The Of­fice of Ca­reer Ser­vices and Global En­gage­ment Nav­i­gates COVID-19, Hires Alumna Jes­sica Lyons

MISHAWAKA- While COVID-19 ended or post­poned a lot of plans in 2020, many peo­ple still needed to con­tinue mak­ing plans, ten­ta­tive though they be. This was cer­tainly true for Bethel’s Global En­gage­ment Of­fice.  

Last spring, when news broke of COVID-19 be­com­ing more wide­spread, the Global En­gage­ment Of­fice’s pri­or­ity was bring­ing home stu­dents who were study­ing abroad. They worked through the strug­gles of con­tact­ing air­lines, can­cel­ing flights, and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with stu­dents in dif­fer­ent time zones, and all the stu­dents re­turned home safely.  

The sum­mer pro­grams for 2019 were can­celled, and stu­dents who had signed up re­ceived re­funds. Un­for­tu­nately, stu­dents who have grad­u­ated missed out on op­por­tu­ni­ties they would have had. 

Di­rec­tor of Global En­gage­ment and Ca­reer Ser­vices Tyler Grant ex­pressed his dis­ap­point­ment with not be­ing able to pro­vide more solid an­swers to stu­dents wish­ing to study abroad and take trips planned through Bethel. Look­ing into the fu­ture, he said, trips mainly de­pend on coun­tries’ in­de­pen­dent reg­u­la­tions.  

While the Global En­gage­ment side of the of­fice is nav­i­gat­ing new ground, Ca­reer Ser­vices wel­comed Jes­sica Lyons to the team as a ca­reer de­vel­op­ment pro­gram man­ager on Jan. 5. Her role in the of­fice is to work closely with stu­dent work­ers, fac­ulty and in­terns to see where im­prove­ments can be made and re­sources can be uti­lized.  

“My, kind of, pri­mary func­tion is to over­see these on­go­ing ca­reer readi­ness re­sources and pro­grams we’re al­ready do­ing and maybe bring some new life into things with re­struc­tur­ing and some new vi­sions,” Lyons said. 

Lyons helps stu­dents with re­sume build­ing and sets up mock in­ter­views. With the help of the Lily En­dow­ment Grant awarded to Bethel, there are new pro­jects be­gin­ning that she will over­see as well.  

The of­fice’s goal is for more stu­dents to be aware of re­sources avail­able to them to as­sist them in their lives af­ter col­lege. The of­fice also wants to help stu­dents who are hav­ing dif­fi­culty choos­ing a ma­jor and help them find ways to turn their pas­sions into a ca­reer.  

In or­der to make this hap­pen, Ca­reer Ser­vices will be in­ter­view­ing and sur­vey­ing stu­dents and staff. Tyler Grant said he wants to make sure they are of­fer­ing help that stu­dents want while also invit­ing stu­dents in for the help they need.  

Look­ing for­ward with Global En­gage­ment, Grant said that he is keep­ing an open mind.  

“In the fall, we will be ad­ver­tis­ing what­ever we think will be hap­pen­ing in the spring,” Grant said.  

Posters will be posted, and emails will be sent, he said. Stu­dents in­ter­ested in se­mes­ter abroad op­por­tu­ni­ties next school year are re­quired to sign up this se­mes­ter and should con­tact the Global En­gage­ment Of­fice at geo@bethelu­ni­veristy.edu or stop by the Global En­gage­ment Of­fice on the third floor of the Aca­d­e­mic Cen­ter.