Focus on Staff With Mary Jo Frost, Nutritional Sciences Financial Administrator

Focus On highlights faculty, staff, students and researchers at the UC Academic Health Center. To suggest someone to be featured, please email uchealthnews@uc.edu.

Mary Jo Frost works in the College of Allied Health Sciences' Department of Nutritional Sciences, where she serves as financial administrator for the department.

How long have you worked at UC?
"I've been at the College of Allied Health Sciences for six years. Before that, I worked at UC for 16 years, starting in 1976. I worked as an administrative assistant in toxicology, which was a part of the department of environmental health. After my second child was born, I left UC to stay home and raise my children.

"Once my kids were in grade school, I started working again, first part time at their school and then at the College of Mount St. Joseph. I really liked working at UC, so when they were in high school—and my daughter wanted to apply to CCM—I came back to work in Allied Health.

"Now, my son, Joe, is studying at UC, in his fourth year of industrial management, which combines engineering with business. It’s the only BS degree offered in the College of Business. My daughter, Jessica, is at CCM working on her master’s degree in music history, hoping to graduate in June."

How have you seen Allied Health change in the last six years?
"Since I've been here, the number of students has really grown. Our department has grown, too, even though it’s a smaller department. I’m the only administrative person here, so even though my title says financial administrator, I do all administrative duties for the department—you name it, I do it.

"My workload has probably tripled since I started here. There’s just so much more that I do because the department has grown and the dynamics have changed."

What are you responsibilities within the department of nutritional sciences?
"As financial administrator, I monitor all the budgets within the department. We have quite a few endowments.

"I also keep track of purchasing, order classes for the undergraduate and graduates students and help with graduate program admissions—and whatever else comes up, from newsletters and the website to hiring student workers. I do a wide variety of things here and I like that."

Is that your favorite part of your job?
"My favorite part is dealing with the students. There’s always a small group of students who you get to know because they take an interest in coming into the office—either to find things out or talk to the faculty. The graduate students I get to know better than the undergraduates."

What do you like to do outside UC?
"My big thing is family—I spend as much time with my family as I can. I’m also very involved in my church, Whitewater Crossing Christian Church. We do a lot of outreach and volunteer work. We have our own food pantry and just last week we went out in the community to provide meals to the homeless."