DePauw Stories

The DePauw experience of Siobhan Lau Hunter ’09 is a lesson in the ways the university prepares graduates for an interdisciplinary life.

Hunter started as a violin performance major in the School of Music, added a second major in Spanish and has created a career in nonprofit management that creatively blends her education, interests and experiences.

 “My junior year winter-term experience was a group trip to New York City during which each of us had an internship in the arts,” Hunter said. “Noel Hayashi ’68 had helped secure our internships and also brought us together with various arts professionals in the evenings. My primary internship was in the education department of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

“Overall, it’s an experience I will never forget. It was also one that literally changed the trajectory of my life. Through my internship at CMS, I was exposed to the administrative side of the arts. I realized that pursuing a career in arts administration would marry my passion for the arts and the management skills I had been developing through extracurricular leadership experiences, such as serving on the executive board of Alpha Chi Omega and as a first-year mentor.”

Upon returning to campus, Hunter began discussing her path forward with professors Lennie Foy and Orcenith Smith. Deciding that her next step would be to pursue a graduate degree in arts administration., she used the next year to bolster her resume to be more competitive for graduate programs.

“The most meaningful” undertaking was weekly sessions in an independent study with Smith “to dive into the world of arts administration, and we paired this with a role as student tour manager for our winter-term orchestra tour to Austria,” she said. The experiences helped her gain entrance to a program at the University of Cincinnati that awarded dual master’s degrees in arts administration and business administration, she said.

Hunter doesn’t strictly use her violin performance or Spanish degree today at Teach For America, where she leads the fundraising team for the Greater Chicago-Northwest Indiana region, but said she relies on her broad DePauw liberal arts education – through which she learned “how to think, explore, lead and build relationships” – every day. “I value learning, excellence, equity and responsibility, and many of those values were crystallized during my time at DePauw because of the well-rounded experience I was fortunate to have,” she said.

Siobhan’s husband, Evan Hunter ’10, also had a bit of an unexpected path into his career. Now working in client partnerships for Ibotta, as a student he expected to go into finance. “As a management fellow, my junior year internship at Russell Investment Group provided an invaluable ‘real-world’ experience. I was working on a trading desk in the fall of 2008, and was able to gain the perspective that a career in finance was not for me,” he said. After graduating, he started his career at SVM LP, which was founded by Marshall Reavis ’84, and was able to recruit and work with many new DePauw alumni.”

Both Evan and Siobhan were first-year mentors during their DePauw years, and Siobhan was a peer mentor during her senior year. “As a first-year student, my mentor group was a critical support system,” she said. “It was clear from the start that my mentors – and in turn DePauw as an institution – cared about me as a person and wanted me to be successful in my transition to college. I wanted to provide that same safe haven and community to incoming students.

“I loved the time I got to spend with my School of Music mentees and I also learned a lot from them and about myself. I didn’t know at the time that facilitating mentor group discussions and one-on-one conversations would end up being my first chance to practice people-management skills that I use today in my work. I’ve also been known to use some of the mentor group orientation activities as culture builders with my own team.”

The Hunters even credit DePauw for meeting and marrying. “We’re also fortunate to have a community of lifelong DePauw friends – some of whom live within a few blocks of us in Chicago,” Siobhan said. “When you go through such unique experiences at DePauw – whether that be Greek life or residential living or small class sizes – the friendships you develop during those four years bond you in a way that is special and meaningful.”

Today Evan and Siobhan support The Fund for DePauw and are members of the Washington C. DePauw Annual Society. They direct their gifts to DePauw’s highest priorities and the Inclusive Excellence Fund. Siobhan also served on the leadership of the GOLD Alumni Board and is a member of the Alumni Association Board of Directors.

“Our DePauw collegiate and alumni experiences have provided countless opportunities to learn and lead personally and professionally,” she said. “If it were not for the scholarships we received from generous alumni who came before us, DePauw may not have been an option for us and, quite simply, our lives would be very different today.

“We feel that it is our responsibility to pay it forward to future generations of Tigers and be part of helping to make DePauw become an even better, more equitable and inclusive place for all students to learn and grow. We hope DePauw is still thriving for many years to come so our daughter Maeve can decide if she wants to join the Class of 2042.”