office space

Dr. Caitlin Michael (Dr. Cait to her students), who chalks her success up to equal parts professional acumen and just being “super-duper lucky,” manifested coming back to Saint Vincent in 2023 as a professor.

But first, she started at Saint Vincent in 2013 as a student—alongside a sizeable freshman class. Unfortunately for the Office of Student Life, there were too many freshmen to fit in Benny. Fortunately for Caitlin, that meant she ended up in a coveted single in Wimmer (she quadrupled her luck and swung a single in Wimmer the next three years, too). An only child, Caitlin liked the idea of not living with anyone, but as an outgoing and friendly person, she wanted her room to be a safe space for anyone to come and hang out and be happy. And so enacted an open-door policy: anyone was welcome and safe in her room.

Over those four years in Wimmer, the 2017 grad became one of the College’s biggest fans and brightest students, which started to pay off a lot sooner than she probably thought it would. When GQ—the former dean of the McKenna School—mentioned to her while she was working on her MBA that the McKenna School would be looking for a new marketing professor in a couple of years, he also told her that if she got her PhD, she’d be a top candidate. With the opportunity to come back to the place she loved in her sights, Caitlin enrolled in a PhD program and wrote in her LinkedIn bio, “SVC graduate, where I intend to return after completing my PhD.” A couple years later, the current dean of the McKenna School, Dr. Michael Urick, C’04, read that bio and messaged her. He told her that they were hiring for that new marketing professor and that if she was interested, she better apply. She hadn’t even finished her PhD program yet, but that didn’t stop her from getting the job (and her housing luck delivered again: she’d bought a house in the area before the job was even posted).

It’s been nearly three years since Caitlin’s return to campus as a member of the faculty and nearly ten since she was last here as a student, but some things just don’t change: she still gets to go to Dr. Urick’s office a couple of times a week and chat, everyone is still just as welcoming and supportive, and the open door policy is still in place. Though, the sight of Halloween décor and party supplies might make you wonder if you’ve accidentally made your way into Spirit Halloween’s latest popup. Halloween-everything furnishes Dr. Cait’s office, from “spooby” tchotchkes across the top of her desk to a giant spider web on her wall that holds pictures and ephemera from happy Saint Vincent moments. Halloween has been Caitlin’s favorite holiday since she was a child: the mixture of folklore and fun and freedom of expression, and having just a little bit of spooky, bring her joy.

That same joy brightens Caitlin’s face when she talks about the classes she teaches and how she now gets to cheer on her students like she was cheered on by her professors. But a new way she’s started cheering on her students in her Principles of Marketing class is “Prof and Pizza.” Dr. Cait supplies the pizza and necessary pizza party accoutrements, and her students supply any last-minute questions they have the night before an exam. During other bonus, off-campus study sessions, students also have access to an additional resource that might help quell some academic anxiety: unofficially titled “assistant to the assistant professor,” Leo is Cait’s miniature dachshund rescue who’s more than happy to lend his ears or belly to students to pet for therapeutic purposes (therapeutic both for Leo and the students). Leo¾and his adoptive siblings¾could also probably be considered honorary admission ambassadors. When Caitlin takes Leo and his siblings out on the town to the park or even a Pens game, they’re decked out in their green and gold best, and inevitably they become the entry point for conversations with grandmothers and uncles and parents about how Caitlin’s a professor at Saint Vincent and how it’s a great school and oh, your kid’s looking at colleges now? They should totally apply to Saint Vincent.

It might sound like Dr. Cait is all fun and games, especially since in her office is a growing collection of literal games designed by students as their final project for her Marketing Planning and Development Class that she gets to test out by playing with her friends, for educational purposes, of course, but propped up against the bookcase containing those games is a white board filled with research notes about the marketing aspects of nonprofits and charitable giving. A big supporter of nonprofit organizations, Caitlin designed a class on nonprofit marketing from scratch that covers how marketing can be used for good to benefit society, animals, the planet, anything, really, that can help us be good stewards to the world and people and creatures around us.

Caitlin’s friends tell her that nobody loves Saint Vincent more than she does, even though her vibrant vermillion hair and Halloween-bedecked office might not be what someone thinks of as “on brand” for Saint Vincent. But you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who better exhibits the Benedictine Hallmarks than Caitlin. It’s her care for her students, her desire to do good and help others (animals and people alike), her pursuit of excellence and wisdom through a love of learning and teaching, that are, in fact, very on brand for Saint Vincent. And so is the open-door policy that’s exemplar of the welcoming Benedictine spirit: you’re welcome in Aurelius 304 anytime, whether you walk in on two legs or four.