Alumni News: Recent Graduates From Across NYU-SCPS

Olney Atwell
“You don’t have to go to school to have a career in television and film,” industry insiders told Olney Atwell. But she had dreamed of going to NYU since she fell in love with film in high school. With a passion for motion graphics and animation, she liked the work she saw being created at the Center for Advanced Digital Applications (CADA) at NYU-SCPS. Once in the program, Atwell quickly acclimated to an environment that combined the real world and academia. “For two years, every day, you treated your homework as a deadline and treated your professors as clients,” says Atwell, who earned her M.S. in Digital Imaging and Design last spring. “Forget doing assignments just for the classroom; we had professors who said, ‘This wouldn’t go to air.’”

Atwell now works at NBC and freelances with her business partner, Alyson Warshaw, a CADA classmate.

Kristen D. Clark
When Kristen D. Clark decided to launch a new career and pursue an M.S. in Integrated Marketing, going back to school wasn’t difficult, but finding the required internship was. “Trying to find an internship at 30 years old is challenging,” says Clark, who won the Integrated Marketing Award for outstanding academic achievement. Clark secured a placement at MRM Worldwide, a digital advertising agency. She was hired on as a freelancer, then as a strategic planner, and promoted to senior strategic planner when she earned her degree last spring.

Clark attributes much of her success to her work at NYU-SCPS. “All the notes I saved, the books—they are a valuable resource today.”

Janelle Curtis
After Janelle Curtis moved to New York from her native Guyana, she wanted to learn to use technology to improve her business management practices. What she learned while earning her M.S. in Management and Systems at NYU-SCPS will help her improve management for Citi across the globe and, some day, for local businesses back home.

Curtis graduated last spring, winning the Management and Systems Best Thesis Award for research excellence and for producing an academic work with practical applications. Her thesis explored customer-relationship management in the financial sector in Guyana, and how local businesses can use customer relations to become more competitive. Curtis may return to Guyana and pursue the issue in the future. For now, as an assistant vice president at Citi, she manages a project helping to ensure that its resources are effectively deployed around the world.

Jay P. Fehskens
Networking has been the single biggest benefit of earning his M.S. in Real Estate at the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate, says Jay P. Fehskens. “People I went to school with are now in California, India, Europe, and South America. It’s an unparalled, worldwide network.”

Fehskens was working as a lending officer in residential real estate when he saw the market softening and decided to go to graduate school. Beyond the rigorous classroom experiences, the Schack Institute exposed Fehskens to singular opportunities to learn from industry leaders, such as billionaire real estate developer Larry Silverstein, who lectured at Institute-sponsored breakfast events. Also, the chance to attend the Real Estate Capital Markets conference—which Schack students can attend for free—gave him an “amazing” networking experience. “Networking is not just to get you a job. Relationship-building is for the next 10 to 20 years. It is for you to contribute to the industry you are in.”

An internship while at the Institute landed Fehskens his current job as an associate in asset management and acquisitions at Time Equities.

Gary S. Feit
Gary S. Feit already had six years of experience in public relations when he decided to pursue a master’s degree. The broad, real-world experience of the NYU-SCPS faculty appealed to Feit, who won the Most Distinguished Student Award in public relations when he graduated last spring with his M.S. in Public Relations and Corporate Communication. “These aren’t academics living in an ivory tower,” Feit says. “These are real practitioners who have been very successful.”

Professors’ approaches were unusual and memorable. Feit was surprised when directed to read the U.S. Marine Corps Guide and a book by the 19th- century military strategist Carl von Clausewitz prior to a Strategic Communications course. In class Feit learned that, similar to the military, “being strategic is important to being a communicator. Every action, every word is part of your strategy to get your message across.” As a result, Feit says he is more strategic in his approach as a public information manager for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Ashley Graf
Ashley Graf met “incredible women leaders” in the male-dominated field of sports management while earning her B.S. in Sports Management through the Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management at NYU-SCPS. Through the Tisch Center Scholar’s Program, Graf traveled to Egypt to study the growth of women’s professional soccer. There she met Sahar al Hawari, who has worked to gain acceptance for women’s soccer in the Middle East. “It’s a man’s world, and she has gained international accolades,” Graf says. Back home, Graf twice heard NBA executive Heidi Ueberroth speak—first at the World Congress of Sports Conference Graf attended through the Scholar’s Program and again during an internship with the NBA.

These women inspire Graf, who won the Allie Sherman Sports Business Leadership Award. “There are no limits to where I can go. You do stand out because of your gender, but it is not anything that should get in the way.”

Jacquelyn Lewis
A small town newspaper reporter with big-city dreams, Jacquelyn Lewis came to NYU-SCPS hoping to make it in the competitive world of publishing. Now she’s doing just that.

A Magazine Editing and Management class featured field trips and guest speakers, including a trip to Rolling Stone and a talk by the editor of Paste, a small music and culture magazine. “I grew up in a very small town (Green River, Wyoming), so saying you’re going to be a magazine editor was like saying you’re going to be a movie star,” Lewis says. At NYU-SCPS, “you get a feeling you can make it in the industry, too, if you’re as passionate about it as [faculty and guest speakers] are.”

