Senior advisor helps graduating class make most of last year

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Abdlrhman Alayah

As senior advisor, Ms. Harris oversees senior activities, including senior trips, the prom and of course, graduation.

Monica Harris, the payroll secretary at Bronx River High School, wears many hats at the school: One of the most important, especially to graduating seniors, is the role of Senior Advisor. In an interview, Ms. Harris shared her thoughts on the role.

What is a Senior Advisor? 
“So, it really called “Senior Events Coordinator.  I plan all the events with Ms. Delacruz for the seniors, like graduation, prom, picture day, and so on.”

How long have you been working as a Senior Advisor? 
“I’ve been doing it for more than 20 years.”

What is it like being a Senior Advisor?  
“It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of planning, organizing. But it can be exciting, rewarding, and exhausting.”

What are the struggles of a Senior Advisor?
“Planning dates, that’s probably the biggest struggle, and getting students to reply in a timely fashion. We have deadlines and we’re always past the deadline, it’s tough.

What are your struggles as a Senior Advisor?
“It’s not a struggle because I do it efficiently but, it’s all a matter of how you time things, organization skills and planning. If you pre-plan, or overly plan, which I do extremely well, we have smoother sailing. It’s those who put a horseshoe in our plans at the last minute.”

What is your work like?
“Busy. I wear many different hats here. I don’t mind because I’m a work-horse.” 

Did you ever find your work easy? Or did you ever find it challenging?
“When I find a challenge, I literally keep going until I figure it out. If I don’t figure it out, I keep going until I do. What I don’t know, I will research to find out what the answer is, and I will help anybody who needs it.”

What was it like figuring out that being a Senior Advisor was the job for you? 
“I was told years ago that I should be a wedding planner, because I always did these crazy parties for family events. So this just kind of fell into that, and it worked well because of what I do.”

What is something you wished you learned during the times you first worked as a Senior Advisor? 
“Every year we learn something else. We learn what not to do, and continue to work well on what we do. It’s about progress.”