EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In its third year, the Vallejo Irvine Program for Professional Development (VIP) piloted changes to the programming model to reach more students in spaces where they are active.
Programming efforts were successful in previous years, but the number of opportunities and demands continue to increase, often directly competing with VIP offerings. In 2023-24, VIP began focusing on creating partnerships with academic faculty, student organizations and other campus departments to bring VIP to captive student audiences. This included the pre-launch of our “Don’t Cancel Class” campaign.
VIP has seen increasing interest from numerous campus partners in collaboration opportunities. This past year, VIP worked with the Mines Community Standards Office, the Multicultural Engineering Program (MEP), New Student and Transition Services (NeST), and, for the first time, a large-scale collaboration with Engineering Design and Society’s Cornerstone Design (EDNS) faculty.
VIP’s reach has grown significantly through these partnerships—not just with students but with the Mines community. In the upcoming year, VIP will continue its efforts to expand workshop offerings to more academic departments and campus partners, improve upon current signature events that engage industry parents and alumni, and seek potential corporate sponsorship opportunities.
Career Self-Management
The continuous development of one’s career through self-analysis, career exploration and self-promotion.
Equity and Inclusion
Support and advocate for a culturallydiverse and neurodiverse workplace to utilize different perspectives in making inclusive and equity-minded decisions.
VIP Core Competencies
Collaboration
Initiate and maintain interpersonal relationships to work toward a common goal while utilizing personal strengths, knowledge and talents.
Professionalism
Understanding and demonstrating appropriate work behavior, dependability and accountability in all personal and professional situations.
Communication
Clearly and effectively exchange information, facts, ideas, opinions and feelings through verbal, non-verbal, written, listening and visual actions.
Successful Thinking
Intellectually disciplined process of identifying problems and solving them via logical analysis, inclusive reasoning and judgment.
Keynote speaker Jen Vellenga interacting with Mines student and audience at the VIP Symposium.
PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION
This past year, VIP focused on the following initiatives:
1. Hiring and onboarding a VIP Professional Development Coordinator: Christina Leedham joined the VIP team as the Professional Development Coordinator in November 2023. In this role, Ms. Leedham prioritized pre-launching the “Don’t Cancel Class” campaign in collaboration with campus partners and academic faculty. Additionally, she worked to develop a more robust social media presence for the program.
2. Connecting VIP to TRAIL: VIP worked closely with Susan Gieg, Director of TRAIL (Transformative Record of Applied and Integrated Learning), to identify ways to benchmark students’ efforts in engaging with VIP. Through this collaboration, VIP and TRAIL developed a plan to track student attendance at VIP signature events and eventually capture this information on students’ comprehensive learner records. This document will showcase students’ interest in and pursuit of professional development at Mines.
3. Alumni Engagement: Alumni engagement remains a top priority for VIP. Alumni are always invited to engage with students at all VIP signature events. Mines alumni also serve as guest speakers and content experts for VIP programming. Additionally, VIP has reached out to alumni through fundraising opportunities such as the #IDigMines fundraising campaign and alumni engagement events including the Golden Endowed Scholarship Golf Tournament.
4. Industry Partner Engagement: Industry partners continue to play a crucial role in the stewardship of VIP. In addition to being invited to all VIP signature events, industry partners have maintained a consistent presence at the VIP Professional Development Symposium, wherein they offer their perspectives on professional skills that will differentiate Mines graduates in a competitive job market. VIP is looking for ways to further engage with industry partners to capture real-time information from employers on students participating in internships through TRAIL. This feedback would develop a student’s developing professional preparation.
Industry partners engaged in conversation at VIP Professional Development Symposium.
MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
1. Email Campaigns: VIP continues to utilize its email distribution list as the preferred method for promoting events and registration links. Since last year, the program’s distribution list has grown to 1,040 unique registrants (a combination of Mines faculty, staff, alumni and students).
a. Throughout Summer 2024, VIP piloted a “Core Competency Newsletter” series that shared information on each of VIP’s core competencies, competency-specific resources, opportunities for self-reflection on one’s own professional skills, advice from current Mines community members, and chances to win prizes.
2. Digital Signage and Posters: VIP continues to promote all events on digital signage around campus. Print posters are also placed in various buildings throughout campus.
3. Social Media: Marketing efforts shifted to a much heavier emphasis on social media. VIP began to promote VIP workshops, guest lectures, and events through the program’s Instagram and LinkedIn accounts.
a. VIP worked with the Mines Marketing and Communications team to promote events on the university’s social media profiles (Facebook and Instagram) and also worked with several campus partners such as the Multicultural Engineering Program (MEP), Student Activities, Involvement and Leadership (SAIL) and the Career Center to promote events.
2023-24 VIP PROGRAMMING
In 2022-23, VIP offered a reduced number of workshops and events in response to student survey feedback that indicated that scheduling conflicts and lack of bandwidth prevented them from attending more VIP events. The reduction in the number of workshops helped to increase overall attendance.
VIP focused on the formal launch of the “Don’t Cancel Class” campaign, which focuses on bringing VIP workshops into classrooms. This formal launch took the form of intentional collaborations with campus partners and, for the first time, a partnership with an academic department—Engineering, Design and Society (EDNS). These collaborations yielded 25
Examples of social media marketing for VIP events.
workshop requests for the year and reached over 500 students in classrooms and student spaces.
Observations
• Through the collaboration with EDNS, VIP saw a shift in demographics since the majority of these students are sophomores and juniors. This also impacted the ratio of undergraduate and graduate students served through these workshops.
