internships

Coach, NCAA Forum Nurture K Student’s Career Aspirations

Posted on

Brad Bez ’19 says he has wanted to be a coach since he was in his first year at Kalamazoo College.

“I think I’ve always had it in the back of my mind,” he says. “But that was when I really started to pursue it and decide it was what I wanted to do.”

Future College Coach Brad Bez Squatting Next to Logos
Brad Bez ’19, an offensive lineman who aspires to be a collegiate coach, points out the Kalamazoo College athletics logo in a display at the NCAA national office in Indianapolis, where he was one of 240 collegiate athletes from across the nation to attend the NCAA Career in Sports Forum.

The Hornet football offensive lineman’s ambition is well known to Head Coach Jamie Zorbo ’00, who mentors his players both on and off the field. In keeping with the emphasis in the K-Plan on experiential education, Zorbo nominated Bez for the NCAA Career in Sports Forum at the NCAA’s national office in Indianapolis in late May and early June 2018.

Bez was one of just 240 juniors and seniors chosen from more than 460,000 U.S. collegiate athletes to attend the all-expenses-paid forum, which the NCAA says is designed to assist them in charting their career paths as athletics professionals.

Over four days, he got to meet coaches, athletic directors and athletic staff from colleges and universities across the nation.

“It was all networking and workshops: how to make a better resume, different ways to connect with people, more information about the different careers in athletics, and particularly college athletics,” he says. “There were so many things we learned how to do and learned more about.”

The history major and political science minor says the biggest benefit may have been meeting fellow college athletes who will be among his future professional peers.

“Initially a lot of us went there with the idea that we were going to try to meet people in a position we want to be in. So a lot of us were trying to network with the people who have jobs,” he says. “And by the end, we all realized it was way more important to network with our peers, to try to get to know them. For example, I want to coach, and I met a guy who wants to be an athletic director. So we got to talking, and I was like, ‘Down the road, maybe one day, we’ll cross paths and you’ll get to hire me.’ ”

Bez, who is spending the summer as an intern in the Michigan State University athletic director’s office, says the biggest takeaway from the conference was “you have to build genuine relationships with people. If they just know your name, that’s not really enough. You have to know who people are and they have to know you in order for that to be a productive relationship. For both of you it has to be genuine.”

That’s the sort of relationship he—and, he says, his teammates—have with Zorbo.

“I’ve been pretty lucky that I’ve gotten to be around Coach a lot during my time at K,” he says. “Whether it’s calling me into his office to have an extended conversation or just encountering something and him saying, ‘Hey, if you want to be a coach, this is what you need to know,’ I’ve had a pretty in-depth relationship with him.”

He says Zorbo’s off-field efforts for his players also include making sure they get to know K football alumni who can help them in their athletic and academic pursuits.

“Through Coach, I’ve been able to build my own network and have these people who share a commonality with me,” Bez says.

With Zorbo’s example, he talks about coaching not in terms of wins and losses, but as a way of making a difference in other people’s lives—and his own.

“I think the best thing about coaching is the relationships you get to build and the effect you get to have on people,” he says. “I mean, when I look back on my life, aside from my parents and family, the biggest impact on me has been my coaches. Those people shaped me to be who I am. I think that would be a spot really suited to me to have an impact on other people, but also for them to have an impact on me.”

K Student Among First AmeriFirst Interns

Posted on

Kalamazoo College student Peter Rossi ’18 is among the first students to take advantage of a new internship program that teaches students about the mortgage industry.

Rossi, a computer science major and music minor from Kalamazoo, is one of nine college juniors and seniors learning career skills this summer through AmeriFirst, a mortgage banker in Kalamazoo. The students, who were chosen from more than 50 applicants, work in marketing, information technology, appraisals, human resources and legal/compliance. The program began in May and continues through August.

Peter Rossi Pictured at AmeriFirst
Peter Rossi, a computer science major and music minor from Kalamazoo, is one of nine college juniors and seniors learning career skills this summer through AmeriFirst, a mortgage banker in Kalamazoo.

“The work environment at AmeriFirst is extremely unique because my work is directly applicable to the company,” Rossi said. “They’re willing to value my opinions even at the highest level, which pushes me to work hard.”

