Survey participants rated “ability to work in a team structure” and “ability to verbally communicate with persons inside and outside the organization” as the two most important candidate skills/qualities. These are followed by candidates’ “ability to make decisions and solve problems,” “ability to obtain and process information,” and “ability to plan, organize, and prioritize work.”

Vice-Chancellor John McCardell wrote in the Summer 2011 issue of the Sewanee magazine:

"This year marks the 30th anniversary of the first endowed fund to support student internships. Established in 1981 by the Tonya Memorial Foundation of Chattanooga for internships in the field of public affairs, broadly defined, this fund has provided opportunities for almost 1,000 students to explore career possibilities.

The Tonya Foundation in 1985 endowed the Wilson Internship Program for Economics. To date almost 400 students have received internship funding from this endowment."

Here's a paragraph from one that touched me immensely:

"This weekend has led me to a whole new level of appreciation for Sewanee. I felt as if it was my culminating moment here. I have always loved this place, but this weekend has enlightened me on the overall Sewanee experience. I finally understand how Sewanee is and can be anywhere and everywhere, which is such a blessing!"  -C'2011

-Marichal Gentry, C'86 and keynote speaker at Beyond the Gates

Building skills and relationships are the overarching goals of Beyond the Gates: Preparing for Life and Work after Sewanee. Skills are taught in interviewing, searching for jobs, career readiness, graduate and professional school admission, networking etiquette and business dining etiquette. Students easily understand that they will gain these skills just from reading the weekend's agenda.

What is harder to convey until the weekend is experienced, though, is the level of interest and care that the alumni and parent participants have for them and for their future plans. Lisa Howick and I spend about a day and a half working to ensure that each student is carefully paired with a weekend mentor, a practice interviewer, and a table host, all of whom have some connection to a career or life interest of the student. A great deal of mentoring happens for each student, and relationships begin here that provide lasting value for each person.

Attendees are provided an in-depth directory of alumni and parents that doesn't merely list their current professional position but also details past jobs, graduate or professional schools attended, boards they serve on, organizations where they volunteer, prior cities they've lived in and regions of the country or the world of interest to them. Armed with this information, students seek out alumni/parent participants during networking breaks and even arrange to walk with a particular alum from building to building. There is the opportunity to find mentorship on a wide variety of topics.

In Marichal Gentry's keynote address, he encouraged us to "find a mentor" and to "become a mentor." After attending the weekend, 100 percent of the students say that their involvement in Beyond the Gates makes them want to help future Sewanee students. Since we're in the seventh year of the program, it's been fun to be able to see past student participants return as alumni, eager and ready to give back by helping current students. Beyond the Gates provides one more way for a "never-failing succession" of support to be created for Sewanee individuals.

The text of Marichal Gentry's talk is available.

Jennifer's bio from the OneKingsLane.com site:

BE FOCUSED, BE DIRECTED, and BE CONNECTED."

-Collegiate Employment Research Institute 2010-11 Executive Summary

This headline concisely states the philosophy we share with students on effective job search strategies. Sewanee students are very fortunate to have Sewanee alumni who are willing to "be connected" to them. A wonderful example of this premise in action occurred on Friday of Homecoming at our annual Student-Alumni Networking Luncheon.

Jay Faires C'85, former president of music and now consultant at Lionsgate, hosted a table of students interested in entertainment, media and marketing careers. In their conversation, he asked them to share their hopes and goals for their careers. One student shared her dream of interning at Nylon magazine. I don't know this because I was seated at the table. I know this because within the afternoon, Jay wrote the student and copied me to say that he had reached his connection there and that an internship at Nylon was hers. "Go live your dreams," the message ended.

I don't ascribe to the Woody Allen quip that "Ninety percent of life is just showing up." Sometimes, though, it's amazing to see what life brings you when you do.

• Amazonian Urbanization
• Conservation on the Galapagos Islands
• Elder Care in India
• Indigenious Languages and Peruvian Identity
• Memorialization of the Holocaust
• Online Activism and Censorship in China

"It was really a comprehensive answer to all of the questions about grad school I could possibly imagine. It was exactly what I was looking for. You're not really hand-fed the information about grad school as you are about college (as high school students), and this was exactly the perfect session to make me feel like I finally knew what I was supposed to be doing. It made applying to grad school so much easier and less overwhelming." -2010 Attendee