Meet Lee-Ann Ballard MAA Graduate

Lee Ann:I’m doing good. How are you?

Enrollment Advisor: I’m doing well. Thank you for asking. Lee Ann, if you wouldn’t mind just taking a few minutes here and welcome yourself to all of our attendees. Tell everyone a little bit about yourself, about this program and the experiences that you’re enjoying so far since being part of the Ohio University family.

Lee Ann:Like Sean said, my name is Lee Ann Ballard. I live in Springfield, Ohio. I’m married and have 2 young children. I was a full-time coach when I was looking into the program, I was actually looking at the coaching program to start off with and then changed by mind and went the athletic administration route. Thought that would be better for my career as I went further in my education career. As you can see, I’m a biology teacher, have been a biology teacher for 15 years in the Springfield City school district. I coached girls’ basketball for 15 years and was the head coach. This year, I took a little bit of a back seat and just was a volunteer coach. That really helped out with the schedule for the program. Because I have 2 young children, because I am working a full-time job and because I was coaching and trying to be involved with my children and just being a normal mom and wife, the flexibility of the program really stood out to me. It’s a lot of time management, I found. It took me a semester, or at least a class or so, to figure out the schedule and when I needed to do things, but that flexibility has been really good. I don’t try to wait until the last minute to do anything. If I have something going on, if I have a kid’s practice or if I have a staff meeting or something to go to, I can work around that and I can throw in my work for the program when I can fit it in. The deadlines are totally workable. They’re not always the easiest at times, but totally workable.

One of the things I’ve really liked about the program has been interacting with a lot of the other people in the group. I’ve met people from South Dakota, California, Texas, Oklahoma, all over Ohio, and I’m sure I’ll be meeting more people as we go. I’m hoping that a lot of that networking comes into play. I still keep in contact with some, even if they’re not in my group. One time or another, I still keep in contact either via Facebook or we text every now and then to ask one another questions or something. It’s a really good way to network and to meet people that have the same interests as you. Everybody has a little bit different background with where they’ve been. It’s great to get their insight from their experiences as well.