Torero Tidbits: Career Development Center; Cropper Series Event; Womxn of Color Summit; Alumni Virtual Events

Career Development Center Has Virtual Events, Resources Aplenty

Everything may be done remotely these days, but that doesn’t lessen the impactful resources and effort being put in by the University of San Diego’s Career Development Center.

There is a Business, Finance, and Accounting Career Fair on Oct. 1 from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Additional fair events this semester include an Engineering and Computing Career Fair on Oct. 13 from 1-4 p.m.; Majors and Minors Fair, Oct. 22, 12:30-2 p.m.; Marketing, Communications and Public Relations Career Fair, 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m.; and a Psychology Internship Fair, Nov. 3, 12:30-2 p.m.

There is a virtual industry networking series that happens every few weeks starting at 5:30 p.m. covering such topics as Entrepreneurship/Start-ups, tonight, Sept. 30; Cybersecurity and Tech, Oct. 20; and Marketing, Oct. 28. Each session also has a featured guest alumni speaker.

It’s also a good time to register for all remaining Torero Treks, starting with a Marketing Virtual Trek on Oct. 28 and 30 — there are two tracks, one each day. Deadline to register is Oct. 11, 11:59 p.m. There are many more Virtual Torero Treks taking place in December 2020 and January 2021 that focus on places such as Washington D.C., Portland, Ore., Texas, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Orange County and New York City. View all details here.

The Career Development Center’s work goes far beyond just career fairs, networking and Torero Treks. Check out everything the center can do for you, whether you are a first-year student or in your senior year.

Cropper Memorial Writers Series Welcomes Kiese Laymon on Oct. 1

The first of two Lindsay J. Cropper Memorial Writers Series events in October, will begin on Thursday, Oct. 1 from 12:30-1:30 p.m. as essayist and memoirist Kiese Laymon delivers a craft talk and reading on Zoom.

Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Miss., who, in his observant, often hilarious work, battles with the personal and the political: race and family, body and shame, poverty and place. His savage humor and clear-eyed perceptiveness have earned him comparisons to Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alice Walker, and Mark Twain. He is the author of the award-winning memoir Heavy, the groundbreaking essay collection, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, and the genre-defying novel Long Division. Laymon’s powerful best-selling memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, and the 2018 Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times. It is a nominee for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction. In this fearless, provocative book, Laymon unpacks what a lifetime of secrets and lies does to a Black body, a Black family, and a nation hunkered on the edge of moral collapse. Reginald Dwayne Betts, author of A Question of Freedom and Bastards of the Reagan Era, calls Heavy “the most honest and intimate account of growing up black and southern since Richard Wright’s Black Boy.” In a starred review, Kirkus wrote, “Laymon skillfully couches his provocative subject matter in language that is pyrotechnic and unmistakably his own… A dynamic memoir that is unsettling in all the best ways.” Heavy was named a best book of 2018 by the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, Buzzfeed, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, was named one of the 50 best memoirs since 1969 by The New York Times, and was a finalist for the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction. The audiobook, read by the author, was named the Audible 2018 Audiobook of the Year.

The event is free to attend. Click here for the Zoom link and password information.

Later in October, on Thursday, Oct. 29 from 12:30-1:30 p.m., fiction writer Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah will be final fall 2020 semester guest for the Cropper Memorial Writers Series.

Virtual Womxn of Color Summit, Oct. 2-3

The third annual USD Womxn of Color Summit will be hosted on a virtual platform on Friday, Oct. 2, 4-5:30 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 3, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

In describing the summit, the USD Women’s Commons website states that the summit’s goal is “to create a community rooted in relationship building, vulnerability and empowerment. By establishing a community of womxn of color and allies, a secondary goal is to generate more visibility of womxn of color at USD. These attainable goals can be accomplished through storytelling, small and large group dialogue, interactive art, written reflection and other creative expressions.”

Centering on the voices and stories of Womxn of Color at USD, the summit is open to all USD students, faculty, and staff. It is free to register. Click here for the summit registration form link.

Explore Virtual USD Alumni Events

Upcoming USD Alumni Association events — all virtual — to note:

Thursday, Oct. 1, 11 a.m. — Attend a live version of "USD Chats with Charles" as we hear from Adama Iwu '05, Visa USA's Vice President of government relations for the western United States. Iwu is co-founder of the We Said Enough Foundation, whose mission is to eliminate bullying, harassment, and assault in the workplace. She also serves as the organization’s President of the Board. In 2017, she was recognized as a "Silence Breaker" and featured on the cover of TIME's Persons of the Year edition. Register now to obtain the Zoom link.

Thursday, Oct. 8, 11 a.m. — The USD School of Business’s Life-Long Learning Webinar Series will feature USD School of Business Supply Chain Professor Simon Croom leading a discussion, called, “3 Steps to World-Class Performance,” as he gives you insights on designing a world-class supply chain; Focusing on what wins orders; and Aligning capabilities with your market. Register now to get the webinar link.

There are several USD Alumni Association virtual offerings available on a regular basis, too. Be sure to check out Alumni Zoom Trips, a virtual interview series facilitated by Dee Kayalar MPA, ACC, who is the assistant director of alumni career engagement, and for parents and their children, be sure to listen to the Tiny Toreros Story Time podcast with new stories added weekly and presented in both English and Spanish by Claudia Iracema Gonzales ’99, ’03 (MA), director of International Engagement and Alumni Outreach. This free podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify, and many other outlets where you can download podcasts.

And, of course, there's the biggest week-long event of this fall, USD’s Homecoming and Family Week, Oct. 13-18, all done virtually. Learn more and register now to celebrate being a Torero and being with other Toreros.

— Compiled by Ryan T. Blystone