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The New Professional Award may be presented to SoACE members with no more than five years of experience in the profession who have demonstrated significant contributions to career services and/or recruitment. It is meant to recognize “future leaders” within the association. Contribution may be to the association, a state association, NACE, or through direct activities as a part of their normal employment. These activities must show innovation, reflect foresight, and display promise that the individual has the unique quality of future leadership. Megan Downey, Assistant Director for Career Professionalism at UNC Charlotte, was presented with this award at the 2017 Annual Conference in San Antonio.
Megan was nominated by Patrick Madsen, University Career Center Director at UNC Charlotte, who wrote:
Megan Downey has been in the profession for nearly 2 years and has proven to be innovative, engaged and interested in a leadership path. She has shown great initiative when it comes to solving problems at our university. She helped create an opportunity to provide scholarships for students who are in unpaid internships and in its first offering will be able to fund 6-10 students. She participated in the North Carolina ACE Leadership Institute her first year in the profession and is now one of the coordinators for next year’s Institute. These sessions are geared towards building professional skills in leading and managing a career office. You could say Megan is just doing her job, or does a lot of work, but it is more than that. She is engaging with the job and the university, seeing a problem and doing something about it without waiting to be told what to do. Megan has demonstrated a clear sense of direction for our profession and a purpose in helping students who are ready to build a career brand.
Megan has served as the Assistant Director for Career Professionalism and Career Advisor for the College of Computing and Informatics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for the past two years. In her role, Megan advises students while overseeing the Career Meet Up Program, the Professional Clothing Closet on campus, and other programming initiatives.
Before coming to UNC Charlotte, Megan worked at Florida State University as a Graduate Assistant for Employer Relations and On-Campus Recruiting. Megan received her Master of Science degree in Higher Education and holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from the University of Toledo, where she was heavily involved in Greek Life and other campus organizations.
On a personal note, Megan is from Ann Arbor, Michigan where she developed her passion for collegiate athletics, volunteering in her community, community activism.