Rossi’s job in information technology includes communicating with various departments around AmeriFirst to help the company build an intranet platform that suits employees’ needs. He also has duties involving business process modeling, which is a method of mapping processes to help make an organization’s workflow more effective and efficient.

Rossi said there are three divisions within IT at AmeriFirst including:

  • a technical-support division;
  • a network administration division, ensuring that servers are protected and company information is properly encrypted; and
  • Rossi’s division, which offers a mix of continuous improvement and project management.

“There are a lot of departments that have interns, but the IT department has a way of making every day interesting and fun,” Rossi said. “We really go out of our way to interact and have a good time.”

A weekly lunch-and-learn program encourages community and builds cohesiveness among the interns across departments. During these 60-minute sessions, members of senior management provide industry and life-skills education along with overviews of their respective areas of expertise. A recent highlight included a session with Chief Executive Officer Mark Jones, who shared his passion and business philosophy with the students, who appreciated his time.

“AmeriFirst is going out of its way to see that young talent stays here, which I think is amazing,” said Rossi, a Loy Norrix High School graduate, Heyl Scholar and a member of K’s swimming and diving team. He added he hopes he can take the experiences he has gained so far and continue to be successful moving forward.

Before launching the internship program, AmeriFirst Staff Recruiter Kelly McConnell and coworker Nicole Waterbury connected with local college career departments, including K’s Center for Career and Professional Development (CCPD), and reached out to other corporations running successful internship programs. Although Rossi first heard of the internship opportunity through a friend’s dad, he said CCPD was integral in helping him prepare his résumé and learn how to network.

Rossi said he would encourage other students thinking about the AmeriFirst program in the future to “absolutely apply. If you can get in, they really take care of you. It’s a diverse workforce, and a majority of employees are women at the home office, even among the senior leadership team. For me that creates an amazing community atmosphere that also has a young, energetic vibe.”

For more information on internships at AmeriFirst, contact McConnell at 269-324-4240, ext. 12020, or recruiter@amerifirst.com.

 

College’s CCPD Dinner Connects Students to Fortune 500 Company

Posted on

CCPD Dinner Connects Students to StrykerIn early May, 28 Kalamazoo College students had the opportunity to share a meal on campus with eight professionals who have at least two things in common—the K-Plan and careers at the Stryker Corporation, a Kalamazoo-based Fortune 500 medical technologies firm.

The alumni returned to campus at the invitation of the Center for Career and Professional Development to meet with students who could learn about career paths at Stryker and the relevance of the K-Plan to those paths. At least 15 current Stryker employees got their undergraduate degrees at K, and both institutions are interested in strengthening the talent pipeline between the two.

The event began with a welcome by S. Si Johnson ’78, the retired group president of Stryker MedSurg Group and a current member of the College’s board of trustees. Johnson shared the four core values of Stryker—integrity, accountability, people, and performance—and reflected on how the critical thinking and problem solving skills inherent in a K education are great preparation for a career at Stryker.

After students and alumni enjoyed informal networking conversations over dinner, James N. Heath ’78, the retired president of Stryker Instruments and a member of K’s board of trustees, moderated an alumni panel that included Randy Rzeznik ’08, director of customer excellence, Neuro, Spine, ENT and Navigation; Bryce Pearson ’15, finance representative; Kevin Packard ’05, clinical marketing manager, Neuro, Spine, ENT and Navigation; and Michael Weslosky ’02, staff scientist.

Panelists reflected on their trajectories from K to Stryker and talked about the qualities of the company they find most attractive. The panelists’ K majors were varied—chemistry, economics, biology, and business—and each panelist cited the value of the work ethic instilled by the K-Plan and the 10-week term. They also stressed the importance of persistence in the pursuit of employment. Pearson, for example, shared the effort and time that was required before he secured a position at Stryker.

Heath also invited one of the students in attendance, junior Alex White, to describe the extensive process he’d gone through to secure an internship with Stryker for the upcoming summer.

Other alumni attending the event included Legal Counsel Christopher DiVirgilio ’04 and Senior IS Business Analyst Russ Hankey ’96.

