Elise Edwards, a 2006 Hope College graduate who is now an office management specialist with the U.S. State Department, will present the address "Life after Hope" on Monday, April 6, at 4 p.m. in the Maas Center conference room through the college's French Studies Colloquium.
Elise Edwards, a 2006 Hope College graduate who is now an office management specialist with the U.S. State Department, will present the address "Life after Hope" on Monday, April 6, at 4 p.m. in the Maas Center conference room through the college's French Studies Colloquium.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
After graduating from Hope with a double major in French and International Studies, Edwards worked for a year at Hope's Campus Safety Office and applied to join the U.S. State Department as a foreign service specialist. She began her training to be an office management specialist (OMS) in March 2007, and in April 2007 left for her first overseas assignment as the office manager for the Regional Security Office at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. After completing a two-year tour of duty, she has been reassigned as the OMS in the Political Section at the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo), where the official language is French.
As an OMS, Edwards is responsible for directing the overall flow of administrative matters for the office. Her responsibilities include scheduling meetings and keeping appointment calendars, responding to requests for information, special projects, budgeting, logistical support for out-of-town visitors, supervising local staff, and managing the various portfolios that the office covers.
She "loves her job," she says, "because it offers me the opportunity to travel, to gain a wide variety of experiences in different office settings, and to move every few years."
The Maas Center is located at 264 Columbia Ave., on Columbia Avenue at 11th Street.