Home » About » Awards » Award Recipients » 2023 CEIA Award Recipients
Scott Maynard is the Vice President of Economic Development for the St. Johns County FL Chamber of Commerce where he focuses on working with new and existing businesses, workforce development, and assisting entrepreneurs in development and launch of new business ideas. He is the former Program Director for Employer Relations at Florida State University and has over 32 years of experience in Career Services, Experiential Learning, and Economic Development.
Prior to his role at Florida State University, Maynard was the CEO/President of the Greater Starkville Development Partnership in Starkville, Mississippi. The Partnership is an umbrella organization that houses the Chamber of Commerce, Oktibbeha County Economic Development Authority, Starkville Visitors and Convention Council, and the Starkville Main Street Association.
Maynard was named Director Emeritus of the Career Center and Cooperative Education Program at Mississippi State University (MSU) where he retired after 29 years. While at MSU he was actively involved in local government and economic development and served on the City Council of Starkville, Mississippi. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Cooperative Education and Internship Association (CEIA) and The Northeast Florida Boys and Girls Club.
He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree and a Master of Business Administration degree from Mississippi State University. Maynard taught a wide variety of classes in the College of Business at MSU and served as an instructor at the CEIA Academy in Vail, Colorado.
Daniel Vornhagen is the Pre-Construction Manager at Danis Building Construction Company in Miamisburg, Ohio. He has served the company for over 30 years and wears many hats within the organization as Director of Co-Op Program, Training Coordinator, and Talent & Acquisition for Entry Level Project Engineers. Daniel has been involved with the coaching and mentoring of over (275) co-op students the past 15 years and manages the complete life cycle of the 70+ co-ops, which spans across 3 states on a yearly basis.
He developed the Co-Op Challenge to incorporate the following:
At the most recent event, there were 175 people in attendance, including 11 institution representatives, and 46 students from Ohio, Florida, and the Carolinas.
In addition to Daniel’s commitments at Danis, he serves in multiple roles with associations dedicated to work-based learning. Daniel is involved with the Ohio Cooperative Education Association and presents on a variety of topics to engage career services professionals and industry representatives in key discussions on the state’s workforce needs. Daniel is the Industry Representative on the ASEE CEED Board and has launched a series of virtual townhalls for employers across the nation to discuss hiring trends and challenges. Also, Daniel is an Adjunct Instructor at the University of Cincinnati for the Architectural Engineering, Civil Engineering and Construction Management Department. He is one of the senior capstone instructors for the Construction Management program.
For close to fifteen years, Dr. Sharp has been leading Service-Learning at the University of Cincinnati, a program that connects stakeholders who support over 6,000 student registrations per year (350+ courses), representing every undergraduate college at UC. Most recently, and in many ways in response to the COVID-19 crisis, he helped to create (and adjust to an online/virtual process) the Service-Learning Co-op program, providing students with paid opportunities to work virtually with not-for-profit organizations. Sharp is an associate professor of Experiential Learning, teaching classes in the Division of Experience-Based Learning and Career Education and in the School of Communication, Film, and Media Studies. Sharp created and is leading a novel approach to service-learning called the Service Learning Collaboratory, a class recognized via the Dean’s Award for Innovative Instruction. He introduced to the university the Jack Twyman Award for Service Learning and is the senior editor of Experience Magazine: Practice + Theory + Podcast. He earned a doctorate in Urban Educational Leadership at the University of Cincinnati. His dissertation, Critical Curriculum and Just Community: Making sense of Service-Learning in Cincinnati, focused on the importance of “critical pedagogy” created through campus-community partnerships, which was awarded dissertation of the year by the Society for Experiential Education. This award-winning work has been contracted for book publication by the University of Cincinnati Press. In addition to being recognized for his Scholarship and Teaching, Sharp’s Service portfolio was also recognized by Campus Compact in that he was honored with the 2020 David Hoch Memorial Award for Excellence. Sharp has also been recognized by the university for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Researchers. Some of Sharp’s service to his community includes coaching youth baseball and volunteering. He also co-chairs the Greater Cincinnati Service-Learning Network’s higher education committee.
