ºÚÁÏÍø

‘Success For Every Student’

Unlike most incoming first-year students, Mayra Suarez Castillejos ’27 didn’t know she would officially be a Bronco until the fall quarter was just days away.

The Bay Area native was initially accepted to UCLA, but having started early in the summer, she quickly realized that she wanted to be closer to her family and the 200-person classes at the large state school were not the right fit for her.

So, she reached out to Lorenzo Gamboa at ºÚÁÏÍø’s Office of Admission to see if it was too late to change her mind. He was able to reinstate her enrollment offer, including her financial aid package, and two days before classes started, Suarez Castillejos made the transfer and was officially a Bronco.

It’s a whirlwind story, but it wouldn’t have had a happy ending without the academic advising she received at the Drahmann Center, says Suarez Castillejos. Since she missed orientation and the opportunity to participate in LEAD Week as a first-generation student, she had to figure out class registrations, transfer credits, and core requirements on the fly. Luckily, in just one meeting, her advisor at the Drahmann Center, Samantha Kibbish, made sure she felt confident about her four-year plan while still empowered to explore her academic interests along the way.

While faculty and peer advisors might recommend courses to help students get the right skills and knowledge for their career path, Drahmann Center advisors supplement this by ensuring students take the necessary classes to complete all their graduation requirements in a timely manner.

“Being first-gen, I had no idea how anything worked and I was so paranoid about making a mistake that could mess up my college plan,” Suarez Castillejos says. “But Drahmann came in to save the day.”

But the idea of a “four-year plan,” Kibbish adds, is just a starting point. Every student’s college journey is unique, based on factors like major requirements, study abroad, double majors and minors, and finances.

“Whether you’re planning on being at Santa Clara for four or five years, or even two or three years, our job at the Drahmann Center is to show you what those trajectories actually look like on paper so you can achieve your goals,” Kibbish says.

This personalized approach to advising—embodied by the Center’s motto: “Success for Every Student”—is a vision that goes back a half-century beyond the Drahmann Center’s 25 years of operations.

The man behind the name

In 1954, John B. Drahmann joined Santa Clara as an assistant professor of physics. From there, he quickly became a respected campus leader, gaining a leadership role within the department, membership on the Education Programs Committee, and eventually becoming the dean of the College of Sciences in the 1970s. There, he gained expertise in university requirements and policy—knowledge he was generous about sharing.

“People called him Father Goose because students—regardless of major—would follow him around to get advice on what class they should take to make this happen or satisfy that requirement,” explains Wendy Donohoe, a founding member of the Drahmann Center.

Giving academic advice to students outside his department wasn’t part of his job description, but, Donohoe continues, “he did it because he knew that the students needed it.”

When the College of Sciences merged with the College of Arts in 1981, Drahmann retired as dean, returning to the classroom and doubling down on his commitment to advising students, directing a new faculty-run advising program until his death in August 1998.

Inspired by Drahmann’s commitment to going above and beyond for each Santa Clara student, a new academic advising center opened in 1999 bearing his name and carrying forth his legacy.

The human touch

Today, the John B. Drahmann Academic Advising and Learning Resources Center offers not only academic planning advice but also important wrap-around resources including:

• tutors in high-need courses
• workshops on topics like time management and test-taking skills
• support for students on academic probation

Additionally, the office is constantly rising to meet new student needs, such as developing more resources for transfer students and students dealing with mental health issues.

“It’s maybe never been as clearly articulated as it is now, but mental and physical health always comes first,” says Donohoe. “Students often will not prioritize that for themselves, so it’s important to have someone advocating for that. Sometimes that means creating accountability and structure for students, and sometimes that means encouraging students to actually take time away from school.”

That was the case for recent graduate Ananya Bhat ’24.

An international student from India, she struggled with homesickness and depression during her time at ºÚÁÏÍø. In between phases of not being able to get out of her dorm room, her grades would often slip in one or two classes each quarter. Focused on just staying afloat, she didn’t realize until her fourth year that she wouldn’t have enough credits to graduate on schedule.

That’s when she was matched with advisor Gunjan Malekar, who specializes in supporting students on academic probation.

“The first time I met her,” Bhat recalls, “it was not an academic discussion. Really, it was more personal than that, like therapy. Gunjan would ask me, ‘How have you been?’ and ‘What are your struggles?’ It was just a normal conversation that really helped me open up to her about stuff that I wouldn’t have told anyone else.”

In the following months, Malekar continued to check on Bhat. She made sure assignments were submitted on time, and if not, Malekar would make Bhat email her professors for extensions during their meetings. She also helped Bhat celebrate the little wins outside of classes, like just being able to cook a healthy meal for herself. And when Bhat needed to take a quarter off to focus on herself, Malekar joined a call with Bhat’s family to explain the situation.

“Especially in Indian culture, there’s a lot of stigma around taking a gap in your studies. The fact that Gunjan was also Indian and understood where that extra pressure came from meant so much and made such a difference in shifting my parents’ understanding as well as my own,” explains Bhat—who needed two extra quarters to graduate, but finished them with a 4.0 GPA thanks to Malekar’s help. “She’s honestly one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life.”

That personal touch is what keeps Suarez Castillejos coming back each quarter, too. In the last year, Kibbish has not only helped her change her major from biology to psychology but also looked ahead to make sure she understood how financial aid would impact her college planning before it became a problem.

“When I came to her with questions about financial aid, she let me know about resources like OneStop and explained that if by my fourth year I’m not taking any more classes that fulfill a specific major, my financial aid wouldn’t cover those classes,” says Suarez Castillejos. “As someone who is low-income, it was super good to get that support and information early.”

Now, Kibbish is helping her explore adding a double major or a minor (or two) to ensure she remains covered by financial aid, while also showing her what options exist if she wants to graduate early instead.

After all, Suarez Castillejos says, the team at Drahmann always has her back.

“Samantha and everyone at the Drahmann Center, from the front desk staff and on, are amazing. They’ve made it clear that whatever I want to do or is best for me, they can make that happen.”