On Dec. 3, students will showcase how they’ve learned career readiness throughout the semester at the annual Career Readiness Symposium. The event is themed “Charting Your Course” this semester.
It is held throughout the Winslow Academic Building with events in de Witt Hall, Glow Lounge, the Brennan Library atrium, and upstairs in the Stoller conference room. Denny Frey, dean of curricular integration and director of Rosemary B. Fuss Teaching and Learning Center, described this event’s purpose.
“What it’s designed to be and why it falls at the end of the semester is that it’s this opportunity to show off the juniors and the seniors, who have been doing connected learning for years,” Frey said. “And hopefully to have the first and second-years actually see models of what they might become in two to three years. So it’s really designed to be a community celebration around the pedagogy of connected learning.”
This event is special because so many members of the Lasell community are able to present, with students from different majors as well as Lasell Village residents. Villager Peter Stringham has been presenting for the past few years. Stringham will be presenting for Professor Baldizar’s Ceramics Figure class. Stringham explained his art piece.
“For the Symposium I made a clay slab. All the ceramics students will be able to inscribe their names for the Fall 2024 semester,” Stringham said, making his contribution not only memorable for the community but also memorable for him for years to come.
Maya LaClaire, a senior fashion media and marketing major, is presenting for three classes at Symposium this semester. LaClaire is a teaching assistant and will be presenting for Deborah Baldizar’s Ceramics Figure Sculpting course. “I will be at the table with my students talking about their experience in this class and showing off their beautiful pieces of art they have worked on this past semester,” LaClaire said.
For the past few years, LaClaire has sat at the ceramics table presenting her own work throughout her time in Ceramics Figure Sculpting and Ceramics II. The second class LaClaire will present for is her Senior Fashion Capstone, where she’s working with Reebok shoes.
“The team leaders and executives will be presenting and talking about what we have created throughout this semester and how we hope to help the Reebok brand grow,” LaClaire said. “We have worked on four different shoe divisions: basketball, running, soccer, and lifestyle. Within these groups we designed new shoes, created mock social media content and found effective ways to promote these products and brands.”
LaClaire and her team members will later be presenting her final products to the Reebok team in Boston. She will also present a project for her honors class, Understanding Healthy Relationships, where students were split into three groups and made resources for sexual assault and violence more accessible.
One group is collaborating with the Lasell Police Department to destigmatize the people who work there and make them seem more human to help people become more comfortable going to the Campus Police to report. Another group is making flyers to put around campus with resources to help people become more aware of things that may be happening within their relationships that are not healthy and should seek help for. The last group is working to collaborate with an app that some colleges already use. It has all their quick resources and directs people to a contact in case an urgent issue is happening on campus.
The first time that LaClaire presented for Symposium was in her freshman year, when she won third place in a writing contest, received a $100 reward and read an excerpt of her essay.
Frey states that the mission of Symposium is to “support students’ career development and to showcase how their learning in and beyond the classroom connects to their professional development.”
This in turn helps students understand how their classes relate to their profession- al lives outside of Lasell, as well as allows them to practice essential workforce skills such as presenting, networking and collaborating with others. Symposium will return at the end of the spring semester.
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