The end of an era: Saying goodbye to Eva Menefee

By Nicole Wadkins
Staff Reporter

Eva Menefee grew up in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. Her father was from the Oneida settlement near London, Ontario. Her mother is a member of the Chippewas of The Thames First Nation and lived just across the river from the Oneida settlement. Although her parents grew up near each other, they did not meet until later in life. When Menefee’s father came to Michigan to work and serve in the U.S. Army, he met her mother through the North American Indian Association of Detroit and the two eventually married.

Menefee attended St. Mel’s School and later Ladywood High School. Throughout her upbringing, her family stayed deeply connected to the Native American community in Detroit. Her father served as the president of the North American Indian Association. “We were always involved in Native American stuff in Detroit because that’s where we grew up,” Menefee said. “We would always go to different activities and do all kinds of stuff with [the North American Indian Association].”

When it was time for college, Menefee had little guidance on higher education. Her counselor suggested several options and Menefee applied to and was accepted to many colleges, but she struggled to decide which to attend. Then came spring of her senior year, when the Michigan State (MSU)  basketball team won the national championship in 1979.“Everyone wanted to go to Michigan State because of Magic Johnson. I literally picked to go to MSU because of Magic Johnson,” laughed Menefee. “Probably why I hated it. You shouldn’t pick a school because of basketball.”

When Menefee attended MSU, she originally wanted to be an accountant, but an advisor discouraged her. Menefee said she was told, “People like you aren’t accountants.” After that comment, she decided to pivot and focus on a path towards teaching. She graduated from MSU with a degree in elementary education.

At the time, teaching jobs were scarce. Since Menefee was active in student clubs and involved with the North American Indian Student Organization, though, she already knew people on campus and felt comfortable applying for a job with MSU’s admission office. “I worked at admissions for about five years,” Menefee said. “I wanted to do something else. I hated rules, so I knew I didn’t want [to work in] financial aid.” Instead, she was able to move into academic advising at MSU. There, one of her most memorable experiences was processing the readmission of basketball star Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who returned to MSU to complete his bachelor’s degree during the off-season of the Los Angeles Lakers.

With her combined experience in admissions and advising, Menefee was able to run a transfer program between MSU and LCC. The program was “kind of like Envision Green,” Menefee said. “It was called MiCup back in the day.”

Then one day in 1994, as Menefee was walking down Gannon—“which didn’t look like this at all,” she said— there was a sign on the wall stating LCC was looking to hire academic advisors. Recognizing an opportunity to make an impact in her community, Menefee decided to apply and was hired. “I am the kind of person that wants to make a commitment to my community where I live,” Menefee said. “And one of the things that I really liked about advising at LCC is that I literally did see students from my community.”

At that time, LCC did not have any academic advisors, as advising was handled by counselors, which Menefee referred to as the “high school model.” She and her colleague Jim Moran were the first academic advisors LCC hired. “They didn’t know what to do with us,” Menefee said. “I can remember my first day, John Cansfield said to me ‘Eva, welcome to LCC. Here’s the catalog, here’s the pad, here’s a pen. Your office is in that other building over there.’”

A new federal grant soon allowed the college to improve advising. With her experience from MSU, Menefee played a key role in shaping the college’s new advising system. “I kind of helped them create this advising idea, where we get faculty to be more generalist advisors, to help students with classes and careers and decisions about transferring,” Menefee said. “And that’s how advising came to LCC.”

Over the years, Menefee became a familiar face both on campus and around town—so much so that students would stop her in the grocery store to ask for advice. “I’m in Meijer and frozen foods. How am I supposed to tell you about your classes?” laughed Menefee. “So that started to be a problem. It was a good problem, I guess.”

For every student she meets, Menefee has a simple philosophy. “I have never told anybody that you can’t do something because I really believe that, if you want something bad enough, you can work on it hard enough. And it might not be easy, but you can get there,” Menefee said. She has seen many students in tough positions succeed through perseverance. “I think that if everybody listened to their heart of what they really want to be or what they want to do, that they can achieve that goal.

As a first-generation college student, she often recounts her father’s advice when she had hit an all time low during freshman year at MSU. It was around Thanksgiving time, and she wanted to quit and never go back. “He told me, ‘You don’t have to stay there, but you don’t quit. You can’t quit what you start,’” Menefee said. “Needless to say, I graduated from MSU more than once.” That message became a guiding principle in her life—as well as in advising. 

Before working at LCC, Menefee decided to further her education by going to graduate school when she was still working at MSU. She graduated from Central Michigan University with a Master of Science in Administration (MSA). Recently, she earned a master’s degree from Capella University. “I know what it’s like to be an adult student with two kids who are very active in different sports and trying to do a graduate program.” Menefee said. “So when students say, ‘You don’t know what it’s like­­­’—honey, I do know what it’s like because I did that before.”

