Kish, however, is the landlord for 300 of Dartmouth students, renting properties in Hanover and the surrounding area.
"If you want to work for yourself, you gotta roll up your sleeves and do the un-glamorous things," Kish said. "Whatever nobody will do that day because they don't show up, that's my thing."
Kish and her brother, a member of the Class of 1999, were the first two people to go to college in their family. A self-described "super Dartmouth alum," Kish coordinates Thayer alumni council events, is an officer for her College class, and has been a guest lecturer at Thayer and an aerobics instructor at Dartmouth since 1984.
"Before coming to Dartmouth, I ran a health club, and before that I worked for a health club, and before that I was in the Fort Lauderdale Ballet Company," she said.
In fact, Kish even taught aerobics on her Language Study Abroad to Spain when she was a student at Dartmouth.
"I try to make the most of everything, be active in whatever I do," Kish said.
This same spirit, she said, led her to start Kish Consulting and Contracting in 1999.
The primary focus of her company, Kish said, is to meet student housing needs that are unaddressed by the College. Her consulting and contracting company focuses on real estate investments in the five mile radius around Dartmouth. The radius has tightened over the years with the College's increase in residential options, Kish said.
The College's Office of Residential Life announced in March that 100 additional seniors will have to live off-campus next Fall term. This will have no effect on the geographic radius of her housing investments, Kish said.
"Because the market is slow, people want to rent their homes and that has created more availability," she said. "The problem is that the College isn't balancing its actions."
When students choose to rent in the Hanover area they are usually forced to sign a one-year lease starting in September, Kish said. Incoming seniors who have signed rental agreements often must search for sophomores to sublet their housing during the summer. With a dramatic increase in available off-campus sublets, the College should decrease its supply of on-campus housing during the summer, but has instead provided more summer housing opportunities, Kish said.
"The students are put at a huge economic disadvantage," she explained.
Kish currently rents rooms to approximately 300 students per year, a number that may increase with ORL's announcement about senior housing.
Kish said that interacting with students is one of her favorite parts of the job.
"I'm really lucky that I carved myself a job that allows me to meet students every day," she said. "It keeps you young, and every single day is different."
Kish's office is colorful and friendly, brightly decorated with pictures of her two children, ages five and six. Hanging on the wall are her two diplomas from Dartmouth.
"They're proudly displayed," she said. "Even my Stanford ones aren't up there. The only time when I'm ashamed to call myself a Dartmouth alum is when students call me because they don't know how to change a light-bulb."
