Letter from the President: Erica Lake

Hello SoACE members,

Happy Women’s History Month! We are excited to celebrate all the contributions of our female leaders this month. Be sure to check out the Administration Knowledge Group’s webinar later this month that highlights some of our notable women of SoACE. I am thrilled to see so many women leading in our association. Additionally, since we recently celebrated Black History Month, I must share that I am proud that SoACE has been a leader in engaging black and African American Career Center and recruiting professionals in our region. We have a lot to celebrate!

As I reflect on where we are in our world this March, it is hard to believe that we have been living during a global pandemic for a year. We have survived so much this year. We have become pros at Zoom and virtual career fairs, and we have blended our life and work more than ever. What have we learned? A lot. There is still a need for companies and organizations to hire college students. We have more options than ever before to provide our services. We have had to rethink our processes and many of us have learned new and more efficient ways to connect with students. Hopefully, we have also learned how to take better care of ourselves.

This year has been like none other. I was not expecting to be a virtual SoACE president this year, but we have made it work and it is still an honor and privilege to serve our great association. I am grateful for the community that we have built over the years that has positioned us to weather this storm and stay connected as colleagues and friends. Back in December, we were able to connect virtually during our largest conference ever! Thank you all for your amazing engagement. We will continue to think of our friends and colleagues affected by the winter storms in Texas and the southern region as you pick up the pieces from the devastating storm. We stand with you and want to help in any way we can.SoACE San Antonio

The Board of Directors continues to think about how we can move SoACE forward and come out better on the other side. We have continued to work hard for you. In our upcoming board meeting, we will discuss strategic priorities to include our employer engagement initiatives, our annual budget, and the new sponsorship model. Next on deck is the Virtual Employer Relations Summit scheduled for June 23th – 24th. We hope you will join us and bring a colleague with you!

SoACE is a family. The relationships we have invested in for so many years have sustained us through these tough times, and we will continue to get through this together. We are optimistic about the future and are using this time to think creatively about the future of our profession and our association. Keep the faith my friends.

Yours truly,
Erica Lake signature

Erica J. Lake

SoACE President
2020 – 2021

Letter from our SoACE President: Virtual Conference

Dear SoACE Members,

Congratulations!  We have survived the first couple of months of the fall semester and most of the fall recruiting season is behind us.

As we prepare to finish the semester strong, I hope you have made plans to join us for the 2020 SoACE Virtual Conference.  This annual event with a new virtual twist will help you recharge and reflect on what we have all experienced over the last 8 months.  Our world has been turned upside down and the way we enact our professional roles has been reimagined.  We had to “throw out the rule books” and pivot to ensure that we provided students with virtual opportunities to connect with employers.

The SoACE Virtual Conference will provide a collaborative space to envision what our profession will become moving forward.  Ralph Leal and the entire conference committee have been working hard to make this event a memorable experience for us all.  We are excited reconnect with our colleagues and friends in a virtual space, though we will miss seeing you in person this year!  Here are a few highlights from this years’ conference schedule.

New This Year:  Conference Highlights

  • Our Pre-conference events will begin a few weeks prior to the conference.
  • A new employer track focuses on programming to meet the needs of our employer members. Be sure to register for the Employer Conference Preview event on Nov. 18th.
  • Join us for the Diversity Thought Leader panel hosted by the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee.
  • Register today for our virtual conference. It is an event you do not want to miss.

Thank you to all our committee leaders and members who have shared their knowledge and expertise with the SoACE membership through innovative and collaborative programming this fall.  The SoACE Board of Directors is meeting this week and we are excited about all the initiatives happening in the association.  We cannot wait to “see” everyone in December!

 

Warm regards,

 

Erica J. LakeErica Lake Headshot
President I Southern Association of Colleges and Employers

803-576-6517
erlake@mailbox.sc.edu
College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management
University of South Carolina

Letter from the President: Charlie Wilder

These are uncertain and unprecedented times. What began as an unidentified cause of pneumonia in Wuhan, China, has snowballed overnight into a global crisis.

With the suspension of public gatherings and social distancing guidelines, many Americans are working remotely, facing temporary shutdowns at work, or are unemployed. Children are home from school and daycare, restaurants are only offering take-out, temperatures are taken at the doors of medical clinics, our sporting events and religious services have been cancelled or moved online, Amazon deliveries have been delayed, and, for some strange reason, the supermarket is constantly out of toilet paper.

Countries the world over are implementing various restrictions to either mitigate or suppress our new enemy, COVID-19. This enemy isn’t a radical extremist group or hostile foreign power; it isn’t even a person. While many of humanity’s conflicts and struggles to date have been us-versus-them scenarios, in our current struggle, there is only us. Now, more than ever, we can all say with confidence as a global community, “we are in this together.”

Even so, much of the future remains unclear and out of our control. We wonder to ourselves, “How long will this last? When will we return to life as usual?” Sooner or later, this crisis will end. While we have time to reflect during this period of isolation, we must ask ourselves, “How do we want to have changed when our routines are back to normal? At the end of this challenge, how are we better than we were at the beginning?”

Already in our profession, we’ve seen career services and college recruiting adapt as in-person career fairs transition to a virtual format. Suddenly, we are relying heavily on technology that’s been available for several years as our meetings, appointments, and interviews move online. As a profession, we are forced to experience what many have been wondering for some time – that much of our work can continue undisrupted outside of face-to-face interactions. The value of an in-person interview, a face-to-face interaction with a student during a career fair, a visit to campus or a company site, or many of the other ways we work through personal interactions may never be replaced, but, in the absence of in-person exchanges, we are learning how to still facilitate college students through the career development process and into meaningful post-graduate roles.

Coronavirus has forced us to think outside of the box to get our jobs done. Strategies we are using now to replace in-person communication can be applied to supplement and enhance our work once we have the luxury again of being in the same room with more than 10 people. My hope is that, when we all make it back to the office, we hold on to these lessons and look for ways to expand our reach, to work smarter and not harder, by continuing to apply them where appropriate. We can grow and improve from what we learn through these challenges, and by doing so we will create positive change in ourselves, at home, and at work.

COVID-19 has caused us to face many challenges in our personal and professional lives. While the struggle is real, so is the opportunity we have to emerge on the other side ready to define the future of career services and college recruiting. I encourage you to keep your conversations going within the SoACE Knowledge Groups through Slack and consider submitting your innovative technology solutions to the Technology KG Boot Camp (July 29-30), deadline April 17. We look forward to “seeing” everyone June 24-25 at the Virtual Employer Relations Summit. If you haven’t already, please consider submitting a program proposal before April 30!

Elbow Bumps to All,

Charlie Wilder, PhD
2019-20 SoACE President
Auburn University