Catching Up with Kimberly Curry, Director, Student-Athlete Career Development
6/10/2010 10:07:00 AM | General
In 2006, M. Dianne Murphy did something that no one else in the Ivy League had ever done before – she created a new position within the athletics department that focused solely on the career development of Columbia's student-athletes. Kimberly Curry took on the task of providing student-athletes with the guidance they needed to help build bonds with Columbia alumni and break into the working world.
Four years later, Curry has started to see a real shift in the Columbia alumni network. With each year that passes, the network continues to grow in strength, and more and more student-athletes are taking advantage of all that Curry has to offer.
“Kim Curry was extremely helpful in my process to find an internship,” said Frances Callaghan, a senior co-captain on the women's lacrosse team. “She always made time to meet with me to review my resume and cover letter and to discuss my career plans. After many discussions, she came up with a list of student-athlete alumni in different fields and their contact information so I was able to call or email all of them. Her office door is always open for student-athletes, whether someone has a quick question or needs to sit down for a meeting,” Callaghan explained.
According to Curry, there are three areas that she primarily focuses on: career skill building, career networking and career education. Through initiatives such as the etiquette dinner, the “killer interview”, mock interviews and resume writing, student-athletes are able to work on their career skill building.
“Kim is as hard working as anyone in the department,” said John Seiler, a senior co-captain on Columbia's football team. “She genuinely wants everyone to have a job waiting for them when they graduate, and is always finding ways to capitalize on Columbia's massive alumni network. I probably get three or four emails from her every week with new job postings and networking opportunities, and although I don't have a job yet, I'll owe Kim a lot when I do get hired.“
Career education comes from attracting successful professionals from a variety of industries to come in and discuss their respective fields with Columbia's student-athletes. Speakers this year have varied from the CIA and Secret Service, to Teach for America, data storage companies and the 2010 U.S. Census. Curry is focused on providing a broad range of speakers to expose student-athletes to a variety of options.
The final area of focus is career networking. This year, Curry partnered up with the Varsity C networking subcommittee to implement an aggressive agenda: their goal was to provide each sports program with a networking event. “We wanted each student-athlete to meet alumni from their sport program, in a setting that is more intimate than a large conference room or lecture hall,” explained Curry. So far this year, the men's swimming and diving team had a stand-alone event, while volleyball paired up with wrestling, and field hockey with lacrosse for two other incredibly successful events.
Coming off one of the toughest job markets in recent history, Curry felt that Columbia student-athletes were more prepared than many of their peers because they had already been discussing the importance of networking. This year the job market is looking more promising, and more and more alumni are reaching out to Curry with opportunities they are able to share with our student-athletes.
“On behalf of our student-athletes, we encourage our alumni to participate in the development of our student-athletes,” noted Curry. “Whether it be to provide an informational interview, a mock interview, or review a resume, all of these are so important to our student-athletes development.”
With the growing strength of alumni support, Curry encourages more alumni to get involved and reach out to our current Lions.
“Anyone who wants to participate, we welcome any kind of participation,” said Curry. “The network will continue to be strong because of the support of our alumni. Our student-athletes are learning from the example of our alumni of what it means to be a Columbia student-athlete alum.”
–Kate Lombard
