BOLLI welcomes Nicole Grant
March 31, 2021
by Joyce Lazarus
The newest member of our BOLLI team is program coordinator, Nicole Grant, who along with senior program coordinator, Carolyn Cross, will assist SGLs and students with numerous aspects of program development and delivery, including the use of virtual technology. I visited with Nicole by Zoom at her home in New Jersey, where she has been working remotely. On April 1 she plans to move to her new residence in Arlington.
“I’m super-excited to be working at BOLLI,” said Nicole, who is clearly a “people” person. She spent her freshman year at Susquehanna University, a liberal arts university in a quiet area of central Pennsylvania, but soon realized she missed the more stimulating environment of the east coast. She enrolled in New Jersey’s Rowan University, from which she graduated in May 2020 with a degree in psychology. Sadly, last spring’s campus closure meant that Nicole and her classmates were denied the chance to say their goodbyes and walk in a traditional graduation ceremony.
Nicole brings with her an impressive resume, which includes a good deal of experience in leadership roles. During her years at Rowan, she worked on campus as a resident assistant and housing operations assistant and spent summers assisting at a real estate office. During a summer break before graduation, she spent three months in the Caribbean as a camp counselor on a Carnival Cruise ship. This experience, her first trip outside the United States, introduced her to crew members from many parts of the world. She had a chance to speak Spanish, visit many Caribbean countries, and even try sky-diving in Puerto Rico. More recently, Nicole worked as a coordinator of Northeastern University’s “N.U.in” Program, which affords new students the opportunity to begin their fall semester studying abroad. In that role, she taught a freshman seminar aimed at offering students a more global perspective and help them transition into “global citizens.”
In her free time, Nicole enjoys being with her friends, parents, younger brother, and dog. One of her favorite hobbies is cooking, especially pasta dishes, along with vegetarian and fish tacos. She follows in the footsteps of her mother, Lisa Grant, a cookbook author who has created a food blog, “Jersey Girl Cooks.” Nicole also enjoys live music, arts and crafts, painting, and portraiture. She says that if there’s a small silver lining in the pandemic, it’s that it provides her more time at home to work on watercolors and acrylic paintings.
Nicole hopes to pursue a MA program in project management at Brandeis to prepare for an administrative position at a college or university. Her dream is to someday become a dean of students. Nicole would also love to travel to Europe, particularly Croatia, her maternal grandfather’s country of origin. In the near future, she is looking forward to being a bridesmaid at a friend’s November wedding.