by 
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. Paige Hellman, Senior Career Coordinator at the Texas A&M University Career Center, was presented with this award at the 2018 Annual Conference in Atlanta.
Paige was nominated by Dr. Michael Shehane, Director of Campus Programs at the Texas A&M Career Center. His nomination described her as follows:
“Leadership, innovation, foresight…these words barely scratch the surface for the accomplishments she has achieved so early in her career.
Soon after joining the Texas A&M Career Center as the Career Coordinator for First and Second Year Students, Paige lead both regional and national initiatives to bring early engagement in career advising to the forefront…by developing the First and Second Year Career Advising Consortium, a collection of career services professionals from across the nation dedicated to serving first and second year students, representing more than 25 institutions from coast to coast, large to small, and public to private.
She also organized a collaborative panel for the 2017 SoACE conference titled “First and Second Year Students: Building a Bridge to Early Career Engagement,” and launched the “First and Second Year Initiatives Career Advising Focus Area” currently serving as the coordinator through SoACE. This focus area hosted the “Summer Sharing Series,” a three-part webinar that focused on early engagement and best practices for sophomore and freshman programming.
And, perhaps best stated by students she has assisted through her primary role as Career Coordinator in the Texas A&M Career Center, “Everything she does is for the betterment of the students she serves. She has dedicated herself to helping others learn and develop and is so loved by her students for being the catalyst that she is.” Another student shared, “She impacted my college experience by first and foremost helping me to understand what it meant to be persistent and work toward my dreams.”
Dr. Shehane ends his nomination by stating, “It is one thing to come to work every day and give back to your students and your institution. It is another to recognize an opportunity to so drastically impact your industry—change the landscape by starting an absolutely necessary conversation—and seize the moment to make a long-lasting difference.”
Paige Hellman serves as a Senior Career Coordinator within the Career Center at Texas A&M University. Paige primarily works with first and second-year students, developing campus relationships and programs aiming to engage students in career planning and exploration as early as possible. Her goal is to aid students in selecting majors and careers based on their values. Paige also serves as the advisor for Aggie Career Team, the Career Center’s career peer educator program. Paige earned a B.A. in Communication from Texas A&M University in 2015 and an M.Ed. in Higher Education and Student Affairs from the University of South Carolina in 2017. She will begin pursuing a Ph.D. in Educational Human Resource Development at Texas A&M University in Fall 2019.
