Kye Barnett began at her BYU career as a Health Professions Advisor in January 2020, after 20 years of managing non-profit activities with IHC. She has both breadth and depth of experience in collaborating with various health care teams and community partners across the state. She has served on over 50 boards, councils, and coalitions, many of these for over fifteen years.
Through these experiences she’s been blessed to work with amazing people in incredible projects throughout the state: fighting child hunger, promoting suicide awareness, improving access to medical and dental care, and protecting vulnerable populations. She has developed and carried out high impact programs including the Dixon Middle School Clinic and the Volunteer Care Clinic. She is passionate about getting students involved in life changing community experiences that will not only help them gain self-awareness and critical experiences, but also change the way they view others and the world.
I see a lot of success when students work on being present in the moment to improve their core learning. When self-assessment becomes a natural pre-learning activity, students take responsibility for what they acquire in that experience. That learning muscle is further built as they journal their learning take aways.
I encourage students to really look into the paraprofessionals’ educational path and what they would need to do to accomplish their goal. I have them come up with questions about how the career path influences lifestyle which they can then ask during job shadows. For example, what sacrifices are necessary and how does that path create life fulfillment? I also strongly advise students to take those important decisions to Heavenly Father in prayer. He wants to know and be included in the details of their lives, no matter where they are, and he knows best what will bring them joy.
As students reflect on their experiences, they can better evaluate their goals and gain insight into where they are on their path to achieving them. I like to prompt students to remember the hardest times in their life and see the growth that came during those times. They have paid a price for that growth and recognizing it often helps students see what they learned and how those experiences changed them. Moving forward with that, I like to use reflection to help students be willing to push themselves out of their comfort zone and seek to understand others where they are without judgment. As they become more intuitive with this self-assessment skill, students become better at seeing what matters now so they can set and keep themselves on a life path of purpose.
Students need to know they are loved and cared for, that they are in a safe environment. When I show them that I care about their mental health, that they’re getting eight hours of sleep at night, they have something every day to look forward to, that they are taking time to be social and enjoy the fun and exciting things BYU has to offer, we’re better able to have conversations about what they want to learn and become. When they can see I want to be their biggest cheerleader and that I want to include all members of their support team, they’re more likely to be able to get in the right headspace for real learning to happen. And when you couple that with their short and long-term goals of serving Heavenly Father’s children, good things happen.
I have the privilege of advising 10-12 students a day in one on one appointments where we delve into the intricacies of their educational and experience goals. I meet with students in person and on Zoom where I can talk to missionaries from around the world about their plans in coming or returning to school. I teach three classes as well as workshops, and I am an advisor to the two pre-med clubs. I adore my students and am so excited for their progress and success.