Lindsay Pickering is in her third year as the Assistant Director of Athletics for Academic Services. No stranger to UMSL, however, Pickering has been with the University since 2014.
 
She was also a standout student-athlete herself at Southeast Missouri State, excelling in softball and soccer, where she was a two-time OVC Defensive Player of the Year. Pickering was inducted into the SEMO Sports Hall of Fame in 2015.
 
Get to know more about Lindsay…
 
HOW DID YOU GET INTO ACADEMIC ADVISING?
My journey at UMSL is really what guided me to this direction so when I first started I was just recruiting for the University – recruiting incoming freshmen. And I really enjoyed that. But there's other people in the office and the transfer office that worked with students who were at a community college or a four-year that would eventually transfer to UMSL and I was intrigued at the knowledge they had about all the degree programs. They knew which courses from other schools they should take. Not only that just transferred to UMSL but to their specific degree program. So I became very intrigued by that. It was just a different level of assisting student. And so an opportunity came where I could join the transfer office and I just love digging into the difference degrees and different requirement. Then I really liked the idea of being a part of just one specific college and helping students in one program so I had the opportunity to work in the join engineering program with Wash U where I was the advisor for the prerequisite courses on UMSL's campus. Then when this opportunity came, as a former student-athlete and as a former coach, it was like what better population to work with than student-athletes. It's like every job I took led me to this role without realizing I was being led to it.
 
WHAT DOES YOUR POSITION INVOLVE?
When I introduce myself to recruits, parents and even the new student-athletes, I simply say I'm here to help you with all things academics. Obviously, a lot falls into that, but the way I primarily see my role is to make sure our student-athletes are successful from the time they get here. Right now it could be little things from how to I navigate Canvas to where can I print. But it's answering those simple things to help set them up to be successful.
 
Another big part of my role is managing study hall time and when they need to be studying. And some of that is just teaching them time management.
 
Another thing I do is meet with each student-athlete at least every other week, although this semester with the way things are structured, they'll meet with me every week. And we just go through their classes and talk about how things are going.
 
Then there's the advising piece – what major are they going to do, are they taking the right classes.
 
BEST PART OF YOUR JOB?
Hands down it's seeing student-athletes succeed, even if it's just celebrating the little successes, like a student getting a C. I think it's those little things or even students that maybe struggle all semester long and then they pull off the grade they needed. It's not even always in the classroom, sometimes it's they want to be a positive part of their team and they get that chance in a game or that competition and now they become a key part of the rotation, so it's even simple things like that.
 
YOU BEGAN YOUR PROFESSIONAL CAREER AS AN ASSISTANT COACH AT YOUR ALAMA MATER – SEMO. WHY COACHING AND WHY DID YOU GET OUT OF IT?
I got the opportunity to coach at my alma mater and with the coaching staff that I played for, which I think is somewhat rare. My undergrad degree was in elementary education, but while I was deciding if that's what I really wanted to do, I also had an interest in coaching. I was coaching at the club level (eight and nine-year-olds) and I loved it. So I thought I can go get my master's and explore coaching for a couple years and then if I wanted to go back to teaching, I have that opportunity. As I was talking to my head coach about what I wanted to do, she told me to hold off and that, there may be some things in the works. A couple weeks later, she said we can actually hire a position and she would love for me to do that. So I was very fortunate and stayed on as an assistant coach for six years. In that time, I got my master's degree in higher education and was exposed to all the other areas that are possible in higher education and loved it. In my opinion, to be successful and happy as a coach, you have to love it. And I really liked it, but I didn't love it. I knew I liked higher ed and I liked working with this age group, but I didn't think coaching was what I was supposed to do for my career. I ended up looking at positions in St. Louis, and UMSL was actually always one that was on my radar because I had family members that graduated from here and I always thought of it as St. Louis' best-kept secret. I actually did apply for some coaching positions and it was probably a blessing that none of those worked out because I think I really found my niche.