Staff spotlight: Meg Sidle
0By Matthew Logan
We live in a world were numbers are everything. In fact, surveys can be used to determine how many students are in a class and where they will be in 15 years. For the University of Pikeville, the ever-demanding duty of accountability falls to Dr. Meg Sidle, director of institutional research and effectiveness.
“My job in accountability is to prove to the state and federal government that every office on this campus is effective at what it does,” Sidle said. “We have responsibilities to prove.”
Sidle’s road to become a director in this important sector of the campus was a route through many hurdles. Sidle attended the University of Minnesota and had planned to drop out at age 20 to be the wife of a minister.
“I had this mentor that pushed me to stay in college and graduate,” Sidle said. “I listened and stayed in school, and I became real active in various student organizations.”
Sidle graduated from the University of Minnesota and had plans to go to a Boston graduate school.
“My husband was getting ready to go to seminary school in Iowa, so I decided to stay back with him. I couldn’t find a job where we were staying, even with my degree. I ended up working as an office manager,” Sidle recalled. “It was around this time we had children.”
After her second child, Sidle decided to return school to earn her master’s degree.
“My degree was in home economics, but I really wanted to be a dean of students of sorts,” Sidle explained.
After she graduated, she was hired by the University of Missouri to be the assistant director student unions.
“I found out after a while that doing this was just something I did not enjoy,” Sidle admitted.
Sidle then decided to start her Ph.D. at the University of Missouri, going from staff to student.
Sidle earned her Ph.D. in 1994 and conducted her research in Presbyterian school enrollment management.
“I ended up getting a call from a small school in Alaska,” Sidle said. “I spent six months up there in admissions, but I didn’t like it too much either.”
Sidle returned to the lower 48 states, unfortunately, homeless with two children.
“We stayed in an attic for a time,” Sidle explained. “I started looking for work as fast as I could.”
Sidle ended up working at both a McDonald’s and a Burger King at 40 hours a week.
“I knew if I said I had a Ph.D. I wouldn’t get hired, but what else was I supposed to do? I had two children I had to feed, and I needed a place I could care for them,” Sidle said.
Sidle applied to every job she could find in St. Louis. One day, however, she was contacted by Illinois Southern University to do assessment.
“I had never heard of assessment before,” Sidle said, a smile adorning her face. “Being able to measure student satisfaction or retention rates …that was me, I loved it.”
After a year and a half, Sidle was asked to be a guest consultant at a university in Ohio.
“It was like being in charge. After all of those years at the bottom, and now, here I am a guest consultant,” Sidle said happily.
The Ohio school extended an offer to her for a full-time assessment position. Sidle took the position and took on institutional research. In 2002, she decided she wanted to work in a more Presbyterian environment and took an institutional research position at the University of Pikeville. Apart from her role in research, Sidle also teaches a statistics class on campus.
“It was a journey of ups and downs for me with a lot of personal challenges,” Sidle said. “But, it was well worth it. My time living all over the US in towns of different sizes gives me an ability to talk to a wide variety of people about anything.”
In her leisure time, Sidle enjoys going to ball games and participating in her church’s events.
Her office is located in the Record Memorial building, opposite the school chapel, on the sixth floor.