Students and alumni agreed that the evening was a success and excellent preparation for the next step in the K/Stryker relationship: a half-day immersion K-Trek for selected students to the company’s headquarters in the fall.

Text and photo by Joan Hawxhurst

Eyewitness to History

Posted on
Presidential Debate Between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford
Then-U.S. President Gerald Ford (right) and challenger Gov. Jimmy Carter debate in 1976.

Gail Raiman ’73 was interviewed for and appears in the documentary “Feeling Good About America: the 1976 Presidential Election.” The documentary, produced by the Center of Politics at the University of Virginia, has been airing across the country since October.

The election of 1976 was momentous in several ways. It was the first national election after the Watergate scandal. It was the national election occurring on the occasion of the country’s bicentennial celebration. Watergate had consumed the Nixon presidency (he resigned in August  1974), resulting in Gerald R. Ford becoming president. Ford had become vice president in October 1973 by congressional confirmation in the wake of Vice President Spiro Agnew’s corruption scandal and resignation.

In the 1976 election, Ford — the Republican candidate — was pitted against the relatively unknown former one-term governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter. Carter ran as a Washington outsider, a popular position in the post-Watergate era, and won a narrow victory.

Gail’s connection to Ford began before the 1976 election, going back to her sophomore year in 1971. She used that opportunity to intern on Capitol Hill for then-Congressman Ford, who at the time served as House minority leader. Gail worked in his Washington office’s constituent-relations group and made quite an impression. The Ford team suggested she continue to work in the office while finishing her undergraduate degree at a college or university in Washington, D.C.

Instead, Gail returned to K, completed her degree (philosophy) in June 1973 and took a summer job in Ford’s Grand Rapids district office. Several times that summer Ford personally asked Gail to consider taking a permanent job in his office. She declined in favor of her plan to earn a doctorate and teach. That fall she started graduate school, but she wasn’t there long.

“I suddenly realized that I wanted to ‘make a difference,’ ” Gail said, “though I didn’t know what that meant. At the time I didn’t imagine it meant returning to work for Congressman Ford.”

Gerald Ford Campaign ButtonGail came home from grad school to Grand Rapids. “My  immediate future was a complete mystery to me,” she said. “Four days later history intervened with the resignation of Vice President Agnew. President Nixon then named Gerald Ford as vice president-designate, and several phone calls later, I was on my way to Washington to work on Ford’s confirmation hearings for the vice presidency.”

Ford asked Gail to join his vice presidential staff and she did. Eight months later, when Nixon resigned and Ford became president, Ford asked Gail to be a member of his White House staff. She worked in the West Wing throughout his term. “My White House portfolio included media relations, communications, politics and continuous crisis management — the perfect storm.”

In early 2016 Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics, inquired whether Gail would be interviewed for the documentary. His request made sense. “I’d had a front-row seat to the 1976 campaign while on the White House staff,” Gail explained. “I also worked as a member of the president’s staff at the 1976 Republican National Convention.”

That convention was memorable. It was the last Republican convention in which a candidate had not been chosen by the outset. Ford and former California Gov. Ronald Reagan were the front runners, with Reagan representing the conservative wing of the party. During maneuvering at the Convention, Mississippi swung from Reagan to Ford on the first ballot, pushing him just past the delegate threshold needed to win the nomination.

K Trustee Gail Raiman
K trustee Gail Raiman at the 2013 commencement

The documentary concludes that the election of 1976 was a needful tonic for the country. America felt good about Ford and Carter for good reason; they were the right people at the right time, helping us once again “feel good about America.”

That history comes alive, in part, through the film’s interviews, which include, among many others, Walter Mondale, Jack Ford, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Stuart K. Spencer and Gail Raiman ’73.

Gail’s inclusion in the film is not her only honor relative to her association with Ford. She also has been asked to serve as a judge for the 2016 Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency. With this annual award, Ford wanted to recognize and encourage thoughtful, insightful and enterprising work by journalists covering the presidency and national defense.

As in past years, two $5,000 prizes will be awarded, one for distinguished achievement in reporting on the presidency, and another on national defense during the 2016 calendar year. The awards will be presented in Washington, D.C., in June at the annual meeting of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation.

