Office Hours

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Giselle (00:10):
Hi everybody, my name's Giselle, and I'm the digital marketing strategist here at Texas State University. You're listening to Office Hours, and today I'm here with Tony. Tony, what's up?

Tony (00:18):
I am doing so wonderful, Giselle, how are you?

Giselle (00:21):
I'm actually pretty good. So you got to speak with Jennifer Scharlach, and she's in the PR concentration up at Mass Comm, so what was that like for you?

Tony (00:30):
It was an absolute blast. It was one of those conversations that felt really organic and, um, especially with the podcast, you can start to feel that at some point they get very scripted. But with Jen, it was just really nice and fluid and natural, and I feel like I learned a lot.

Giselle (00:44):
Yeah. You're already on first name basis with the Jen. That's awesome. . . And she was also a Swiftie, so that was pretty cute. We learned that. I don't know if it was in the recording, but it was a really cute little moment for y'all. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Well, we hope you guys enjoy this conversation with Tony and Jennifer.

Tony (01:03):
Can you please tell me your name and what you do here at Texas State?

Jennifer Scharlach (01:06):
Sure. My name is Jennifer Scharlach, and I am an assistant professor of practice for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, specifically in public relations.

Tony (01:17):
Ooh, okay. I love that. For just the icebreaker here, I wanna know, when do you feel the most happy? This is sort of outta the blue, so I'll go ahead and answer first. I am my most happiest when I am creating something. I like having my friends around. We don't even have to be really interacting with each other, just sort of sharing the space all creating something, doing things we love. What about you? Who's there? What are you doing? When are you most happy?

Jennifer Scharlach (01:40):
I think the happiest I am is really surrounded, again, like you said, by people that I enjoy and, and love and care about. Um, I am a people person. I really gain my energy from other people being around me. Um, like you, I'm a creative, and so I really enjoy being able to bounce ideas off of each other and really get that just synergy of being able to be like, wow, that's such a great idea. And really my family is a huge part of my life. I enjoy spending time with them. I also love gardening, which I figured that out over COVID, which was a lot of fun. Um, gave me a little pet project, but now I got out my grandmother or great-grandmother's recipe book and learned how to pickle and can, and make jellies and all kinds of fun things, so...

Tony (02:33):
Oh, okay. So you're a jack-of-all-trades. You're picking it up for sure. For sure. You're doing all kinds of cute little things. I love that so much. Okay, well, let's start from the beginning. When you were a kid, what did you wanna be when you grew up?

Jennifer Scharlach (02:44):
Well, that's a great question. I think it's one of the harder questions the older you get, because you've already had the, all of these transitions over your lifetime to figure out where you are now. I think as a kid, I always thought that I would end up being a teacher, but went through a very roundabout way to get there. So being a professor of practice means that I have 20 plus years experience in industry, well really about 15 years of experience before I started teaching full-time for the school. So I absolutely enjoy teaching, enjoy. I feel like I learn from students more than they learn from me, but the things that I learn every single semester about myself and about them and the new things that they bring to me are just amazing.

Tony (03:31):
Awesome. What was your very first job?

Jennifer Scharlach (03:33):
So, my very first job, I am a double grad of Texas State University. So my undergrad is a PR grad, uh, PR degree. My master's is also from Texas State. I got that in strategic communication. I started working for the Seton Healthcare Network in their marketing and planning division and loved it. So one of the things I was really interested in in college here at Texas State was event planning. So I had had some internships with the Tanger Outlet Mall and the McCoy's Building Supply Corporation, and got a lot of experience doing public relations and in particular event planning. Well, they saw that on my resume, and they had a little program called the Austin Safe Kids Coalition, which at the time had about five coalition members. So they let me take on that little program, and by the time I left five years later, it had 30 community members that were a part of it. And instead of doing like two events a year, we were doing about 30 events a year.

Tony (04:31):
Oh, you got in there and you slayed, you absolutely changed it. That's so good. And such a good cause too. Mm-hmm. , love that. As your first job, what was the scariest and most exciting part about going into college?

Jennifer Scharlach (04:42):
So, I come from multi-generation of college graduates. So I'm gonna say I'm one of those people. It wasn't like if but when and where I was going, I feel like I had the expectations of this is something you're gonna do and, you know, you need to know what you're gonna do. So I think for me, it was kind of finding my path.

Tony (05:03):
What was the college experience like for you, and did it live up to what you imagined? What did you think the college experience was gonna be like for you?

Jennifer Scharlach (05:10):
I think I thought that it was going to be way easier than it was. I was a very straight-A student in high school, honors student, didn't really have to study, but when I got to college, that was a whole different situation. I didn't have the study skills to be able to pick up on the nuances that you have in a college classroom. Somebody's not there to necessarily hold your hand if you're not understanding. They're not going to say, "Hey, I think you need to stay for tutorials." No, you, you're the one that has to take the initiative.

Tony (05:44):
Right. I think especially in college, a lot of people learn quickly that you're going to get what you put into it, that if they just take that extra step of effort, they'll go like that much further.

