June 2024 Alumni Spotlight

We speak to MSEd-HEA alum Ryan Atwell about his role as Director of Professional Development and Internship Programs at Marymount Manhattan College, Career Launch’s 2023 Facilitators of the Year award recognition, his interest in pursuing a career in Higher Education, and more in this spotlight.

Tell us about your role as Director of Professional Development and Internship Programs at Marymount Manhattan College. What have been the biggest challenges thus far? Any programs you helped on being developed?
As the Director of Professional Development and Internship Programs, I oversee the three internship programs at MMC: for-credit internships, on-campus internship, and our CityEdge Internship Stipend (which helps to provide funding for unpaid internships). I also oversee our career and professional development programming, including workshops, career guides, and our Career Launch Academy cohorts. The biggest challenge I’ve faced lately is student engagement post-COVID. I’ve seen a big decline in workshop attendance, so right now I’m focusing on finding new ways to engage and deliver information to our students. I’m lucky to supervise an awesome student worker staff who aren’t shy in giving their opinion, which has really helped us shift our thinking around traditional programs, and who have taken the charge in getting our office on TikTok!
The On-Campus Internship Program and Career Launch Academy are the two biggest programs that I have ushered in during my time at MMC so far. I launched our On-Campus Internship program in the Fall of 2021 with 5 student interns working in different academic and non-academic departments across campus. The program now hosts 8 -10 student interns across the College each semester in various departments, including Career and Professional Development, the Intercultural Center, the student Food Pantry, and with the MMC Communications Team. The interns get real-world, hands-on experience at the College, receive a stipend, and earn 1-credit for their hard work. Career Launch Academy is a networking bootcamp developed by the amazing team at Career Launch. Believe it or not, I learned about the program through a LinkedIn message from their founder, Sean O’Keefe. After scheduling a meeting with him, I knew that MMC students could benefit from the program, and lucky the Executive Director believed that too. In Spring 2021, we launched a successful pilot program of Career Launch Academy, that summer I received my Career Launch Academy Facilitator Certification, and since Fall 2021, I have been facilitating a Career Launch Academy cohort every Fall, January, Spring, and Summer semester.

Congratulations! on being the recipient of Career Launch’s 2023 Facilitators of the Year award. Could you tell us more about this recognition?
Thank you so much! It was an immense honor to be recognized as Career Launch’s 2023 Facilitator of the Year for 4-Year Institutions. As I mentioned, Career Launch Academy is one of the largest programs that I have been able to bring to MMC, so it was awesome to be recognized for my work facilitating the program. During the Career Launch Academy program, I work with a cohort of students each semester to guide them through how to build their professional network and have Career Conversations (informational interviews) with professionals in their field. I meet with them four times during the semester to teach them the Career Launch Method of researching companies and professionals, building their online presence, reaching out to set-up a Career Conversation, and how to maintain that relationship over time. It is an immensely rewarding program to be a part of and to be able to see students build confidence in their ability to network in a digital age.

What has driven you to pursue a career path in Higher Education Administration?
My career in Higher Education is more of one where Higher Ed chose me. I studied theatre in undergrad with plans of pursuing directing or teaching after graduation. While I was a student, I was fairly involved on campus and I built a very strong relationship with the then VP of Student Affairs. Upon graduation, she offered me a full-time position coordinating a new grant-funded program in the Office of Career Services. I said yes, thinking about rent and student loans, but fully planning to pursue theatre after work in my spare time. I did for a while, but then decided I needed a change of scenery and started working in office operations for a tech company. After a year, I realized how much I missed working with students. It was kismet that as I started looking for opportunities back in higher education, my former boss at MMC had reached out to ask if I knew anyone looking for a job in career services. A week later we had dinner to discuss me coming back to coordinate the internship program, and two weeks after that I was back at MMC and have been since 2019. I believe I am drawn to higher education because my parents placed such a high value on education when I was growing up. Neither one of my parents went to college, so my sister and I were the first in our family to do so. They wanted better for us than what they had but were not strict about good grades which I think helped me to actually enjoy school. As a first-generation student, I felt lost at times at college and away from home, but I found an amazing community in my peers, faculty, and mentors while at MMC. I hope to pay it forward to current and future students, and to be a support system beyond career and professional development while they are at MMC.

What was your experience like in the Marxe Higher Education Administration program?
I had an amazing experience in the Marxe HEA program. I started in the Fall of 2019, so I only had one full semester of in-person instruction before we switched to remote instruction in Spring 2020, but I felt fully supported and seen the entire time I was in the program. I was lucky to take classes like International Higher Education; Enrollment Management; and Politics, Policy, and Higher Education, which I loved so much that the summer after I graduated, I completed a Certificate in Public Policy Analysis from the London School of Economics. I was able to explore areas and concepts of higher education that I hadn’t thought about before entering the program, and I feel like a more well-rounded higher education professional for completing the program.