Strengthening the Campus Community
Growing up in a family of eight siblings and 80 first cousins has made a profound influence on Patty Perillo. One of the fundamental lessons learned growing up as a child was the value of community, she says. And with most of the family still living within five miles of one another, there is no excuse for missing a Sunday family dinner or Tuesday game night.
Building an engaged community is what drives Perillo, the director of student life at UMBC. When she is not busy organizing Homecoming activities, advising one of 170 student organizations or running a leadership retreat, you will find her out talking one-on-one with UMBC students who greet her affectionately as Patty.
Students need a place to connect both formally and informally, says Perillo. UMBC students are bright, active, promising, thoughtful, challenging and they have fun in very different ways. We’ve been deliberate in creating experiences for students that they can connect with on their own level. It’s a model that hasn’t been built before.
Perillo is the chair of the Student Involvement Council Programming Committee, a group developed to address the issues of student life on campus and the university’s need for campus-wide community events. I’ve seen a real institutional change since I’ve started working here, says Perillo. Administration, faculty and staff are personally invested in the co-curricular lives of the students; and students are creating a place they will be proud to come back to as alumni. It’s a collective, synergistic relationship, says Perillo. As a campus, we are all in the midst of building lasting traditions at UMBC. It is a very exciting time.
Along with her tightly knit staff in the Office of Student Life, Perillo continues to make life-long influences on UMBC students and the community. Programs such as the September 11 Project, LeaderShape, Into the Streets and Welcome Week are designed to foster student success from the developmental level. What I want to do is support and enhance the learning experience of our students to take what they learn in class and help them to apply it to every day situations, says Perillo. We’re all helping to shape the leaders of tomorrow.
Perillo holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in college student personnel from the University of Delaware and earned a Ph.D. in Public and Community Health from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the study of college student drinking behaviors.
