Patrick Mosher chats one-on-one with a student during an EiR event.
Patrick Mosher has served as a mentor for students in University Residences in several capacities over the last decade, including as an Executive in Residence and Faculty in Residence. Today, Mosher continues to serve students in University Residences as the department’s first live-in Executive in Residence (EiR).
Mosher’s varied background gives him a unique perspective to share with Purdue students. He holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering as well as master’s degrees in organizational communication and human resources management from Purdue. While a student, he was also a dancer and choreographer with the Purdue Repertory Dance Theatre. This combination of experiences fueled a career trajectory that saw him serve in a consulting role for 30 years while continuing to pursue his passion for the arts.
At the heart of Mosher’s interactions with Boilermakers is helping them make sense of their journey at Purdue and craft a compelling story to share with future employers. Mosher has been an enthusiastic supporter of EiR, participating a program record five times. As part of the program, he has impacted hundreds of students and staff through one-on-one interactions and presented to groups of students on topics such as friendship, story crafting and more. He routinely spends time with students helping identify the key components that make their Purdue journeys unique.
“My view is when you build your resume, every bullet point on the resume should be a 20-second story, a two-minute story and a 30-minute story, and you should be ready to dive into any of those,” Mosher says. “Your job here at Purdue is to create a great Purdue story resume because your life is going to be on one sheet of paper when you go to apply for a job. That one sheet of paper should scream who you are.”
Mosher encourages students to not only discover and pursue their passions beyond the classroom but also celebrate them as central to their own story. He says he enjoys looking for people who are what he calls “positive deviants,” whether that’s through his work with students or his personal endeavors.
“Being a deviant means you know who you are and you know your uniquity,” Mosher says. “You know your unique talents and you’re putting them out into the world.”
In his current role as the live-in Executive in Residence, Mosher works tightly with students in the EiR Learning Community. As part of this role, he conducts monthly workshops on career success, which includes helping students with resumes, interviews and networking. He also hosts story-crafting workshops that focus on encouraging students to try new things, get out of their comfort zones, make friends in unsuspecting places and discover new aspects about themselves.
The following reflection, submitted anonymously by a first-year student in the program last year, demonstrates the type of impact he has:
“In my freshman year, I struggled to get my feet in the door when it came to internship applications, much less actually receiving an offer. I had originally viewed campus career fairs and interviews just as an opportunity to speak with the recruiters and to pitch myself a little bit. But I only realized after the story crafting lecture that I was pitching the wrong ideas. I needed not to present my studies and my skills but rather my experiences. What were my motivations? How did I change my thinking on an issue I had trouble solving? How did I adapt to cater to a new situation These were the questions I needed to answer and tell a story about them in the process.”
Mosher’s excellence in service was recognized by the university when he received the 2023 Student Life Impact Award, which recognizes leadership and mentorship to students. University Residences thanks Mosher for his ongoing dedication to building the next generation of leaders at Purdue.