Jennifer Scharlach (05:54):
Oh, for sure.

Tony (05:55):
You've already sort of gotten into this, but I'd love for you to elaborate, but how did you get into nonprofit work?

Jennifer Scharlach (06:01):
Okay. I am such a proponent of nonprofits, because in working for nonprofits, believe it or not, the Seton Healthcare Network is a nonprofit, but it's a very large nonprofit, so it's really ran like a corporation, but at its essence, it has a mission of a nonprofit, which is to help people and keep them well. That was my very first job, and I fell in love with it, especially when they gave me Austin Safe Kids Coalition. I absolutely didn't necessarily always get to work with patients at the Children's Hospital, but I got to see the effect of what we were doing to prevent children from going there with devastation, injuries, or, you know, God forbid a fatality happens from something that could have been prevented. And so not only are you getting paid to do a job, but you get paid to do something that at the end of the day, you feel really, really good about what you're doing. So for me, that was huge. And it was part of what motivated me to not only do a good job because it wasn't just like I was working for a paycheck, but I was doing something that mattered to other people as well.

Tony (07:08):
Do you have any memorable moments from times before you became a professor that you now use as teachable moments?

Jennifer Scharlach (07:14):
Oh, all the time. So I feel like if there's one thing that I can provide for students, it's, you know, providing, letting them know that we're not perfect and giving them examples of that. So dealing with governmental entities like the lower Colorado River Authority, or here at Texas State, there have been some times where, not anything that we've done, but because things were happening that we've had certain crises that we've had to deal with. And I think that's important. There was one time that I sent out an email. We had a brand new database that was connected to our website, like the backend. So we would be able to have very pretty emails that we sent out to people. Basically they could log into their account and instead of sending it to like the list that I had pulled from our database, like I had excluded everyone I wanted to, but it included people that weren't even alumni of the university

(08:07):
And so it went out to people that were like, why are you sending me this email that says alumnus? And I'm like, are y'all like, are you not intelligent? Like, what is happening here? And so we had the, you know, it was then I automatically was like, oh my goodness, this went out to way more people than I thought it did. So it really allowed me to, a, I had to own the mistake. I had to ask for more training because that was a, you know, so it was like figuring out the process of crisis communication, but also having ownership of it, but not just stopping there and saying, I was sorry. How am I gonna fix it? And then how am I gonna make sure this never happens again?

Tony (08:44):
We love accountability and we love failing forward. She's my favorite teacher of all time. If you could talk to the 20-something-year-old version of yourself, what would you tell her?

Jennifer Scharlach (08:54):
I think I would tell her to have a lot of confidence in herself. You know, I think about just my early days as an employee not having, again, not having imposter syndrome, right? Like, if you have an idea, speak it. Don't be afraid to give an idea. Don't feel like you're not experienced or have the credentials to give an idea, speak loud, you know, or I would also tell her not to worry about so many of the little things because in the big picture, so to speak, the little things are gonna come and go, to worry more about where do I wanna be in 10 years, and then how do I get there?

Tony (09:30):
That's a really good answer. That was giving like Taylor Swift. Sorry, that's like, that's my little, that's my little Gen Z brain listening to "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)." But you said speak out. And I was like, "Speak Now", be assertive. Like, go do your thing. And I was like, oh my gosh, this conversation has already been so very insightful and there's already so many things I'm taking away. But if there's something you feel like you haven't touched on, do you have any advice for me as I move through college?

Jennifer Scharlach (09:54):
Gain as many experiences as you can. And I don't mean that, like, I mean, if you get to study abroad, do it. Like totally do it. But I think when people think experiences, they're thinking big experiences. If somebody asks you to join something or, you know, even stopping and just having conversations with people, like just little things like getting a drink at Sonic and really thanking the person who walks it to your car. Making a difference in being kind to people, I think is huge.

Tony (10:25):
There's so much like kindness, like that is spewing out of you in words right now.

Jennifer Scharlach (10:30):
If there's anything else I could say is go talk to your professors, guys. You'll never, ever really know what they have to offer you if you don't have conversations. So again, get out there, speak to 'em. If you wanna come speak to me, come speak to me. You can find me in Lampasas. I'm always happy to talk to anyone. My husband says I can talk to walls, so, you know, get out there, talk to your professors. I guarantee you're gonna find such a wealth of resources and information from them that you wouldn't otherwise get. Take a chance, be a little uncomfortable. Get out there and speak.

Tony (11:03):
Retweet, repost for Threads, users, absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for having this conversation with me. I really appreciate it. I hope you have a lovely rest of your day.

Jennifer Scharlach (11:12):
Thank you.

Tony (11:14):
Thank you for listening to this episode of Office Hours. We hope you enjoyed this conversation and make sure to tune in next time to learn more about the experiences of our amazing TXST faculty. And also, remember to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube at @ T X S T. This podcast is a production of the Division of Marketing and Communications at Texas State University. Podcasts appearing on the Texas State University Network represent the views of the host and guests, not of Texas State University. Once again, I’m Tony and I'll see you all next time. Bye y'all.