Duo Completes Prestigious Internship

Posted on
Shawn Fair and Sara McKinney
Shawn Fair and Sara McKinney

Kalamazoo College senior Sara McKinney and junior Shawn Fair secured and completed Monroe-Brown internships this summer. Monroe-Brown internships are local opportunities that include at least 400 paid hours of work with a Kalamazoo area company, valuable networking, and scholarship funding upon completion.

The Monroe-Brown family (and, subsequently, The Monroe-Brown Foundation) has a long history of supporting Michigan students in higher education. McKinney’s internship focused on research into this legacy.

She compiled a family tree; cataloged birth, death, and marriage certificates; interviewed family members; read biographies and news articles; and much more. Much of the work was conducted independently.
The end goal is a book for the Monroe-Brown grandchildren. “I’ve really enjoyed the research aspect of it,” McKinney says. “The project has really helped me develop self-accountability and has helped me learn how to seek out information and contacts in the Kalamazoo community.”

McKinney is majoring in English (with an emphasis in creative writing) and earning a minor in psychology. This fall she will complete a collection of short stories for her Senior Individualized Project.

For his internship Fair worked in the marketing internship at Fabri-Kal, an industry leader in product packaging. He analyzed the branding, marketing and advertising of the company’s environmentally friendly Greenware line.

Fair used the opportunity to evaluate what he’d learned in the classroom about leadership. He observed the leadership styles of his coworkers, managers and company executives, and determined that, to be a relational leader, “You have to be trustworthy, dependable, supportive, and willing to devote time to getting to know each of your team members.”

Fair is majoring in business and earning a minor in Chinese. He is already applying the practical lessons of his internship by launching his own mobile application production company, Simple Fix, LLC.

K students like Fair and McKinney have been well represented in the Monroe-Brown Internship Program for the last several years. Since 2012, 13 students have interned with local companies including Eaton, BASIC, AVB, Parker Hannifin, LKF Marketing, Imperial Beverage, Abraxas, and Schupan & Sons, Inc.

Text and Photo by McKenna Bramble ’16, Post Baccalaureate Summer Intern, Center for Career and Professional Development

Alumna Prepared for Fulbright Teaching Assignment

Posted on
Ellie Cannon
Ellie Cannon – Photo by Hein Htut Tin ’17

Next month it’s off to Spain for Ellie Cannon ’15, who feels thoroughly “K-Plan prepped.”

Ellie received an English Teaching Assistantship grant with the Fulbright Student Program. For nine months she will work at a school of commerce in Galicia, an autonomous community in northwestern Spain. She is excited, of course, and grateful, “Over the last five years I received invaluable academic and professional mentorship from college faculty, staff, and alumni,” she said. “Friends and classmates also educated and encouraged me.”

Galicia is one of Spain’s lesser known cultures. The population and local government are bilingual, operating in Spanish and the local language, Galego. Many Galicians identify with Celtic culture, which some attribute to pre-Roman era migration and to a more recent process of adopting Celtic-related tradition.

“I look forward to being a student and a teacher of culture,” said Ellie. “The K-Plan prepared me for both.”

She spent her early childhood in St. Paul, Minnesota, in a neighborhood blended with immigrant, refugee and working class families. When she was in middle school her family moved to a small rural town on the west shore of Lake Michigan, where “I learned about rural and maritime cultures, began to study Spanish, and tutored the bilingual children of dairy and migrant farm workers.”

When it came time to pick a college, K seemed a great option to more deeply develop intercultural competence. “As a first year student and later as a Teaching Assistant, [Professor of English] Bruce Mills’ seminar on autism acquainted me with the idea of neurodiversity,” said Ellie. “The Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement facilitated additional service-learning in Kalamazoo, partnerships that included a poetry club at Kalamazoo Central High School, a bilingual nutrition club at El Sol Elementary, and research for the Kalamazoo County Sobriety Court.” Ellie majored in biology and psychology and earned a minor in Spanish. She shaped her academics–as well as an externship and her Senior Individualized Project–mindful of her burgeoning interest in medicine and public health. “I interned with Dr. Andrew Terranella ’99 at the bilingual Navajo Area Indian Health Service in Arizona,” she said. “My SIP reflected my interest in ecological health, and I collaborated with Dr. Paige Copenhaver-Parry on an investigation that eventually was published in the journal Oecologia (Copenhaver-Parry and Cannon, 2016).” Since graduation she has worked with immigrant families in the Kalamazoo Public Schools Bilingual Program under the direction of K alumnus Scott Hunsinger ’94.

