Influential Woman · Higher Ed

Yvonne Borkowski

Doctorate

Assistant Professor, St. Joseph's University New York

Patchogue, NY

Certifications · Degrees · Memberships

Degree Doctorate Degree 2022 Cert Doctorate Cert Certifications in Early Childhood and Childhood Education Cert Certifications in School Administration Member Board Member of the New York State Association for Women Administrators

Her Story

About Yvonne

I've been working with higher education for at least 15 years. Currently, I lead and oversee two programs at the university. I'm the director of the Educational Leadership Program, which I fully redesigned, and now it is a much more viable, vivacious program in less than 2 years. I also organize and oversee the student teaching program, making many collaborations with school districts and finding proper placements and opportunities for our students in the field. My passion came from being an advocate for many years for students with disabilities. I worked on state-funded programs and federal grants, and I had done a lot of work in our region in the Southwest as a Native American parent specialist, where I worked with families on reservations who had children with disabilities, championing for their rights to public education and receiving services and supports. That's how my career started, and then it led to the college world where I teach classes on special education. My typical day involves teaching courses in special education and general education in our teacher prep program, overseeing students in the leadership program where I also teach courses, training faculty and new instructors, looking at building the program, rewriting curriculum, building relationships, doing outreach, and providing support. A big strength of mine is relationship building through my work with school districts, advocating for families with children with disabilities, and having done consulting work. I've developed a strong community of connections and experience working with diverse populations in advocacy, teaching, and family engagement.

Her Interview

Ten minutes with Yvonne

01What do you attribute your success to?

I attribute my success to my mother. When I did my dissertation and my doctorate, the first cover page for my study was a picture of four generations: my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, and myself. They had endured lots of hardships in their life so that the next woman in the family could be successful. My mother made sure that I was her top priority, that the world is at your fingertips, and she really encouraged me to be the first person in my family to attend college and to continue to live out my dreams. My success comes from her.

02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?

The best career advice I received was to value diverse cultures and meet people where they are, and don't expect them to come with you. The other huge piece of advice was about advocacy: you can't change the world, but if you can just make a change for one person, that change will trickle down for many others. That was the advice I was given - one family at a time.

03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?

Don't wait for permission to lead. You have to use your own voice and use your expertise. Know your value. That's the advice to women: know your value, own your own voice, know your expertise, and don't wait for permission to lead. But do it with integrity.

04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?

I think the biggest challenges right now are probably aligning your programs and grant opportunities. Because of the changes that are happening in education so fast, whether it's who's overseeing the Department of Education, and because there's so many changes happening, it's really hard to set your foot somewhere. I would say responding to unexpected challenges is really the issue - managing last-minute changes in policy.

05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?

For me, I'd have to say when the families I've worked with, whether it's the teachers I'm working with or my students, walk away with a new learning. When they have that aha moment, and you can see that they have learned something through either the workshops or through a lecture, and that they're able to carry it through. This adult learning piece is really valuable to me. So when they apply what they've learned, they come back to me, they'll email me and say, I tried that, or when they come back to class, they'll say, I did this, and whether it was successful or not, but that they really felt inspired by something that they learned and they were able to take a chance and try to replicate that.

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