The Career Center is open to all students, and the Diversity Liaison Team is there to remind visitors of that fact.
The Diversity Liaison Team, a group created last spring, was developed to spread the word about programs and opportunities available to minority students. The team is comprised of three students of color.
DLT was created in response to the lack of minority students seeking job opportunities through the Career Center.
"One of the things that we found was that students of color were not using the Career Center as much as white students," said Sheila Curran, executive director of the Career Center. "We felt that minority students were not aware of the opportunities available here."
The purpose of DLT is to link the Career Center with campus cultural groups, such as the Asian Students Association, Black Student Alliance, Diya and Mi Gente, said Racquel Williams, DLT advisor and assistant director of the Career Development Center.
The team includes senior Danielle Cunningham, liaison to African-American groups; sophomore Tadina Ross, liaison to Latino organizations; and junior Jennifer Yang, liaison to Asian Organizations.
Cunningham, Ross and Yang were members of the Black Student Alliance, Mi Gente, and the Asian Student Alliance, respectively, before they were recruited to join the DLT.
"We chose team members from ASA, BSA and Mi Gente because they represented the largest minority groups in the student body," Williams said.
Of domestic undergraduate students at the University in the 2004-2005 academic year, 31 percent were minority students. Thirteen percent of students were Asian, 11 were percent African-American and seven percent were Latino.
The DLT students work six to eight hours a week and are paid an hourly wage. The program is funded by a diversity initiative through the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Company.
Although this is their first year of operation, members of DLT are already busy creating new ways to attract minority interest in Career Center services.
Initiatives include the annual Career Week, the Diversity Dinner, panels on minority summer internships and, most recently, the Multicultural Resume Book.
The Multicultural Resume Book is one of DLT's biggest projects. The book will be composed of resumes from minority students around campus.
It will be distributed to companies during Career Week in January.
In an e-mail sent to members of cultural groups on campus last week, DLT invited minority students to send pictures, resumes and personal information for submission to the Multicultural Resume Book.
Yang, who is compiling the submissions, said the book will be a good way for minority students to interact with potential employers.
"Every company is looking for a diverse group of job candidates, and most companies have diversity initiatives," Yang said. "We are hoping the multicultural resume book will advertise our students to companies."
Senior Tomas Lopez, president of Mi Gente, plans to submit his information to the resume book.
"The resume book will showcase the talents and cultural diversity of our students and will give our minority students a great chance to connect with employers," Lopez said.
Curran said she believes minority students on campus are beginning to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Career Center, thanks to DLT.
"It's been a very successful program in involving the minority community," she said. "We wanted to get our students involved with career-related issues before it becomes too late, and we think that it is working."
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