“I look forward to continued intercultural exchange,” said Ellie. “It’s vital. I’ve come to understand that a healthy community is educated, equitable, and medically fit. And each of those components is inextricably linked to diversity and culture.”

A Hands-On (Doors, Literally) Poli-Sci Internship

Posted on
Ian McKnight
Ian McKnight

Ian McKnight ’19 came to Kalamazoo College with aspirations of working in politics. After talking to alumnus Darrin Camilleri ’14 about careers relating to political science, Ian was offered an internship on Darrin’s campaign for State Representative this summer.

During his internship, Ian spent most of his mornings collating and analyzing voter data, making phone calls and researching competitors’ tactics. In the afternoons and evenings, Ian and his fellow colleagues knocked on thousands of doors in Metro Detroit to talk to voters and to provide them with candidate and campaign information. “I do not enjoy knocking on doors,” Ian admits. “[But] knocking on doors and making phone calls really does improve results on Election Day.”

On the evening of August 2, 2016, six weeks after beginning his internship with the Camilleri Campaign, Ian stood with a spreadsheet keeping count of the votes released by each precinct. “When the last precinct came in, I got to stare [in] disbelief [at] the razor thin margin, turn to our candidate, and say, ‘Congratulations, Mr. Camilleri.’” Ian says. “At that moment, the 173 votes that won the election for us seemed totally worth every 95-degree day, every awkward phone call, and every blister.”

“It was great to see someone so freshly out of [a political science] major make a career out of it,” Ian says.  “[This internship] has given me the roadmap that I didn’t have before. In campaign work you really work your way up, and this was a phenomenal place to start.”

Ian is a rising sophomore and plans on declaring a political science major with an American Studies concentration and a public policy and urban affairs concentration. He is also the president of the College Democrats student organization.

Text and Photo by McKenna Bramble ’16, Post Baccalaureate Summer Intern, Center for Career and Professional Development

Internship Offers Experience in Digital and Community History

Posted on
Kierra Verdun ’18 (right) with her Historypin supervisor Kerri Young
Kierra Verdun ’18 (right) with her Historypin supervisor, Kerri Young, at the National World War I Museum (Kansas City, Mo.)

History major Kierra Verdun ’18 wasn’t planning on completing an internship this summer, but after speaking to her professor, Janelle Werner, the Marlene Crandell Francis Assistant Professor of History, about her post-grad plans, Kierra decided she needed some experience in digital history.

She found her opportunity to gain this experience at Historypin, an organization that promotes communities to digitally share their local history. “Historypin taps into ‘knowledge communities,’ which are communities that already have this local knowledge,” she says. “[The goal] is to put value into what they are already doing [and]… to bridge the gap between communities and the digital world.”

This summer Kierra has used primary sources from the National Archives to create an online archive on Historypin. She has also been involved in creating a World War I app that teachers and educators can use as a tool for finding and presenting digital archives in the classroom. Kierra recently attended a conference at the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, Mo., to present the app. “We did demos with the teachers and then reported back to developers with teachers’ comments and suggestions,” she says. The conference was a  collaboration between the National Archives and the National Word War I Museum.

“History should be more accessible,” says Kierra. “That’s why I like Historypin. It’s presenting histories that are not often represented.” Her internship at Historypin has made her more confident in her ability to research and contribute, and she has also learned how digital history relates to community engagement. “I better understand what ‘public history’ is, and how it relates to community engagement and social justice,” she says. “Historypin has given me the tools to know how to get at the intersection of public history and social justice.”

Kierra will study abroad in Thailand this fall. After graduating from K, she hopes to pursue a graduate degree in public history.

Text by McKenna Bramble ’16. McKenna graduated from Kalamazoo College with a B.A. degree in psychology and currently works as the post-baccalaureate summer assistant in the College’s Center for Career and Professional Development. She enjoys writing and reading poetry, hanging out with friends and eating chocolate. In the fall she plans to apply to M.F.A. degree programs for poetry. This is one of a series of profiles she is writing about K students and their summer internships.

