 graduate programs, which enroll 2,000+ students each year.
In her role, she collaborates with coworkers and offices across campus to ensure that Graduate Studies’ processes work well and are also efficient. This entails working with colleagues in Graduate Admission, Registrar’s Office, International Student Affairs, and Student Success, among others.
Hogan and her team help graduate students throughout their entire Emerson journey. They coordinate Graduate Student Orientation for approximately 500 incoming students each fall and also support the Graduate Hooding Ceremonies for more than 500 graduating students each year. For Orientation, Graduate Studies books spaces, sets up Zoom meetings, communicates information to students, invites speakers, coordinates with departments to host program meetings, and arranges for various offices and GSOs (Grad Student Organizations) to attend the GSA reception. For the five annual Hooding Ceremonies, Hogan and her colleagues recruit and train the volunteers who handle check-in and lineup and marshaling inside the theater.
(Hogan notes that helping with the Hooding Ceremonies is one of the most favorite parts of her job, and she invites staff interested in volunteering to get in touch with her!)
She assists the Graduate Student Association (GSA) in planning social events throughout the year, including the Orientation Reception for incoming students and various graduate student organization events. The GSA also offers Professional Development Grants (PDGs) and mini-grants to students, and Graduate Studies helps ensure a consistent and fair application process from year to year.
Hogan works with graduate program directors on curricular matters: making course changes, creating new courses, approving course substitutions, and troubleshooting irregular situations. She also helps launch new programs, plans events such as on-campus residencies, and handles special projects.
Hogan joined Emerson in 2013 as an administrative associate in the Writing, Literature and Publishing Department. In 2017, she pivoted from supporting WLP graduate students (along with other administrative duties) to working full-time with graduate students across the College in the Graduate Studies Office. Prior to Emerson, she worked on statistics and advanced mathematics textbooks at the educational technology company Cengage.
Her favorite thing about Emerson is the people. She explained, “I love serving our students, and I love working with my colleagues—staff, faculty, and student workers included….Everyone here has stories to tell, and I love it.”
Hogan is a native of the South Shore of Massachusetts (Carver to Brockton). She graduated from Bridgewater State College with a bachelor’s degree in English. She stayed on in the English department and obtained a master’s degree in English with a focus on creative writing. Currently, she is a resident of Wrentham, MA, along with her husband and their son; their hound dog, Winnie Cooper; their tuxedo cat, Dr. Stanley Tucci, MD; and a yard full of wildlife.
When she is not working, she can usually be found going on adventures with her family, playing/gardening in her yard, or supporting one of her local sportsball teams (Go Red Sox!). She is sometimes also found buried in a book or watching old Top Chef episodes. More often than not, she can be found in her kitchen because she cooks a lot and loves to bake. Specifically, she likes to make pies. She considers the Wednesday before Thanksgiving to be a sacred holiday that she celebrates by “absolutely wrecking [her] kitchen to make pies.”
Nancy Howell (Communications and Marketing)