This year’s Ralph W. Tyler Award recognizes the University of Waterloo’s Work-Learn Institute (WxL) in recognition of research contributions detailed in the recent Experience Magazine™ article, “The Work-Learn Institute: A Living Lab for Work-Integrated Learning Research.” The Work Learn-Institute is unique in its long-standing and impactful commitment to research as a mechanism to advance quality work-integrated learning (WIL) and the article highlights key research initiatives, including their Future Ready Talent Framework, an evidence-based tool that helps students, employers and educators understand the crucial competencies that will be in demand in the future workplace.
WxL was originally founded in 2002 as the Waterloo Centre for the Advancement of Co-operative Education. For over 20 years, their goal has remained the same: to strive for global impact by conducting research on the development of future-ready talent through quality WIL programs. They have adopted several approaches to the advancement of WIL research. They establish and promote quality standards for meaningful WIL programs, and They conduct and promote WIL research on a range of constantly evolving topics in response to stakeholder demands. In addition, they also serve as a center of WIL expertise and provide training and consulting services to help employers, governments, and post-secondary institutions evolve their WIL programs. Finally, they act as thought leaders, sharing their insights with the international community of WIL practitioners and researchers.
Margaret “Maggie” Breitenstein is a fifth-year Mechanical Engineering Technology student at the University of Cincinnati. While at UC, she completed five co-op semesters with three companies. Her final rotation was a nine-month stint with the Murphy Company in St. Louis Missouri, where she was a plumbing designer with occasional work in the mechanical and estimating departments. Her responsibilities included designing and drawing plumbing systems in a 3D program for hospitals, office buildings, and universities. With the Murphy Company being a contracting company, she was able to see past the design phase of projects and experience the actual construction of buildings such as the new Major League Soccer stadium in St. Louis. After graduation, she will start full-time as a Plumbing Designer at the Murphy Company.
According to Maggie, “I am extremely grateful I grew up in the city of Cincinnati and was able to attend a nationally ranked co-op school that is practically in my backyard! The co-op program, founded by UC in 1906, allows for almost two full years of full-time experience, which gives students the chance to figure out what kind of job they want, or maybe don’t want, post-graduation.”
Maggie is a 5-year varsity athlete for UC’s Cross Country and Track and Field teams, and a GREEN Program ambassador. The GREEN Program is a sustainability study abroad program aimed at giving students the opportunity to change the world! In the summer of 2022, she joined The GREEN Program on their first trip to Belize, where she learned to seaweed farm and developed the first map of Belize’s Barrier Reef. Maggie also started a FreeRice group at UC, a website/project where every trivia question you answered correctly results in money donated by The World Food Programme to sponsor families in need.
Brian Cavin is a senior at the University of Central Arkansas, majoring in Computer Science. Since June 2022, Brian has interned with CG Infinity, a software company based in Texas.
Brian is described as “one of the most critical components to the CG Infinity Little Rock team’s success”. As a Developer Intern, Brian was assigned to two clients and focused mainly on data warehousing, ETL, and integration. He assisted the development team with client consulting, problem analysis, and solution implementation. Some of his accomplishments include (1) drastically increasing a client’s job completion speed by identifying inefficiencies in their systems and streamlining code, and (2) designing a new data management system, ETL process and integration for another client to automate a data upload process.
Brian also spearheaded their “Instagram Takeover” day when employers are featured on the UCA Instagram page, giving students a look into their workday. Brian collaborated with the local team and created the vision for the entire project, including storyline, narration, production, and photography. The company plans to use some of the content in future marketing ventures.
Serving five years in the U.S. Marine Corps, Brian earned several notable awards, including the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Global War on Terror Service Medal, Navy Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, and the NATO-ISAF Medal. Brian spent nine years in the energy technology industry before starting his construction business and returning to college in 2020.
At UCA, Brian is a member of the Computer Science Club and was listed as a Presidential Scholar twice. He is a natural leader and is especially proud of his wife and seven children. After graduation, Brian plans to complete his MS in Computer Science and continue working at CG Infinity.
Vladimir is an international student from Serbia and a senior in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Mathematics at the University of Cincinnati. During his tenure at UC, he served in a diverse array of leadership positions and completed five co-op rotations in multiple departments within Leoni Wiring Systems, a global leader in automotive wiring harness manufacturing.
