Talk with some of the hundreds of students Mani Campos has worked with over the course of his 28 years at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, and they’ll tell you the assistance and guidance he offered during their time on campus was invaluable.
But Campos – a biology professor and advisor for pre-health students – is quick to point out he’s gotten a lot out of it as well.
“Ultimately, I see them happy, which maybe selfishly, makes me happy too,” Campos said.
“The hardest stages of a student’s development here academically, professionally and personally come during their first and last years. The first year is obvious. It’s such a big change coming to college and being on their own for the first time. They need a lot of mentorship.
“But they also need it during their last year for different reasons,” he continued. “Many students toward the end of their college careers begin to change their minds about what their goals are. They’ve had experiences that cause them to start questioning and reevaluating things. That’s what we want them to do, but it can be hard for students to have that uncertainty about what path they should take. That’s when it really helps to have mentors who can let them know this is a natural part of their progression.
“Not everything is black and white. It’s OK to have doubt and uncertainty about where they’re headed.”
Being able to have a direct impact on students is a big part of what brought Campos to CSB and SJU in the first place.
And it’s the reason he’s remained here as long as he has.
“I wanted the small, liberal arts setting,” said Campos, who earned his undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. degrees at Penn State, then was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia before coming to CSB and SJU in 1997.
“I wanted to come to a place where I could teach in a way that I could be personally meaningful to my students.
“We’d checked out the East Coast,” he continued. “After Penn State, I’d worked post-doctorally at the University of Virginia for four years doing research. So we had this idea that we’d come through the Midwest, then maybe keep moving to the West Coast.
“I thought this might be a stepping-stone, but along the way I really grew into the culture here. What attracted me most were the relationships I was able to have with my students. For the most part, students here are interested and involved in the learning process. They want to learn. Most of the students I’ve worked with over the years have been open-minded and willing to see the world through somebody else’s eyes – not just their own. They appreciate the true value of education.”
Born and raised in Portugal, Campos attended an American international high school in Lisbon, which meant his options for a college education lay in either England or the U.S.
His family had friends in Pennsylvania. That led him to Penn State where he met the man who would become his own mentor, Ted Hollis, a professor of biology.
“I worked in his lab as an undergraduate, as a master’s student and a Ph.D. student,” Campos said. “He mentored me when it came to teaching. He had a really big influence in defining the way I teach and the philosophy I’ve tried to follow.”
That sounds almost exactly like what students who’ve worked with Campos at CSB and SJU say about him.
“He’s an amazing person,” said Dr. Jessica Najarian-Bell ’10, a pediatrician and medical director of the outpatient clinic at the CentraCare Plaza in St. Cloud. “He’s extremely knowledgeable and focuses on what’s going to be the best fit for you. He looks at what you want out of medical school. What your values are and what you want to accomplish.”
Najarian-Bell – whose grandfather was famed transplant surgeon John Najarian – said Campos even introduced her to distance running, a passion Campos pursued ardently until a knee injury a few years ago.
“I was on the swim team here, but I’d never gotten into running,” she said. “He got me hooked and I did my first marathon when I was in college. That turned out to be tremendously valuable because it gave me an outlet I needed as I was going through medical school. I’m still running marathons to this day.
“(My family ties) got me going on this journey into medicine. Then it was two big mentors who got me where I am today. One was someone in medical school, but the other was Mani. I wouldn’t be where I am today without him.”
But not everyone Campos mentors goes on to medical school. He’s had plenty of successes in other areas as well. A prime example is Dusan Kosic ’07.
Just a year after graduating from SJU, he co-founded the HTEC Group – a software engineering and digital product development company.
HTEC – which now employs over 2,500 people – creates deeply immersive digital experiences that enable powerful interactions between businesses and people, providing core technology development for a number of Fortune 500 companies.
Kosic credits Campos for getting him pointed in the right direction.
“He supported my initial interest in preparing myself for medical school,” said Kosic, who grew up in Mrkonjic Grad, Bosnia. “However, soon he realized that my aspirations were more business-oriented, and my goal was to open a private clinic, providing exceptional service to patients while creating work opportunities for my sister and relatives in the medical profession.
“He used to joke, ‘Dusan, you might reconsider your path. You might focus on business and get to your plans even sooner.’ Destiny had it that I ended up on the business side of the table, and even though not running the private hospital, we at HTEC are helping leading HLS and MedTech companies develop the latest medical solutions for the benefit of patients.”
Campos said helping students find their own path like that is the best part of his job.
“Teaching can happen in many different settings,” he said. “It’s not just in the classroom. You can teach in a lab. You can teach as a coach on the athletic field. And you can teach as an advisor.
“I find that last one to be one of the most productive settings because invariably it’s one-on-one. You’re dealing with an individual student – learning their background, finding out their goals and dreams, then trying to help them reach them.”