Game Changers: in Celebration of Women’s History Month

Career Level: Basic-, intermediate-, and advanced-level career services, university relations and recruiting, and business affiliate professionals
Competency: Organizing information, logistics, people, and processes toward desired outcomes
Fee: FREE (member); $69 (nonmember);

This product is currently unavailable. If you have any questions, please contact NACE Education & Events at events@naceweb.org, 610.625.1026.

Summary

"Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations."
--Mae Jemison

You have the power to effect change for yourself, your colleagues, your organizations, and for the students you serve or recruit. NACE’s Game Changers Series, in celebration of Women’s History Month, shines a light on phenomenal women who share their personal stories and serve as models for working to bring about positive change.

What can you do to bring about positive change? Join this session and be inspired by what others have done.

NACE’s Women in URR and Career Services and the People of Color Affinity Groups are proud to jointly celebrate International Woman’s Day and Women’s History Month by hosting a dynamic conversation with women leaders in the profession. In keeping with the 2022 International Women's Day theme of #BreaktheBias, our featured guests will share their stories of breaking barriers and overcoming bias as they have navigated their professional careers. The conversation will feature Vanessa Strauss from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Norma Guerra Gaier from the University of Texas at Austin.
Presenters

Norma Guerra Gaier, Assoc. Vice Chancellor for Career Education & Dev., Washington University in St. Louis - Center for Career Engagement
Norma Guerra Gaier serves as the Executive Director for Texas Career Engagement at The University of Texas at Austin, where she leads a comprehensive career center focused on advancing equitable access to career engagement for undergraduate and graduate students and connecting employers to diverse talent across the university. She has worked in the career development field at both private and public institutions for more than 28 years. In addition to her extensive experience in university career services, she has led efforts in law school career services, alumni relations, adult education career development, civic engagement, leadership initiatives and service learning. Norma has served on various NACE committees and is a past NACE president. She has also served as a faculty member for the NACE Executive Leadership Symposium and the Management Leadership Institute teaching ethics and strategic planning. She has also been active in various leadership positions within her region, state and locally, and is a proud past-president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Employers, the Texas Association of Employment in Education and the San Antonio Colleges and Universities Career Centers Association. She enjoys serving as a mentor to rising career services professionals and is an active presenter at global and national conferences and meetings.

Vanessa Strauss, Senior Advisor, Human Resources, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Vanessa Alexander Strauss is a senior advisor in human resources, Division of Administration (DOA), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). In her position as senior advisor, she is responsible for performing a wide-range of managerial and technical assignments relating to the design, development, and implementation of human resource management policies and programs. She currently oversees FDIC Summer Scholar Student Internship Program, FDIC’s Special Assistant Program, and a host of other corporate-wide programs and activities. Strauss routinely serves as a resource in the development of employee and managerial training and leadership programs in support of the goals of the FDIC. Her philosophy is “everyone can make a difference.” Strauss has been a featured speaker on a variety of human resources topics at colleges and universities across the United States. She served as a member of the Executive Board of the Eastern Association of Colleges and Employers. She was elected to the NACE Board and served on for six years, advancing to serve as NACE president (2006-07). She continues to be an active member of the association.

Kacheyta McClellan, Director of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, NACE
Kacheyta McClellan earned a B.S. in management and an M.B.A. in human resources from the University of Southern Indiana. Diversity and inclusion as well as career development comprise 15 plus years of his experience in higher education and associations. As a strategy architect, he has developed successful conferences, retention initiatives, assessment tools, and diversity metrics that have earned him honors such as being named one of the Evansville Business Journal’s 20 under 40 Emerging Leaders; he is also the recipient of Leadership Evansville’s Individual Leadership Award. He has also succeeded in developing partnerships with employers that have turned in to a variety of opportunities for students, including internships, job shadowing, job placement, and more. McClellan has served on dozens of boards and committees that are community-focused with special attention reserved for people of color. In his current role as director of diversity, inclusion, and belonging for the National Association of Colleges and Employers, McClellan focuses efforts to advance the association and profession through a DEI lens. In addition to evaluating internal practices and analyzing all aspects of the association, he works with professionals throughout the nation to identify, investigate, and promote actions that move individuals and employers to be more inclusive.