Sandy Neubaum College of Business
Jenny Villalobos Student | College of Business
Enriching the Future
When Sandy Neubaum became the associate director of OSU’s Austin Entrepreneurship Program, she knew that to accomplish her goals, she would need a core of experienced students to mentor the incoming freshmen. “I was searching for Weatherford’s best and was very methodical about whom I picked for the Student Leadership Team,” she says.
Jenny Villalobos was one of the first students Neubaum chose — and Neubaum didn’t stop there. She also chose Villalobos — a senior double majoring in business marketing and education — to be her teaching assistant (TA) for her freshman entrepreneurship class. According to Neubaum, anyone who’s ever met Villalobos would immediately know why.
“When I introduce Jenny to my freshman business class, I tell them, ‘Jenny will solve all of your problems,’” says Neubaum. As a TA, Villalobos not only runs special events and handles entrepreneurship challenges, she also answers the kinds of questions that nervous first-year students ask; such as how to use Blackboard and how to navigate course registration. She’s resourceful, too. If there is a problem she can’t solve on her own, Villalobos knows where to get answers — with advisers, other upperclassmen or Neubaum.
“Jenny is a good listener. She is inherently nice to students and she serves as a great role model,” Neubaum says. Just as importantly, Villalobos is continuing the cycle of mentoring, and students at Weatherford have learned to seek her out.
“I want to positively influence our students’ choices,” says Villalobos. “While entrepreneurship and event planning are personal goals, helping students succeed is my passion. Helping younger students achieve their goals is important to me.”
Villalobos traces her success to the example that Neubaum sets as a mentor. “I’ve never seen anyone so dedicated to students,” Villalobos says. Neubaum’s passion for her students flows from the classroom into day-to-day life. She loves the time she spends with students on trips, during office hours, at Bing’s Café and at her home.
Neubaum’s involvement in her students’ lives has not ended at graduation. She has attended their weddings, been a godparent to their children and even inspired others to raise children from the foster care system, as Neubaum and her husband, Don, a strategy and entrepreneurship professor in the College of Business, have done.
“Teaching goes beyond the hour and 50 minutes you spend with students in a classroom two or three times a week. It has to, because students’ lives go beyond an hour and 50 minutes three times a week,” Neubaum says.
For Neubaum and Villalobos, serving as a mentor and a role model is about helping students find their passion. It is also about enriching people’s lives and perpetuating mentorship. “My life is richer because of these students,” says Neubaum.
“Part of my role as a teacher is helping students find an area where they excel and encouraging them to reach their potential,” Neubaum says. “And as you work with the students, they will learn that they also have the ability to make a difference in someone else’s life. Jenny is already making a difference with our students’ lives.”
