July 2007

Evan Baum, '03, Transitions from Life as Student to Student-Life Career


In a few short years, Evan Baum, ’03, has moved from being an undergraduate student to a college administrator who oversees many services students have come to expect during their college years.  

As director of undergraduate academic programs for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., he directs and coordinates student services for more than 8,000 students.  

Baum, who started working at George Mason this past January, said one of the most rewarding and challenging aspects of his job is fostering connections between the College of Humanities and Social Sciences faculty and the student support services staff. 

“I help folks collaborate,” he said. “Linking the academic component with the co-curricular component results in the greatest student-learning outcomes.” He said he draws upon his Jepson education, with its significant emphasis on experiential education, in helping students make those “real-world” connections. 

Baum set about pursuing a career in higher education right after graduating from Jepson. He enrolled in the master’s program in Education Policy and Leadership at the University of Maryland in fall 2003.  

While there, he worked as a graduate research and teaching assistant, conducting research with faculty on the status of ongoing desegregation efforts in public higher education in the South. The research has since been published and is referenced in a number of scholarly journals, including those of the Association for the Study of Higher Education and the Association for Institutional Research. 

He also had the opportunity to interview leadership icon James MacGregor Burns as part of an oral history project chronicling the founding and evolution of the University of Maryland’s James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership. And he co-taught an introductory class on leadership for juniors and seniors.  

After completing his master’s degree in May 2005, Baum joined George Washington University in Washington, D.C., as community director for housing programs. In this position he served 2,800 undergraduates living in eight residence halls and 13 Greek townhouses.  

“Students at George Washington are a lot like those at Richmond in that they are high achieving and very involved,” he said. “My biggest challenge was to offer programs and services to a large number of students that would meet their expectations of what their [college] experience should be like.”  

As a community director, Baum lived on campus and responded to a round-the-clock pager when there was an emergency. “If students were exhibiting negative behavior or needed professional help, I would respond and manage the situation,” Baum said. “I would make sure students got the services they needed in times of crises.”  

Whether in his former position at George Washington or in his current position at George Mason, he said his leadership studies major prepared him well for a career in higher education. He noted in particular the usefulness of the critical-thinking and writing skills he honed at Jepson. Thanks to his Jepson education, he said he often finds himself the designated come-to person for questions relating to leadership studies.  

“The Jepson name has been an incredibly valuable piece of political capital that I have been able to use in forming relationships with other colleagues and assisting in the formative processes of other leadership education programs,” he said. 

Aside from his day-to-day work, Baum participates in a number of professional and volunteer activities. He serves on the Jepson Alumni Networking Group, which held its first meeting in February. Inspired by that meeting, Baum created a Jepson School group account on Facebook to facilitate networking between students, alumni and friends of the School.  

In December Baum was elected to serve a three-year term on the American College Personnel Association’s Commission for Housing and Residential Life. He also volunteers every year to coordinate a mock United Nations convention for some 1,500 high school students from the Mid-Atlantic region. 

Baum first participated in this convention as a high school student. While volunteering in his freshman year in college, he met his fiancée, Beth Gelman, who also worked as a volunteer. They plan to wed November 3.

Baum said he intends to return to graduate school part-time this fall to pursue a master’s of science degree in organization development and knowledge management at the George Mason School of Public Policy, a program he anticipates will be reminiscent of his Jepson experience. 

“A small cohort of professionals will be going through this program at the same time,” Baum said. “The program will include group projects, discussion-based classes and some consulting in the community. 

“There aren’t many folks who work at colleges and universities who study [their institutions] from an organizational perspective. I hope to apply [what I learn in this program] to the work I do at the university.”