In his first three Leoni co-ops, he served as a liaison between customers based in the United States and various company plants located worldwide. His skills and passion for learning led him to be recruited to serve as Leoni’s first co-op student in Portugal. There, Vladimir learned how to combine his engineering and operations experience to design 2D drawings used for wiring harness assembly, accurately forecast the production time based on customer designs, and provided clients with suggestions to enhance the manufacturability of their products. In preparation for his double co-op rotation abroad, Vladimir independently learned Portuguese for 6 months to maximize his engagement with his colleagues and learn about the fascinating Portuguese culture.
At the University of Cincinnati, Vladimir focuses on giving back to co-op students through his role as a Co-op Peer Mentor where he applies the Appreciative Mentorship framework to assist students in pursuing their professional interests and dreams through the co-op experience. In his senior design project, Vladimir serves as the Electrical Sub-Team Leader for the Formula SAE vehicle, which allows him to apply the skills he gained on co-op and continue collaborating with Leoni. Upon graduation, Vladimir looks forward to joining Leoni as a Full-Time Engineer and a Representative at a customer location in North Carolina.
Olivia Allen attended Cincinnati State Technical and Community College. She began her coursework at Cincinnati State while still in high school. She completed 15 credit hours as part of College Credit Plus, a dual enrollment program. Olivia enjoyed her classes and professors so much that she decided to finish her degree at Cincinnati State. She graduated summa cum laude with an Associate of Arts degree in December 2022. She has enrolled at the University of Cincinnati and will be a junior when she begins classes in May. She is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Sociology.
Olivia was in the Honors Program and on the Dean’s list all semesters. She was also an officer of the Cincinnati State chapter of Phi Theta Kappa. She enjoyed representing other students, meeting with advisors, and planning events.
Olivia completed her internship experience at the Cincinnati Museum Center, where she worked in the Human Resources department for five months. The experience was incredibly impactful. Olivia learned she could trust her abilities and gained confidence. She saw the importance of working towards the same goal and that each person’s contribution allows larger objectives to be achieved. Olivia took on greater responsibility throughout her internship. She reviewed resumes, checked applicant references, onboarded new hires, and learned new computer systems. She also revised the museum’s organization charts and completed a national salary survey.
Olivia is grateful that Cincinnati State provides this incredible experiential learning opportunity to all students. She truly appreciates the knowledge and guidance shared by her co-op coordinator and Cincinnati State’s Career Center. Olivia learned so much through the hiring process and loved her time at the Cincinnati Museum Center. She will take all the insights and skills she learned as she moves forward. She may even pursue a career in human resources!
Dominican University, a Hispanic-Serving Institution with 64% of students identifying as Latinx and located just outside of Chicago, launched its successful career development program in the fall of 2017 in its Brennan School of Business. The program, composed of four required career development courses, a required internship, and built-in mentorship from Executives in Residence, was embedded into the curriculum for all undergraduate business students with faculty and staff support. Since the launch of the program, graduate outcomes have increased by 35% from 2016, with 77% of 2022 Brennan graduates employed or attending graduate programs within three months after graduation. The career development program was created to be fundamentally equitable as all students, regardless of major, must complete these classes and an internship prior to graduation. The career development program works to connect students with opportunities that require a bachelor’s degree to promote upward mobility and advancement. After the successful launch of the program within the Brennan School, the University centralized career development services within Academic Affairs and is in the process of expanding the program to the core curriculum, ultimately moving to an equitable model in which all undergraduates would take required career development courses. Prior to the launch of this program, career outcomes in the Brennan School of Business were suboptimal, with only 42% of graduates employed or attending graduate school three months post-graduation. For a school that prides itself on upward mobility, we were not doing enough to help our students succeed after graduation. Additionally, career development education often fell to faculty and staff with no formalized training in this area. Starting in 2016, a new Director of Career Development was hired by the business school, with full support from the dean, to embed career development into the curriculum to meet the needs of our student population. Dominican is unique in the student population it serves—most students commute to campus and balance part -time and full-time jobs while taking classes. Dominican students do not have the capacity to add to their already heavy workload by attending optional workshops and visiting the university career center on their own. By embedding career development into the curriculum, Brennan was able to create an equitable model that guaranteed all students received the same support.
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