Southwestern Magazine | Spring 2022

A history of partnership According to Associate Vice President for Alumni and Parent Relations Megan Frisque, the CCPD has long had a close rela- tionship with the Southwestern University Alumni Association (SUAA), which is supported by the Office of Alumni and Parent Relations. Six years ago, Southwestern launched a collaboration between the CCPD and SUAA that connected students in their junior year with alumni mentors. The Alumni Network Mentoring Program has evolved over time to connect students with six mentors each year, beginning in their sophomore year. The two units also collaborated to launch PirateConnect, an innovative digital platform that allows students and alumni to share and receive career advice and guidance online. And even though the CCPD has been ranked by the Princeton Review as #1 in Texas and #3 in the nation for best career services, there is always potential to do more. “We would ask ourselves, ‘We have such a great collaborative effort; how can we enhance that?’” Frisque says. “Ideas floated around for years about what we could be doing. We realized if we worked as one department, we could be doing a lot more.” Frisque wrote a detailed proposal for transitioning the CCPD from the Division of Student Life to the Office of Alumni and Parent Relations after several changes came about last summer. First, the internship program was moved from the CCPD to the Center for Integrative Learning to consolidate all high-impact experi- ences—internships, study abroad, undergraduate research, and community-engaged learning—within one office. Then Daniel Orozco, the director of the CCPD, announced his retirement. The timing was right to reimagine how the CCPD could better serve students. Goals for the reorganized CCPD include the following: • Create a campus culture of deliberate, lifelong professional development from students’ first week on campus through their postgraduate experience • Prepare students to graduate from Southwestern successfully satisfied with their career prospects and outcomes • Engage Southwestern alumni, parents, and friends in efforts to support the success of current students and young graduates • Provide substantial, proactive career support for Southwestern alumni • Set a model for how liberal arts institutions prepare their grad- uates for life in a dynamic society “University Relations, the CCPD, and Southwestern as a whole view it as our moral obligation to ensure that every student who enters Southwestern and participates in the Southwestern Experience will graduate and move on to a meaningful next step, whether it is a postgraduate education or career,” Secord says. “Right now, 86% of students do so within 10 months of gradua- tion, but we don’t view that as good enough. We expect it to be 100%, and that is what we’re working toward with this transition.” Newwork and initiatives The transition to the Office of Alumni and Parent Relations will allow the CCPD to elevate current initiatives and extend its work into new areas. This includes partnering with faculty and staff to host conversations with students on life design, or the process of navigating and making decisions about life and work. In 2019, the Office of Alumni and Parent Relations received a grant from the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE), a nationwide network of colleges and universities formed to enrich and facilitate opportunities for self-reflection and life design among undergraduate students. This grant served as a catalyst for the creation of a 15-member faculty working group tasked with developing a life design statement and identifying points in a Southwestern student’s journey (e.g., in a First-Year Seminar, through advising, during career exploration) to include discussions and explorations around life design. “This is useful because it provides students, staff, and faculty a shared foundation to generate more conversations and enhance initiatives focused on reflection and life design,” says Associate Professor of Economics and Business Debika Sihi, who served as co-chair of the working group. “The CCPD has always taken a holistic approach to professional development. Students are provided opportunities for self-reflection and offered a variety of tools to guide their career exploration. Coupling that with Alumni and Parent Relations is likely to generate more formal and organic opportunities for mentorship, job shadowing, and relationship building.” The transition will also increase opportunities for the CCPD to partner with the Alumni Council, the leadership body of SUAA. This may include working with local chapters both within Texas and beyond to host additional Career Treks, or visits to work- places, and enhancing mentorship opportunities for first-genera- tion students and students from underrepresented populations. Jermaine Dumes ’17 and Jahmaal Dumes ’17, founders and owners of Down South CaJJun Eats in Pflugerville, Texas, led a Curious Conversation in February. Southwestern students are able to connect with alumni in these informal Q&A sessions hosted by the CCPD. 37 SOUTHWESTERN