After moving to Lansing for work, Menefee stayed in the area and gradually built her life here. She met her husband, Robin, who is also Native American, at powwows. His family ran a food booth, and Menefee would see him at each event. “I’d go to the powwow and the first person I’d see was him,” Menefee said. “Literally the very first person. I could just not even be looking for him and he’s the one I would see.” Over time, their friendship grew into a romantic relationship, and the two eventually married.

Soon after, Menefee and her husband started their family. Their daughter was born first, followed by their son. On weekends, the family would spend time with her husband’s relatives at powwows. “At that time, we would go to powwows because we had a food truck,” Menefee said. Her daughter later graduated from Lansing Eastern High School, while her son graduated from Okemos High School. Both of her children now live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “So, we just kind of chill here with my little dog, Sophie,” Menefee said. 

Outside of her family life, Menefee focused on helping students. Menefee takes great pride in seeing former students succeed. “I have [seen] many students in my career here and at MSU that I’ve known over the years that have become wonderful things and have found their way,” said Menefee.

Beyond advising, Menefee found her way back to a classroom. Around 2010, she started to teach a new course called Academic Success, a two-credit class for new students. Menefee tweaked the class to become known what it is today, the First-Year Experience course. The class is designed to help students transition to college life, where students learn about study skills, careers, and the benefits of attending college. “I really like helping students do that,” Menefee said.

She also sees her work with students as a way to stay connected with the world. “I always tell people working at a college has kept me young,” Menefee said. She even jokes about knowing how to use Venmo, something many of her friends don’t know how to use. “I always learn things from students. That’s why I like doing this work and that’s why I like teaching my classes.”

Menefee mentioned how teaching and advising have always influenced each other. What she learns from students in class helps her as an advisor, and what she learns through advising shapes how she teaches. Over time, she’s noticed how students have changed. “I learn more about what this generation of young people are thinking about, what they want to do, what they want to be,” Menefee said. “Kind of helps me with the next group that comes by and I get to see.” 

When talking about careers in the classroom, one of the jokes she tells students is that they should find a job they love because “they’ve got to pay my Social Security.” With jokes aside, she means it sincerely, encouraging students to find meaningful work they enjoy and stay in it. She notes that some people move from job to job to climb higher while others stay in a position for years because they love the work. “They get their bucket full from the work that they do,” Menefee said.

Menefee taught several courses including a developmental reading and writing and Great Lakes Native American History class. “That was a very difficult class for me to teach,” Menefee said. “I’m not a very good historian.”

She especially enjoyed teaching the developmental reading classes, which was designed for students with low reading test scores—something she was upfront about with students. But she was also upfront about how to improve: “I remind them that doesn’t mean you don’t know how to read. It means that you don’t read,” Menefee said. “It’s like riding a bike. If you don’t read, you’re going to forget how to read.”

In class, it was required for students to silently read for 15 minutes. Menefee recalls when a student decided to bring a Bible. She let her read it at first, knowing that many churchgoers are already familiar with the stories at the start of the Bible. But a few weeks later, she told the student to start somewhere else, other than the beginning. “The Bible is probably one of the books that you do not understand because it’s a lot of metaphors,” Menefee said. She encouraged the student to read something else and when she did, her reading improved. “That’s what school reading is about. It’s about comprehension.”

College policy now limits how often she can teach. Full-time employees are not allowed to teach during their regular workday because it’s considered double dipping. “Whenever I taught, I always have to readjust my schedule and hours.” Menefee said. “So I couldn’t do it anymore.”

For every student she meets, through the classroom or in her office, Menefee emphasized the importance of building connections. “Find someone to be a friend in your class,” Menefee said. She believes that forming connections is a key to student success and encourages students to work together and support one another. She also reminds students to get to know their instructors, a lesson which she ties back to her work as an advisor. Menefee tells students that knowing their teachers can be valuable because, one day, they may need a letter of recommendation or reference. She has a simple rule for students that come to her office: “You are not allowed to complain about your teacher if you don’t know their name.”

After decades of service, Menefee decided it was time to retire. “I want to do something else. However, I don’t know what it is. I’m still trying to figure that out.” She has some ideas of what she will be doing during her retirement, although nothing is set in stone.

Menefee plans to focus on her food truck, exploring traditional native foods and food sovereignty. “I’m interested in finding ways to make more traditional native things that we would have eaten,” Menefee said. “We can do a lot of exploration with things that people have eaten culturally, and if they stay to those kinds of things, they tend to be healthier.”

She’s also interested in helping women and men find their confidence and their way. “I think that even today, young people, young women, are not as confident in themselves as they could be,” Menefee said. “I’m one of those feminists that believe that women should rule the world, because it’s just how it should be.”

For now, Menefee’s plans for retirement are simple: sleep and rest. “I told my husband that the first few days of retirement, I was going to keep my pajamas on,” Menefee laughed. However, her November is already packed with cooking events for Native American Heritage Month. Then later on, she will be going to a Native Alliance training in Seattle, Washington to learn how to be a better community organizer.

What Menefee knows for sure is that she will miss the people the most. “I’m going to miss students that I know, but I’m going to miss the students that I don’t know yet.”