More in a Summer: A “Quality” Internship at MDEQ

Posted on
Gabrielle Herin ’’18 in her K summer internship at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
Gabrielle Herin ’18 in her K summer internship at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

[By McKenna Bramble ’16]

With a major in biology and a concentration in environmental studies, Kalamazoo College student Gabrielle Herin ’18 is interested in all of us – individuals and institutions alike – reducing our environmental impact. In order to learn more about the processes behind environmental laws and policies that can help with this, Gabrielle is completing an internship this summer with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).

Her summer internship was arranged through K’s Center for Career and Professional Development Internship Program.

Gabrielle has spent her summer collaborating with more than 20 other college interns and their supervisor, MDEQ Environmental Education Coordinator Tom Occhipinti, on seven projects, four of which she heads as project manager.

One project is publishing the first edition of the Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) “Friends Newsletter.” Gabrielle says working on the newsletter has not only provided her the opportunity to research the goals and projects of the MDNR, but has also allowed her to develop some practical and organizational skills.

“My work on the newsletter has made me see how my writing abilities have improved since being at K,” she says. “Tom even complimented my writing in the newsletter. I feel a lot more confident that in the future, if I were to be asked to write something like this, I could definitely complete it.”

Gabrielle is a rising junior at K who plans to study abroad in France in spring 2017.

She’s also looking at life after K. Because of her K internship and the exposure she’s had to the work of the MDEQ’s Water Resources Division and Environmental Education Division, she said she is interested in exploring both as possible career options.

“Interning here is prepping me for what I would do in a potential career,” she says.

McKenna Bramble ’’16
McKenna Bramble ’16

 

McKenna Bramble ‘16 graduated from Kalamazoo College with a B.A. degree in psychology and currently works as the post-baccalaureate summer assistant in the College’s Center for Career and Professional Development. She enjoys writing and reading poetry, hanging out with friends and eating chocolate. In the fall she plans to apply to M.F.A. degree programs for poetry. This is one of a series of profiles she is writing about K students and their summer internships.

Summer internship experiences “simply amazing” for this Kalamazoo College student

Posted on
Skylar Young and Fabri-Kal Marketing Manager Emily Ewing
Skylar Young ’15 with Fabri-Kal Marketing Manager Emily Ewing in Washington, D.C.

Skylar Young ’15 is a policy intern working a summer internship in Washington, D.C. with Chris Adamo ’99, staff director for the United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, Forestry & Nutrition. Skylar’s internship was arranged through K’s Center for Career and Professional Development (CCPD). She recently sent this report to CCPD Director Joan Hawxhurst:

“I just wanted to send you and the rest of the CCPD department a thank you. Today, I had the amazing opportunity to hear Justice Elana Kagan speak to a select number of interns and then had lunch with Senator Debbie Stabenow in the Senate Dining Room.

“On the second day of my internship, the Senate Agriculture Committee held a hearing entitled “Grow it Here, Make it Here: Creating Jobs through Bio-Based Manufacturing.” The exhibition after the hearing demonstrated how bio-based products revitalize American manufacturing, and how it creates jobs for the economy.

“Chairwoman Sen. Debbie Stabenow from Michigan recognizes the integral connection between agriculture and manufacturing. Moreover, the Energy Title in the 2014 Farm Bill expanded eligible end-products to include renewable chemicals sources from biomass feedstock in the Bio-refinery Assistance Program.

“While I was perusing the exhibition to see all of the companies, I came across Fabri-Kal, a Kalamazoo-based company! I immediately went up to the spokeswoman and told her I went to Kalamazoo College.

“Here I was interning at the Senate on Capitol Hill, for not even a week, and I cannot seem to escape Kalamazoo!

“It made me feel proud to see a business from the city being represented, especially since it was representing one of the thirty innovators across the country that was leading in bio-based manufacturing. Fabri-Kal is a foodservice packaging supplier that manufactures packaging using 100% bio-based content from plant material. The company earned the USDA Certified Bio-based Product Label.”

“These experiences are simply amazing, and I would not be here without the Kalamazoo College Center for Career and Professional Development.”