Jonathan Hoster: How an admissions counselor has become a ‘guardian angel’ for students and staff

Gerardo Martinez’s dream was for his parents to see him graduate college.

His upbringing in the Californian “hood” had been rough, he said. Neither of his parents finished middle school. Yet he was about to be the first in his family to graduate, with numerous accolades and a civil engineering degree from Syracuse University.

But his family’s financial resources were a problem, and for a moment it looked like Martinez would be graduating alone, clear across the country from his parents.

That’s when Jonathan Hoster stepped in. An undergraduate recruitment specialist for the College of Engineering and Computer Science, Hoster and Martinez first met in 2012 while Hoster was giving prospective students a tour of Link Hall. Over the years their relationship grew, so by 2015, Martinez said confiding to Hoster about his parents’ dilemma felt natural.

Never one to let a student struggle, Hoster began reaching out to alumni, and eventually found someone willing to support Martinez’s parents’ flight from California. Because of Hoster, Martinez fulfilled his dream of being with his family for graduation.

“There are endless stories of what he has and will continue to do for me,” Martinez said. “I will never be able to thank him enough.”

Stories like these are far from uncommon where Hoster is concerned. The man has built himself a reputation as a guardian angel for students and staff alike, a reputation that started long before he joined the SU admissions staff.

Hoster is an SU alumnus, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in broadcast and digital journalism and his master’s in literacy education. He fell in love with the Orange during a high school tour, and when the time came to apply for college, SU was the only school that earned Hoster’s application.

After graduation, Hoster worked a variety of jobs before joining the SU admissions team, and since 2012 he’s attended recruitment events, giving tours and wooing potential students.

Hoster’s office in 123 Link Hall is a colorful hodgepodge of memorabilia. Stuffed animals and knick-knacks line the shelves, paperwork overflows the desk and the walls are covered in tacked up photos, plaques and magnets.

Yet what appears to be a cluttered scavenger hunt of an office is actually a carefully cultivated museum of Hoster’s life. Each item in the room — like the empty pizza box in the corner and the “Painting with a Twist” artwork on the walls — has its own story. Even Martinez makes an appearance, in the form of an article printout SU Magazine did on him in 2014.

The stories behind other objects in the room, however, are less obvious. Take, for example, the Otto the Orange cookie tacked to a bulletin board, still wrapped in its plastic packaging.

The adorable cookie looks like it came from a specialty bakery, but in reality, it was made by none other than Hoster’s mother, who shipped a box of them all the way from Pennsylvania for National Orange Day. Hoster passed the cookies out to the Traditions Commission, which he advises, and didn’t rest until every member had at least one.

Kristen Unangst, a junior finance and supply chain management double major, said Hoster joined the Traditions Commission in fall 2016 at the 11th hour when they were desperate for a new advisor. Yet despite the last minute decision, Unangst said she was shocked at the amount of care, attention and enthusiasm Hoster gave to the club.

“He’s like our dad,” she said.

When Unangst said Hoster went above and beyond to help the organization, she’s not exaggerating: Hoster won the 44 Stars Award for Excellence by an Organizational Advisor for Traditions Commission on April 20. The cookies were just a sweet bonus.

Cookies aren’t even the only sweet snack Hoster has shipped in. Anyone who knows Hoster knows his heart belongs to one dessert in particular: Rita’s Italian Ice. The Philadelphia-based company has long been a favorite of Hoster’s — so much so, that in 2015 he became an official volunteer brand ambassador for the company.

“Rita’s corporate developed this ‘Rita’s Biggest Fan’ program…and I kind of think they developed it just for me,” Hoster said, laughing. “Because I didn’t submit an application right away when they developed the program, and then like two days before they contacted me saying, ‘You’re going to submit an application, right?”

He has tubs of the sugary confection shipped in every year for the engineering and computer science open house. If there is any Rita’s left over, Hoster can be spotted driving around campus in a golf cart, passing out Italian ice to anyone who wants it.

This type of enthusiasm and commitment to everything he does is what endears Hoster to his peers. Whether he’s pulling an all-nighter to help Martinez with a fellowship application or posting on his Facebook page to try to find an internship for an undergraduate student, Hoster always puts in 100 percent.

The dedication hasn’t gone unnoticed. David Rubin, dean emeritus of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, has known Hoster since he was a student. And from what he’s seen, he wouldn’t be surprised if Hoster was running all of admissions one day.

“If all Syracuse alumni were as enthusiastic as Jonathan,” Rubin said, “then Syracuse would be untouchable as a university.”

Binh Huynh, an SU doctoral candidate and part-time employee of the office of admissions, said he loved Hoster’s energetic and boisterous personality from the first moment he met him. During Hoster’s first road trip with Huynh to interview prospective students, Huynh saw Hoster’s spark emerge when he spent nearly twice the amount of time he was supposed to talking with one student. Hoster was so focused on learning about who the student was as a person.

Although this frustrated him at the time, Hunyh said he came to learn that this amount of attentiveness is actually what makes Hoster great.

“(There’s) just a great magnetism about him,” Huynh said. “You felt like the moment he entered a room, there was a supernova that had just erupted.”

Banner photo by Frankie Prijatel | Staff Photographer