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Mario Adkins

Aquinas College

United States of America - Grand Rapids

Gamer, Researcher, Scholar, Writer, Learner, Teacher & Leader. I work in First-Year Experience affairs, a Higher Education area that supports college freshmen.

Areas of interest

Biography

Mario Adkins is a resident director (area coordinator) at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Mich. Adkins enjoys working with first-year students in extracurricular, co-curricular, programmatic activities, classroom settings and other student development endeavors. Adkins obtained both his Bachelor of Arts in communication studies and his Master of Education in college student affairs leadership from Grand Valley State University (GVSU). As an upperclassman after transferring to GVSU, Adkins served as a resident assistant and vice president of membership services for ΟΔΚ. In this ΟΔΚ role, Adkins was tasked with identifying future student leaders for ΟΔΚ, developing programs for ΟΔΚ members, and participating in ΟΔΚ induction ceremonies with fellow ΟΔΚ executive board members. ΟΔΚ was one of many inspiring factors that fortified Adkins’ work in higher education and student affairs.

Adkins values the five pillars of leadership: scholarship, athletics, service, involvement and media that ΟΔΚ has identified and centers his leadership development and first-year experience work on each of them. He combines his research ambitions and desires to travel around the country by presenting his research findings, most recently in places such as Las Vegas, Nev., Jacksonville, Fla. and Troy, N.Y. Studying abroad in El Salvador was another valuable experiential learning opportunity. Adkins also values the use of educational technology and serves as chair of the Digital Games and Simulations committee for the Association of Advancement of Computing in Education, an international organization dedicated to bringing innovative digital and technological developments to primary, secondary and tertiary educational systems.

In his downtime, he enjoys drawing, video games, reading, volunteering in the community, philanthropic activities and writing, more specifically writing articles for The Student Affairs Collective and for professional scholarly journals.