How do CCS’s industry connections shape students’ career development?
Let me go to the next slide. Sorry, my mouse is not working. One moment while I deal with these technical difficulties. Our mission is really to engage employers and external partners in our programs. This happens in a couple of different ways, as I just mentioned. We oversee curricular experiential learning at CCS, which is hands-on learning in the classroom or in a professional setting. We are also responsible for career development, supporting students as they develop their career plans post-graduation. This includes the development of different assets like cover letters, resumes, reels for film students, and also the development of your online profile for hopeful opportunities to connect with industry through Handshake.
We also develop all of the industry relationships to support full-time positions and internships, as well as sponsor projects, which I’ll talk a little more about. Additionally, we work very closely with the DEI office on different initiatives.
I know I just spoke briefly about curricular experiential learning, but as you can see from this description, we offer quite a few different ways to engage with curricular experiential learning. Don Tuskey, the president of CCS, has a mission that 100% of students will have some type of curricular experiential learning while they are at CCS. It is a personal mission of mine and a mission of our office to ensure that every student has the opportunity to have either an experience through classroom projects or an internship at some point during their time at CCS.
Sorry, I’m having trouble with my mouse to use this. Regarding sponsored projects, we work closely with industry, and I would say we hope that this differentiates us from other schools. We aim to run between 12 and 15 of these types of projects every single semester across all disciplines, so it’s not just limited to design. Industry professionals come into the classroom and work directly with students, partnering with faculty on really exciting project briefs. This happens over the course of an entire semester, and our office, the Office of Partnerships, helps to administer these projects.
As I mentioned, these projects take place over a course of 15 weeks. The project partners will come in and work directly with students in the classroom, typically making four to five visits. This gives students the opportunity to get professional experience, and as I like to tell the students, it’s sort of like a 15-week interview. What we hope to see happen is that, at the end of these projects, the partners will consider taking some students on as interns, which happens pretty frequently.
There’s also funding involved with this, as the partners are very generous and offer us financial resources to support these projects. The funding helps students execute their final deliverables, which could be the development of an animation or a physical model. We have run the gamut of all the different types of deliverables you can have for a project. We also support field trips, allowing students to see where these companies operate, and we support research. We are hopeful that we can also provide scholarships with this funding. In the end, students will have a real-world deliverable in their portfolios, which is really helpful when they’re talking with industry about jobs or internships.
Just a couple of statistics to share: over 2,000 students have participated, and we have completed over 220 projects since 2014, which is incredible. We’ve also been able to offer $700,000 in scholarships through these projects, so they are really rewarding. We are always looking to expand this program to bring in new partners who are interested in working with our students.
I wanted to quickly discuss a few of the projects we’ve done. One that I’d like to highlight is a project with Mend on the Move, which is a non-profit organization in Detroit. They partnered with our Craft of Material Studies students recently, providing them with materials from various OEMs in the community to create handcrafted real-world objects, such as jewelry pieces, which were wonderful.
We have worked very closely with Zenith, a company owned by the Rock family of companies, that creates athletic wear for middle school and high school students, and I believe elementary students as well. This partnership has been amazing because when they first came to CCS, they only had one part-time designer. Through the evolution of our partnership, they have hired six of our students to become their design team.
I do have a quick video I was hoping to show, so I’ll play that now. Just let me know if you can hear it.
[Video plays]
Can everyone hear this?
[Video continues]
Yes, we can hear it. Thanks, Shannon!
Wonderful! We could hear it, and now the sound has stopped. Okay, just let me fix the sharing settings.
[Music]
So, was everyone able to hear that?
I believe so, yes.
Okay, great! Just wanted to make sure. That was a really cool project that we did. As I mentioned, we’ve completed quite a few projects with Zenith. This one was between our advertising department and our product design department. The students were challenged to think outside of the traditional sports for which Zenith typically creates products and branch into new potential sports. The advertising students built an entire 360-degree campaign around what the product design students were designing. It was super exciting, and the students made that video to capture the entire process they went through throughout that project.
Now we’ll go to the next slide.
Apologies for the technical issues! Another project that we’ve recently completed was with Unity, which is a video game software company. We worked closely with their team to develop a project involving transportation design and our entertainment art students. They challenged the transportation design students to develop a new vehicle, while the entertainment art students created an environment in which this vehicle could exist.
I have a video example of a final presentation product that you would see at the end of a sponsored project, which we presented to Unity. They had a large staff present to provide feedback to the students.
[Video plays]
Lastly, I want to share a project from Eileen Fisher that focused on sustainable materials. This initiative brought together students from color material design and fashion accessories design to rethink recycled materials provided by Eileen Fisher. The exciting aspect of this project was that we actually sent students to New York to visit one of their factories to see how the materials were processed.
This is the last video I will show.
[Music]
We often collaborate at CCS on interdisciplinary projects. This one involved the color material design and fashion accessories design departments. The goal of the project was to utilize a new material innovation that Eileen Fisher is working with and see what can be created from this wonderful sustainable material. Eileen Fisher is a North American apparel company and a leader in sustainable practices.
