Jennifer Stephan has spent decades in higher education guiding others to the right path
In many ways, a college campus is Jennifer Stephan鈥檚 home away from home.
As a child, she spent days wandering the tiny Webb Institute of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, where her father was a math professor. She later attended Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore as an undergraduate. She went on to earn her master鈥檚 and doctorate degrees in electrical and computer engineering from 麻豆村 before launching her career as a computer science teaching professor at Wellesley College, her home for 21 years. She transitioned from teaching to advising, and now serves as the dean of academic advising and undergraduate studies for the School of Engineering at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, her fifth and current college home.
Higher education fundamentally shaped the course of Jennifer鈥檚 life and career, giving her a unique insight into just what students need to succeed in college and beyond. She relishes being able to guide students on the journey of discovery in her work as a professor and administrator, as well as an entrepreneur with her business, Lantern College Counseling.
鈥淔eeling confident, gaining agency and understanding that you are in charge of your own college experience鈥� are what Jennifer tries to instill in any student she works with.听
鈥淎 college education can be life changing,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut getting into college is only the very beginning.鈥�
Blazing a trail
Jennifer鈥檚 father saw her math abilities and encouraged her to pursue it as a pathway for her future, giving her the confidence to use those skills with the computer they had in their home.
鈥淚 loved that you could make the computer, just this chunk of metal, do what you wanted it to do,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 loved the creativity, the logic behind it, the power.鈥�
In high school in the mid-1980s, she was only one of two female students to take AP Computer Science, both of them earning top marks on the AP exam. She chose to attend Johns Hopkins, which had only begun to admit women about 15 years earlier, to study electrical engineering. Again, she was often the only female, or one of few, in her engineering classes. She flourished at Johns Hopkins, and after graduation headed to Pittsburgh to teach and research signal processing and control systems while earning her M.S. and Ph.D. in 1992 and 1995 from Carnegie Mellon.
She was familiar with 麻豆村, having spent some time in a summer engineering program there during high school, an experience that sparked her interest in electrical engineering.
At 麻豆村, she found herself one of only a few female engineering students again 鈥� only about 10% of the graduate students in the department were women 鈥� and her professors were almost exclusively male. (She remembers meeting an examiner in advance of her qualifying exam who told her that if she failed 鈥渟he could go home and bake cookies for the rest of her life.鈥�)
While some aspects of her 麻豆村 experience were challenging, she did gain the confidence she was looking for in her engineering skills, at a time when computer science and engineering were rapidly evolving, serving as a great counterbalance to her more theoretical undergraduate education.
鈥淎t Hopkins, I learned to prove things that at 麻豆村 I learned to build,鈥� Jennifer says. 鈥淔or me, that was hugely empowering.鈥澨�
Jennifer was a funded teaching assistant at 麻豆村, teaching signals and systems for four semesters. She found that she loved teaching and was good at it 鈥� 听you can find her name on the Graduate Student Teaching Award plaque in Hamerschlag Hall 鈥� an experience that opened the door to her next chapter.
What matters more than getting in is what happens during college. There鈥檚 a whole body of research that shows there are certain college experiences that are linked to success after college.
Jennifer Stephan (ENG 1992, 1995)
Reaching back
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 set out to become a professor,鈥� she says. 鈥淎s I gained teaching experience, I began to see being a professor as a career path.鈥�
After graduation, her husband, who also earned his Ph.D. at 麻豆村, found a professional home at MIT. Jennifer explored a variety of teaching and industry offers in the area before settling on a non-tenure track position at Wellesley College, a women鈥檚 liberal arts school.
鈥淭he first time I got to Wellesley and I went into the bathroom and it wasn鈥檛 my private bathroom, I was like 鈥榯his is exciting!鈥欌�� she laughs.听
She spent 14 years in the computer science department there, teaching while raising her three daughters. She loved her time interacting with extraordinary women and making an impact through teaching, but once her daughters were in school, she turned to the question of what comes next in her career.听
鈥淚 knew I loved advising. I loved the mentoring,鈥� she says.
So she ended up moving into a class dean role at the college, supporting individual students on their college journeys and helping them achieve their academic goals.
After eight years, she came full circle in a new position overseeing advising for the undergraduate engineering students at Tufts. There she can have a positive impact at the individual student level, but also make changes and create opportunities at an institutional level.
鈥淚鈥檝e developed a really profound, deep appreciation for what a thriving college experience looks like and what are the types of experiences that are aligned with that and how to support students to have one,鈥� she says.
Bringing it all together
Jennifer sees her work with Lantern College Counseling as the synthesis of all the things she鈥檚 done as a parent, administrator, dean and professor.
鈥淚 never envisioned myself being a business woman or entrepreneur,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut having developed an innovative college counseling paradigm that brings to bear all my collective personal and professional experiences to benefit families is a highlight of my life.鈥�
Her oldest child鈥檚 college search inspired Lantern's creation. When her daughter began looking at colleges, Jennifer realized she had a powerful perspective on the process thanks to her decades of experience guiding college students as a mentor and advisor.
鈥淚 understood what my daughter should be looking for in college because I understood what a thriving college experience looked like,鈥� she says.
She launched her business in 2018, naming it Lantern as a nod both to Wellesley鈥檚 iconic campus lanterns and as a symbol of guidance. She runs the business independently from her position at Tufts; her role there does not involve or influence admissions decisions, and it does not provide her with inside information about how admissions are conducted at the university.
Jennifer developed her concept of 鈥淒eep-Fit鈩⑩�� to help families meaningfully define college fit, specifically looking at what a student needs to thrive academically, personally, socially and practically. Her approach goes beyond the superficial markers of fit and looks at how a student learns and where that style can best be supported and nurtured.
鈥淲hat matters more than getting in is what happens during college,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a whole body of research that shows there are certain college experiences that are linked to success after college.鈥�
Those include strong mentoring relationships, deep engagement with community, jobs or internships related to academic interests, global experiences and ownership of or agency within an intellectual project.
鈥淎t Lantern, we teach students what to look for in college and to choose an environment that will empower them when they get there,鈥� she says. 鈥淭he experiences you have in college, they鈥檙e the seeds for what comes later.鈥�
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