The Daily Bulletin Archive

They were once Buffalo State students. Now they have careers. And many are sharing their most valuable asset with current students—their knowledge.

Some call these benevolent professionals “alumni mentors,” but that is just one way to describe them, said one staff member in the Career Development Center.

“Our alumni are more like ‘people resources’ or career advisers,” said Jessie Lombardo, senior career counselor. “They help students get to know the real day-to-day duties of an occupation—both good and bad. Students gain insights into careers and learn about the skills needed for a job and whether or not the field is competitive.”

Lombardo manages a mentor connection program for students. She said that the mentor database is populated by alumni as well as local and regional employers. But she fears that not enough students are taking advantage of the resource.

“Networking is how people find jobs—especially around here,” she said. “I’m looking to make the program more marketable by visually showing faces with names and including podcasts.”

While the Career Development Center’s program acts as a clearinghouse for a wide spectrum of careers, other academic departments work in concert with them to offer more defined alumni mentoring options.

The Social Work Department, for example, launched ane-mentoring site three years ago. Most mentors are Buffalo State alumni. Faculty members say the tool is working very well.

“It’s good for our students to have dialogues with people in their fields,” said Ronnie Mahler, associate professor. “Students get a good feeling about the college and the social work program when they see alumni being successful and giving back.”

“Students have so many competing demands for their time,” said Deborah Renzi, coordinator of field education, who together with Mahler manages the e-mentoring site. “The site allows us to use our technology in a different way.”

“The site helps students develop close, long-term relationships,” Mahler added. “And for some students the electronic connections are not as intimidating as face-to-face meetings.”

Renzi said the connections help students see pathways to careers and also provide resources for overcoming challenges they may experience during field training.

“I remember one student who was pretty shaken up by a death at a nursing home she was working in,” she said. “The student asked one of her e-mentors how she dealt with it on the job, and received very helpful advice.”

Mahler hopes to eventually create a division of the site where senior-year students can be e-mentors, too. “I think it would benefit juniors to learn about field experiences and agencies ahead of time from seniors, to help them determine if their decision will fit on both a personal and professional level,” she said.

The new television and film arts program, offered through the Communication Department, recently received muchattention for its use of high-profile alumni as mentors. Other departments are also developing similar important industry connections. The Speech-Language Pathology Department, for example, is already in the process of creating a program. Its alumni chapter, created in 2006, is working with a student organization—the Buffalo State College chapter of the National Student Speech-Language-Hearing Association—on a formal alumni mentoring system.

“We expect that Speech-Language Pathology alumni will provide not only one-on-one mentoring but also mentoring by phone and e-mail so that there will always be connections between current students and alumni,” said Constance Dean Qualls, professor and department chair. “Alumni can inform current students about the realities and expectations that they will face when they enter the workforce and also share valuable knowledge such as how to balance home life and work life.”

Other alumni chapters, such as Economics and Finance, Geosciences/Earth Science Education, and Student Personnel Administration, are investigating ways for their members to become mentors to current students. Additionally, the Alumni Affairs Office and the Career Development Center are partnering to provide new online system for alumni to register as career advisers.

Many Buffalo State faculty and staff serve as Social Work Department e-mentors, and Lombardo encourages faculty and staff from other departments to consider adding their names to the Career Development Center’s database and to remind students about the benefits of mentoring.

“It’s never too late for a student to start mentoring,” she said.