The material we used was a type of felt created by inviting clients to turn in their used clothes. The materials are then broken down and processed through a large needle felting machine, making them ready for new projects. This was an interesting experience for the students, as they observed the process in the factory and saw how colors were selected. They learned how materials transition from being received to the final product we work with.
The students were given a range of felt blankets in various colors and were given the opportunity to decide how they wanted to use that fabric. They designed artifacts, including shoes, handbags, belts, and a range of other accessories. Other students manipulated the fabric by re-cutting it and designing new seam constructions, creating various combinations and relationships.
Overall, this was an incredible learning experience, demonstrating that a business model can work with sustainability at its core. That was the biggest takeaway for the students, in my opinion. The collaboration with Eileen Fisher was just terrific, and their generosity in sharing materials and engaging with students was fascinating. It was certainly a valuable experience for them to see the process firsthand.
[Music] All right, as I mentioned, we try to do between 12 and 15 of those types of projects every semester, and we’re always open to bringing in new partners for those experiences. So, I’m just going to make this screen [Music].
As part of this presentation today, we really wanted to highlight our strong partnerships with industry. Over the past 10 years, we have had over 1,100 companies come to campus. We host industry day events, usually four per year, where students can showcase the work that they’ve done and interact directly with industry professionals. This interaction allows students to discuss their work, develop as professionals, and hopefully talk about possibilities for internships and full-time positions. Typically, over 100 companies participate in these various industry days each year. Over the past four years, we have welcomed more than 250 new companies. Currently, we are fortunate to have many companies contacting us because they have a lot of open positions that they’re looking to fill. It has been a great year for hiring, both for internships and full-time positions. In fact, we have placed over 2,400 students in internships over the past year, and this number has likely increased to about 2,500, given this past year’s growth.
Some of the resources that our office provides include on-campus events, such as the industry day events I just mentioned. We also offer professional development workshops throughout the year. These workshops cover topics such as how to develop a resume and cover letter, tips for networking, tips for interviewing, how to build out your LinkedIn profile, and ways to storytell. Additionally, we offer guidance on building a portfolio for design and art majors, ensuring that we tailor the content to meet the students’ needs.
All of our students are provided with a Handshake profile, which allows them to connect virtually with various jobs that are vetted through my office. Employers interested in CCS send us their internships and job postings. We review these postings to ensure they are the right fit for CCS students before adding them to a portal that students can access starting from their first day of school as freshmen.
As I mentioned earlier, we offer both for-credit and not-for-credit internships. We provide one-on-one individual career coaching. By fall, we will have two career coaches, one for art majors and one for design majors, who will work directly with students one-on-one to discuss career mapping while they are at CCS. Additionally, we share a four-year plan with students during their freshman year to help guide them through the process of considering life after CCS.
Some of the on-campus events we have include our amazing industry day events. We also bring in professionals to participate in panel discussions, where they share their career journeys or discuss future trends relevant to our students. Students can sign up for portfolio reviews conducted by industry professionals. In addition to company presentations, these portfolio reviews are highly recommended as they not only provide feedback on portfolios but also help students continue to build their networks, which is very important. We work closely with departments and student exhibitions at galleries, and we also support departments by bringing in professional artists and designers for studio visits and critiques.
Here’s a partial list of the companies that have visited CCS in 2018-19. The pandemic affected our ability to have as many companies come to campus, but this past year, we have been very fortunate to have companies back on campus, and it has been booming. The students are attending events and really enjoying them. When you all return to campus, you will have the opportunity to interact with many of the companies listed here.
Our virtual career platform, Handshake, tailors every single job coming in to ensure that it is valuable for our students. Currently, we have over 300 active internships and jobs posted, along with over 1,000 approved employers posting jobs on our site, and that number is growing every day. We just launched this platform in September, and we’ve already brought in a wide variety of employers and opportunities for our students, which is truly amazing.
When you join CCS or if you’re already an existing student, you will have a profile, and we’ll work with you to build it out so that you’re connected to relevant jobs in your discipline. We collaborate closely with our alumni relations office, as many of our alumni continue to give back as volunteers. They connect us to their industries and companies, ensuring that they bring opportunities to CCS students, just as opportunities were brought to them. We are very fortunate to have such a wonderful alumni base.
You can see here some of the places our alumni have gone. The great thing is that they come back, engage with students, conduct portfolio reviews, participate in industry days, and hire CCS students. We are grateful for that.
Here are just a few more examples of the places and different types of jobs our alumni have held over the years. For instance, Kevin Beasley, a fine arts graduate, is doing exceptionally well. Jenny Richer, a photography major, serves as an adjunct faculty member at CCS. Brad Richards is at Harley-Davidson, while Richard Gresson is with Newell Brands. I read about Kohler’s Austin and Garcia, who were fantastic designers and passionate students. Hillary Gave works at National Geographic. We also have alumni at Google, and Bill Morrison is the executive editor for Mad Magazine, who has since ventured into his own work. Chris Houghton is with Big City Greens, and we have alumni at Pixar and Walt Disney. Chase Shuster, a product design major, is even designing cars for Batman!
