WiE's 'wonderful fit' Mikels retires
Interruptions weren’t a frustration.
Quite the opposite.
If the environment around Dawn Mikels’ office — no matter the building it was in — was too quiet, Mikels would get “bored.” She’s too relational not to be engaged in regular conversations.
Which is one of the reasons Beth Holloway hired Mikels as the “welcoming face” for the Women in Engineering (WiE) Program in 2005.
For nearly 20 years, Mikels was that and so much more as an administrative assistant, building the program’s Exploring Engineering event and using elite organizational skills to keep the office running smoothly. She retired in December 2025.
“When we were looking to hire for that position, we wanted somebody who was really outgoing, very personable, inviting and engaging. Very competent with her work as well but was really inviting to external people, whether they be in the university or prospective families, and she was so amazing at that,” said Holloway, the Leah H. Jamieson Director of Women in Engineering. “She genuinely is interested in other people and sees everyone as a potential cool person to talk to. But she ensured people would have what they needed out of an interaction.
“That was a wonderful fit for the program.”
The WiE offices were in the basement of Hampton Hall for Mikels’ first year. But once the program moved to the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering in 2007, Holloway quickly knew where Mikels needed to be: the office at the end of the WiE hallway, facing the main entry point.
When someone walked in, maybe a prospective student with a family, maybe a staffer, maybe a student, Mikels would perk up.
Because Mikels was such an effective multitasker, taking time to chat didn’t wreck the day.
It actually gave it life.
Any time a potential visitor came down the hallway in Armstrong Hall or, for the last three years, turned the corner toward WiE’s offices in Dudley Hall, Mikels could be heard saying “come in,” “who are you?” or “how can I help?”
Or all three, meant to entice interaction.
“That made me happy. Inevitably, somebody would be sitting there talking to me and it got to the end of the day where I’d have to say, ‘OK, well, I think I need to get my work done now,’ ” said Mikels laughing, presumably knowing it may sound strange to be excited about having a day’s task list be disrupted.
“That’s the best part of my day — a student would come by, or staff would come by, whoever, and it’d start off with a question, but it got more personal. It felt more like home. That was important to me at a job, being connected, because you spend so much time with the people you work with. I didn’t want it to be like, you go to your room, get your work done and you’re out. Or you work from home and you don’t get that connection. If I’m going to be here, I want to feel like it’s family.”
Mission accomplished.
From the first moment Nina Overton met Mikels, there was a connection.
Overton, then a first-year engineering student, came in to interview for a job on the operations leadership team. Overton was nervous, but Mikels immediately put Overton at ease. The two are similarly outgoing, and when Mikels’ questions focused on personality over skills, Overton was sold.
“She was so kind,” said Overton, who worked for Mikels for four years and graduated in May 2026. “Whenever we were hiring (a new student worker), it was always about if we liked them as a person, and that was always her most important thing, which made for a really good work culture. She wants people to do well.
“She was a ray of sunshine.”
The effervescent personality was on display not just from her office.
Mikels helped organize Exploring Engineering, the twice-a-year recruiting event for juniors and seniors in high school. Consistently, the event welcomes more than 200 prospective students to West Lafayette. At the event, Mikels would play a combo role of information-giver and hype person, as she tried to help high school students figure out which engineering discipline could best suit them.
Often, she’d tell them to “reach for the stars,” knowing that engineering can be a door to a variety of different careers.
After each event, Mikels would have a meeting with her operations leadership team to discuss what went well and what changes could be made. Just another way she was working to serve.
“She was trying to improve it so it would be the best experience for the students,” Overton said. “She was focused on making sure prospective students had whatever they needed. It was always to put them first, making sure the event goes well for them, works the best for them. It was never about what was easy for us. It was about, ‘Does this look professional for them? Do they feel like they’re valued?’
“She’s the best. That’s why everyone comes back. We’ve had so many of her past employees come back for Exploring Engineering alumni panels, and they always come back because she made such good relationships with people that they wanted to help the program and see her again.”
Holloway also empowered Mikels to make WiE presentations at the university’s primary event for admitted students, Purdue’s For Me. Mikels encouraged students to get involved with WiE and reinforced how the program could be a support system and help students succeed.
Once those students got connected with WiE, many would make sure to stop by and tell Mikels so.
Inevitably leading to chats in the office. And “work” postponed until later.
“It was a very positive experience,” Mikels said of her time in WiE. “I enjoyed coming in. There are not many jobs out there if you ask if you like your job that they are going to say ‘yes.’ But did I enjoy coming in? I did.
“It was a perfect job for me in a way I wanted it to be.”