• Some of the more well-attended events (excluding signature events) featured alumni guest speakers who spoke about their career paths and overcoming personal obstacles to achieve success. Standout events this past year include:
• Developing an Ownership Mindset w/ Kerry Siggins ’01 - In this workshop, Kerry shared her insights on what she calls the “Ownership Mindset,” where each person is responsible for their own attitude, choices, well-being, and everything that happens in their life. Kerry shared how she battled substance abuse and pulled herself up to become one of the country’s most inspiring employee-owned company leaders.
•Embrace Discomfort: Ignite Career Success w/Jackie Haney ’01 - In this workshop, Jackie Haney discussed how facing and embracing discomfort is the key to growth and success. Jackie shared how identifying challenging situations and taking risks led to significant returns in her career in the hope of inspiring others to do the same.
Fall 2023 Spring 2024
Attendee Demographics
In an effort to understand what kinds of students are participating in VIP events, the team tracked attendee demographics to get a more comprehensive picture of VIP’s overall audience.
PROGRAMMING EXPENSES
Spending Overview
VIP started the 2023-24 academic year with a total operating budget of $46,22.95. Funding was primarily spent on speaking fees, operating costs for signature events, and VIP program intern wages.
2024 VIP INTERNS
This year, VIP received applications from 14 candidates interested in the VIP intern position. After interviewing with Christina, Luis and Wendy, two finalists were chosen: Nevan OrozcoDetienne and Bella Lettiere. In previous years, three interns were selected for the VIP internship.
This year, only two candidates were chosen to encourage more robust and intentional collaboration between interns. Reducing the number of interns yielded a more balanced workload and allowed each intern to work on projects that showcased their strengths and work together on projects that challenged their abilities.
Projects and Assignments
In addition to focusing on their professional development, VIP interns had the opportunity to work on new VIP initiatives starting in Summer 2024.
• GlobalMindEd (June 18-19) - https://globalminded.org/2024-globalminded-conference/
• Interns were asked to research 2-3 presenters attending the conference and try to connect with them. Career Center staff assisted them with developing their elevator speeches and helping them with their resumes.
• Interns were tasked with identifying possible speakers and/or topics for next year’s programming, particularly for the VIP Professional Development Symposium.
• Oredigger Camp (Summer 2024)
• VIP Professional Development was invited to participate in the Oredigger Camp experience this summer to introduce first-year students to VIP’s signature programming. VIP interns created a facilitated workshop on public speaking and team collaboration that focused on making the “perfect campfire story.” Interns developed the lesson plan and course materials and workshopped their ideas with PASCAL Center and Career Center team members. The workshops reached over 1,600 incoming students!
Nevan Orozco-Detienne ’27 Chemical Engineering
Bella Letierre ‘26 Design Engineering
• Public Speaking Course (Coming Fall 2025)
• VIP Professional Development has been approved for a public speaking course we plan to pilot in Fall 2025. This course satisfies graduation requirements for any undergraduate student. VIP interns were tasked with mapping out a 16-week course that would alternate between traditional lectures and guest speakers from various positions within industry.
• VIP interns conducted research on best practices for a public speaking course. Their efforts included looking at public speaking courses at other colleges and universities, books and other materials used in these courses, and contacting subject matter experts at Mines to discuss their teaching methods regarding public speaking.
• “Don’t Cancel Class” Campaign Promotion
• VIP interns contacted department heads throughout Mines to further promote the “Don’t Cancel Class” campaign, a series of VIP workshops that faculty members can request to have presented during their classes. This campaign aims to bring VIP to a captive student audience at the request of faculty members who may be absent or looking for presentations from guest speakers. VIP interns initiated these meetings and provided department heads with information and marketing materials to distribute to their faculty members.
• VIP Programming Schedule for 2024-25
• VIP interns assisted with developing some of the VIP programming efforts for the 2024-25 academic year. They proposed potential guest speakers and helped identify and confirm speaking fees and contact information for speakers’ representatives.
• VIP Marketing Efforts
• VIP interns created video promotions for upcoming events hosted on the PASCAL Center’s Instagram page (@mines_pascal). They also created marketing templates for digital signage, posters, and social media posts on the university’s preferred design platform, Marq.
GOALS FOR 2024-25
• The initial success of the “Don’t Cancel Class” campaign and the partnerships that VIP has established with faculty members are perfect opportunities to bring VIP into more classrooms. These partnerships allow VIP to reach more students and are an excellent vehicle to promote VIP signature events, guest speakers, and the internship program to students and faculty.
• The program's marketing continues to encounter many barriers. Students have indicated that no singular communication channel is preferred (e.g., email vs. the Daily Blast newsletter, social media platforms, digital signage, etc.). VIP hopes to work closely with the Marketing and Communications department to identify how programming can be promoted to the Mines community while adhering to their marketing rules and guidelines.
• VIP has begun using OreConnect to capture event registration and yield. OreConnect is the university’s newest campus engagement platform and provides a way to track registration numbers and create event QR codes to track attendance effectively.
PHOTO HIGHLIGHTS
Debra Fine leading exercise at Etiquette Dinner. Kerry Siggins ’01 presenting on Ownership Mindset.
Jen Vellenga interacting with student at VIP Symposium. Jackie Haney ’01 shares how embracing discomfort can lead to career success.
Industry partners engaged in group activity at VIP Symposium.
Bella Lettiere and Nevan Orozco-Detienne at GlobalMindEd Conference in Downtown Denver.