Janet Campoverde and Heather Gates-McGee

Undergraduate College (UGC) Advisors, Department of Undergraduate Colleges
Start Dates:  March 14, 2022

First-year students often need extra support while they learn how to schedule their classes, take root in the campus community, and navigate all the new experiences of Stony Brook. Luckily, they have expert college advisors ready to lend a helping hand.

Two of these advisors – Janet Campoverde and Heather Gates-McGee – can relate to being first-years at Stony Brook. Having started on the same day in March 2022, they fondly refer to themselves as twins. Their equally warm dispositions and shared passion for student welfare suggest that they might be related after all.

Janet Campoverde
UGC Advisor for Social Justice, Equity and Ethics (SJE)

Janet floated between four different New York institutions – LaGuardia Community College, New York University, Touro University and Farmingdale State College – before she finally landed her dream job here at Stony Brook. For nearly 10 years, she specialized in financial aid administration.

“I had been trying to get into Stony Brook for three or four years before I started here,” she says. “I wanted to work with students as an advisor so I could more directly impact their lives in a positive way.”

When she saw that this advising role involved teaching an undergraduate seminar, the stars began to align.

“I love that I get to actually build those relationships with the students,” she says. “At previous jobs, I’d only meet with students two or three times per semester. Nowadays, I get to engage with them on a regular basis and really forge those connections so I can genuinely support them.”

Like all UGC advisors at Stony Brook, part of Janet’s job is to provide one-on-one guidance for members of her undergraduate college who receive low GPAs in their first semesters. This allows students to identify obstacles in their paths, access resources to minimize those obstacles, and discover how to dodge them altogether. She’ll continue to check in with these students periodically to promote their ongoing success.

“You always want to give that positive energy outwards, because you never know who you're interacting with or what they're going through,” she says. “And a lot of times, just putting that energy out there creates a ripple effect – so it's not always traveling directly, but eventually, it’s going to make its way to the people around you.”

Janet commends her coworkers and students for echoing that philosophy and upholding the inclusive culture that makes Stony Brook such a wonderful place to be. 

“I feel like I’m part of a community,” she says, “Everyone has been so kind and welcoming – it’s really made me feel like I belong here.”

As much as Janet enjoys working at Stony Brook, she likes to spend time with her loved ones even more. She recently took a trip to Peru with her spouse, Augusto, and two daughters, Abigail and Charlotte. Her children are five and seven years old, respectively.

Janet, whose family is from Ecuador, was thrilled to experience the culture of a neighboring South American country. She stayed in the capital, Lima, and looks forward to returning to Peru and visiting Machu Picchu once her daughters are a little older.

Heather Gates-McGee
UGC Advisor for Creativity, Technology and Innovation (CTI)

Heather might be new to the Department of Undergraduate Colleges, but she’s not exactly new to Stony Brook. While she was in grad school at Canisius College, she interned with Stony Brook’s Campus Residences in the summer of 2012 and lived in the West Apartments. She still remembers the exact unit she called home.

“When I finished grad school, I went right into residence life at SUNY Delhi,” she says. “I stayed for about three-and-a-half years, but advising was really where I wanted to be.”

She applied to an academic advising position at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) on a whim and was shocked when they offered her the job – just like that, she’d achieved her goal.

“I hadn’t felt as fulfilled with residence life – there was always a crisis, you know – fire alarm going off, or ‘somebody ate my pop tart,’ and ‘I hate my roommate,’” she says. “Being able to train and develop students was a missing component that I just wasn't getting.”

Once the COVID-19 pandemic started to calm down, Heather and her wife Lauren had welcomed a new addition to their family – their son, Felix. Returning to work after maternity leave made Heather realize how much she disliked commuting from Long Island to Manhattan. 

Again on a whim, Heather applied to a college advisor position at SBU in the hopes of taking on a role involving more comprehensive student support. She received an offer from Stony Brook shortly thereafter and wasted no time with the transition.

Her final shift at FIT was Friday, March 11, 2022, and she agreed to start at Stony Brook the following Monday. She’s been going full steam ahead ever since.

Heather is happy she’s able to help students in a more holistic way now that she’s mentoring fellows and teaching undergraduate seminars in addition to advising. In her words, “teaching classes and working closely with student leaders has been a dream come true. There’s nothing more rewarding than leaving a meaningful impact on someone during a transformative period in their life.”

She recalls a time when one of her undergraduates lost their home to a fire. Heather was able to connect them to the Student Support Team on campus, who accommodated the student and helped them navigate this trying circumstance.

“We always make sure students know that we’re not just here to help them with their classes,” she says of her, her office twin Janet, and the other UGC advisors at Stony Brook. “We really are here for whatever they need.”