That is it for my presentation. Our office’s information is here, and I would love to open it up for questions now. I’m going to stop sharing.
Who do you all do the most work with?
That’s a broad question.
No, no, it’s a great question. Thank you for asking.
I’m just trying to stop sharing. It depends on the department. I would say we do a lot of work with OEMs because they are based locally in Detroit. You might want to define OEM, Shannon.
Sure! OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturers, like GM, Ford, and Stellantis, along with some of the supplier companies that support them. We also have a lot of partners supporting our product design department. For instance, we’ve worked previously with Nike, Reebok, and Kohler. We recently finished a project with a group called Whiskers, which focused on pet products. You name it; we probably have a connection to that company. On the fine arts side, we are well-connected with local animation studios, and we do a lot of projects with them whenever we can. We are quite open to opportunities.
I love it!
That’s awesome! We really pride ourselves on our industry relationships, which are vital to us. They offer our students opportunities for professional growth while they’re at CCS. Our partners enjoy coming in and working directly with students. They gain a lot of value from the experience as well, making it a mutually beneficial partnership that we strive to create with every single one of our partners.
Are there any companies you are particularly interested in working with?
I think my connection is going out.
Oh, no problem! Lucas or Taylor, do you have any questions?
Yes, am I able to get an internship even though I’m not a current student?
You and I can talk offline. I just need to know your status as a student.
I am a student, but I took the winter semester off.
Are you planning to come back?
I’m moving to Atlanta in September.
Okay, so you’re just looking for extra work?
Got it! I’m going to put my email in the chat, and then we can chat to figure out your status. You should still be able to access Handshake.
Yeah, but I tried to apply before, and I’m not a currently registered student, so I can’t get anything.
Let’s see; I’m going to put my email in the chat. You and I can chat more about this. If you could just send me an email, that would be great.
We can also talk to Scott.
Are you looking for something remote, or are you open to anything?
I’m focusing on film stuff, so anything related to video work would be great.
Cool! Here’s my email. Let me take a quick note, and I will reach out to Scott as well.
Okay. Just please make sure you email me so I have your contact information.
Great! Taylor or Allison, do you have any other questions?
I wanted to apologize; my connection went out halfway through. I’m so sorry if you didn’t hear anything at the very end of that.
No problem! I was wondering if there were particular companies you were interested in working with as a student. I always like to hear about what incoming or current students would like to pursue.
Well, I saw that you have an affiliation with Stuart Weitzman and Eileen Fisher, but I come from an automotive background, so I’m interested in GM and all that.
Okay, cool! Are you a fashion major, or will you be studying transportation design?
I am currently studying fashion design.
That’s wonderful! When I update this presentation over the summer, I will be adding the Stuart Weitzman video. We just completed a sponsored project with their company last semester in the fall, and it was a fantastic experience for the students. We actually went to New York to present the final concepts, and we had the opportunity to tour Stuart Weitzman, see their showroom, and meet with their creative director. We were also fortunate that the president of the company happened to be on the floor that day, so he popped in. The students achieved fantastic results from that project.
I think the video might be live now.
I will definitely take a look; that sounds amazing!
It’s probably on the website. I’m not 100% sure, but if you email me, I can double-check for you.
Are there any questions before we wrap up?
I’m just so glad that you’re interested in video. I believe video is an incredibly powerful tool for storytelling.
Absolutely! It’s nice to know that companies are open to working with students in this way.
Great! I appreciate your questions and everyone’s participation today. Thank you for being so engaging. If you have additional questions, you have my contact information, so feel free to reach out anytime.
That’s something we’re committed to achieving in the next couple of years. Taylor and Alison, I think you’ll definitely be a part of that, and Lucas, I hope to connect with you this summer.
Does anyone else have any questions?
Do you know anyone in Atlanta or Georgia in general?
I’d have to check our database, which has over 2,000 contacts. We just updated it, so it includes all relevant connections. I will definitely look into that, Lucas.
Thanks! I’ll also reach out to Scott.
Regarding size, we’re kind of in the middle. There are some schools that are much smaller, with only a couple hundred students, and others that are much larger, with five or six thousand, sometimes even hundreds of thousands. I think we’re right in the sweet spot. We have the ability to build relationships with students and provide them with a meaningful experience.
I like that. I’ve seen a lot of schools over the years, and I think you’re doing well.
Does anyone have any more questions for Shannon?
Thank you! I look forward to hopefully meeting all of you in person when you’re on campus. Lucas, I hope we can see each other when you’re back in Detroit. If you can stop by the show, it’s amazing. You all have my email address, so please feel free to reach out anytime.
I already sent you an email.
Oh, good! I’ll get back to you right away. Just as a side note, even after you become a student at CCS, if you’re unsure where to go, you can always reach out to your admissions counselor. We’re happy to help you find the right office or resource, even if it’s not something we can answer directly.
Any last questions? I think we’ve covered everything. You all have Shannon’s contact info, right?
Thank you all very much for joining us this evening!
Absolutely! We’ll end it here. Have a great evening, and we look forward to seeing some of you on campus this fall.
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