Profile: Isabel Macomber

Isabel Macomber is the academic department coordinator at Emerson College Los Angeles (ELA). In this role, she wears a few hats and coordinates with departments across ELA and the College to ensure that ELA is adhering to and integrated into Emerson’s academic policies and practices. She manages ELA course scheduling by coordinating with faculty, academic leadership, the Registrar’s Office, and Boston academic departments to create a unique course schedule every semester (which includes about 50 courses) that meets the graduation requirements of all incoming students. She also communicates with incoming ELA students ahead of registration to help them prepare for any differing policies. 

She supports her supervisor, ELA Assistant Academic Dean Mikhail Gershovich, in maintaining a culture of support for their community of affiliated faculty. This means keeping lines of communication open with faculty and always trying to address their questions and concerns. They hold about two faculty meetings per semester to bring faculty together to discuss topics around teaching and learning at ELA. Macomber sends out administrative communications to faculty throughout the semester to help them with classroom and student concerns— everything from making sure they have the best classroom to suit their class’s format to supporting students who are struggling with coursework. 

Additionally, Macomber sits on the ELA Selection Committee to read and score ELA applications. ELA receives 400–500 applications per year. She also serves on the Banner Support Committee to stay abreast of updates to Banner ERP and course registration. As a member of ELA’s Staff Wellness and Appreciation Team (SWAT), she assists with planning periodical appreciation initiatives and birthday celebrations for ELA staff. 

“I have devoted much of my time in my role to streamlining department processes for optimized efficiency and expanding it from an office-administrative and faculty-support focus,” Macomber noted. “In the past, ELA faculty would submit any administrative/non-academic inquiries to me: these included HR requests, IT requests, Accounts Payable forms for class speaker payments, and more. I would then send their details to the appropriate Boston office and coordinate a response. Over the past five years, I have facilitated direct connections between ELA faculty and these offices so they can go straight to them with inquiries, as faculty do in Boston,” she explained. This shift has given Macomber more time to manage ELA course scheduling– which was previously overseen by Boston Academic Affairs with ELA’s collaboration– and participate on the various committees. 

Outside of her office duties, Macomber has been a facilitator for FS 101 Emersion: Foundations of Success since 2022, in which she facilitates a biweekly remote class of incoming Emerson students in a course designed to equip them for success at Emerson and beyond. This entails supervising a student peer mentor who co-facilitates the class. She leads discussions on academic resources and goal setting, personal and intercultural development, community engagement, and health and well-being. She explained, “Emersion has been an amazing opportunity to share the knowledge I gained in my experience as an Emerson undergrad!”

Macomber has worked at ELA for six years, having joined shortly after graduating from Emerson in 2017 with a degree in Writing, Literature and Publishing, and a minor in Global and Postcolonial Studies. “As an undergraduate, I gained valuable administrative experience as an intern at College Year in Athens and as a student office assistant in the Emerson Dean of Students’ Office. And I discovered my penchant for academic affairs while serving as the Writing, Literature and Publishing senator for Emerson’s Student Government Association.” She was also a Jumpstart corps member and had the opportunity to study abroad at Kasteel Well in Spring 2015.

Now that Macomber is firmly established on the administrative side of Emerson, she enjoys being able to put her institutional knowledge to work to answer complicated questions from students and colleagues. “I am a proud Emersonian and delight in every opportunity to help Emerson work best for its community!” she said. 

Macomber grew up between Newport and Middletown, Rhode Island. Growing up, she trained as a classical ballet and contemporary dancer, and spent her summers learning to sail or performing Shakespeare. Now she lives in the Los Feliz neighborhood with her partner, Nick, and their “perfect angel dog,” Tully.

She enjoys visiting restaurants in Los Feliz and Silver Lake, taking Pilates classes, and walking her dog in Griffith Park. She is a self-proclaimed avid TV binger and reader and recently converted to library books “but I’ll love independent bookstores forever,” she noted. She also loves to travel, whether that is getting back to New England as much as she can or visiting the national parks of the West. Last summer, she vacationed in Greece for the first time.

Camryn Ciancia ’24