Photo by Mark DiOrio
The Office of Residential Life at Colgate University has welcomed its 2025–2026 residential fellows. This position is an opportunity for Colgate University graduates to stay on campus working for residential life. This year’s fellows are Class of 2025 graduates Paul Schulze, Jinting Guo, and Shanely Perez, along with Senior Residential Fellow Marissa Bordonaro ’24.
Bordonaro was initially drawn to the position as a window into higher education administration to support her goal of working in university libraries; however, her experience working at Colgate has opened her eyes to other opportunities in the industry.
“Being a res fellow helps develop the skill set needed for higher [education] administration, so it fits the goal of wanting to end up in libraries, but now I just want to end up anywhere in higher [education],” Bordonaro says.
Similarly, for Perez, these past couple of months as a fellow have helped her realize her career goals.
“I know my answer: I am going into higher education,” she says. “Seeing what it means to center your work around creating living and learning experiences in a residence hall — that, in and of itself, is so groundbreaking and a riveting topic, in my opinion. So all of those tools and all of the things I’ve learned have just been like, yes, like this is what I’m here for. This is what interests me.”
Guo, who is simultaneously working as the program coordinator for the Office of International Students, was drawn to the fellowship position partly because of the emphasis on programming.
“It was the perfect match,” Guo says. “[Program coordinating] is what I like to do… My long-term goal is to work in the college-level education system, on the administrative side.”
While the fellows ended up in their positions for different reasons, they share the same driving force. They care deeply about making a profound impact on the student experience.
“I used to run The Well, the chapel’s late-night board game group, and I once had a student tell me that The Well was the reason they hadn’t transferred — it was how they found their people,” Schulze remembers. “That meant so much to me to hear them say that and to be able to foster an environment, a space, for people to belong.”
For these recent graduates, the opportunity to be a staff member now is also a way to be a positive presence in students’ lives, just as administrators were for them.
Perez remembers becoming emotional at commencement’s Torchlight Procession, when she saw the people who supported her throughout her four years at Colgate. “When I got to Willow Path, and I saw Lyosha [Gorshkov, director of LGBTQ+ Initiatives] and my administrative dean, Sarah Jones, [I thought], ‘What would it be like to hopefully extend that impact? That would be amazing if I could be somebody’s checkpoint along the way.’”