Since completing her M.S. in Publishing last spring, Lewis worked as a Web editor for Marie Claire, House Beautiful, and Harper’s Bazaar and has done assignments for Time Out, New York magazine, and Forbes Traveler. She is now a full-time Web editor at Pronto, a Time Inc. magazine.

Kelly McDermott
After she graduated from college, Kelly McDermott worked for a bank and then a mortgage company but continued to take classes in her true area of interest: global affairs. Finally, a professor suggested she “make it count for something” and earn a master’s degree. For McDermott, the Center for Global Affairs stood out because of its focus on contemporary issues, such as security, she says.

Two courses on humanitarian issues and the dilemmas surrounding foreign aid sparked McDermott’s passion. Her thesis, entitled “Field Security Issues for Aid Workers and Peace Keepers,” focused on humanitarian worker safety issues, which are underreported because reports of attacks on workers can negatively affect fundraising. Further, McDermott explains, small organizations lack funds to do the research that could help keep their representatives safer. McDermott won The Center for Global Affairs Excellence and Achievement Award when she earned her M.S. in Global Affairs last spring.

John Paulsen
John Paulsen had 18 years of experience in hotel operations but wanted to learn more about the investments and revenue management side of the industry when he applied to the Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management for a graduate degree. While earning his M.S. in Hospitality Industry Studies, he gained skills and practical experience that he uses every day in his job as a vice president with the Tishman Hotel Corporation. He is currently developing a new Intercontinental Hotel in Times Square.

Paulsen’s Advanced Special Project on environmental sustainability, “applies 100 percent,” as the Intercontinental will be a LEED-certified “green” hotel. “Almost everything I did in my research I would discuss at work,” says Paulsen, who won The Ricelle “Bunny” Grossinger Hospitality Award upon graduation in May.

John T. Randall
John T. Randall left college to tour with a band, then composed music for radio and television ads and worked as a sound designer. He then decided to complete his bachelor’s degree and become a producer, choosing the NYU Paul McGhee Division. He graduated last spring with a B.S. in Digital Communications and Media, but Randall is headed to law school, not to the producer’s chair.

In his Communications Technology and Law course, Randall saw that his longtime fascination with music copyright issues could be a career path. “These were things I was blogging about. I realized it could be more than just an interest,” Randall says.

In an internship at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, Randall developed an online tool to teach middle school students about copyright and fair use of music. This fall, Randall, who won the Alpha Sigma Lambda Dean’s Award for Excellence, starts law school.

Suzanne Rohan
Suzanne Rohan’s goal when she entered the M.S. in Graphic Communications Management and Technology program was to work on a business plan for a graphic design company. Academic Director Bonnie Blake promised that students could mold each of their projects toward their objectives.

Rohan, who won the Graphic Communications Management and Technology Leadership Award, earned her master’s last spring. “I left the program with a business plan and a business identity in mind,” she says. “Ideas for logos, names of companies, financials—they had me think through all the steps I needed to take. If I tried to do it on my own, I wouldn’t have someone there challenging me, saying, ‘How are you going to do this?’”

Rina Gaulyte Singh
When Rina Gaulyte Singh decided to continue her education, she considered business school, but didn’t want a solely academic experience. “I wanted to go into the real world and do real work, not just understand the concepts and theories,” she says. That’s why she chose the M.S. in Human Resource Management and Development program at NYU-SCPS.
Professors were professionals in the field, and Singh was able to do “real work” even as a student. When school projects related to their professional work, students invited classmates to give presentations to their management teams. In one class, Singh researched the business culture and environment in emerging markets in Brazil, Russia, India, and China. She then presented her findings about cultural differences to professionals doing business in those countries. Singh won the Human Resource Industry Excellence Award and was class representative at graduation last spring. She is now considering starting a consulting firm.

Caroline Stevens
When Caroline Stevens enrolled in the George H. Heyman, Jr. Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising, she was planning to pursue a career in the field of higher education or the arts. Earning her M.S. in Fundraising expanded her horizons, she says. “The more I learned about fundraising and nonprofits, the more interesting it all became.”
Stevens became an intern at the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (OCRF) just as the organization was expanding its fundraising strategies and was immediately able to apply the knowledge and skills she had learned in her coursework. A Planned Giving class was especially relevant when OCRF officials decided to start a planned giving program and involved Stevens. She wrote the organization’s brochure and planned the mailing to potential donors, among other contributions.

Not only did her internship give Stevens a place to put into practice what she was learning, it led her to a career option she had not considered: the health industry. Stevens’s grandmother died of ovarian cancer, and working with OCRF had great meaning for Stevens. “One of the great things about the nonprofit world is that you can choose something you’re passionate about. NYU-SCPS opened up a whole new future for me.”

Robin C. Webb
It took her many years, but when Robin C. Webb finally completed the Associate in Applied Science in Health Administration degree program at the NYU Paul McGhee Division last spring, she did it with top honors. Webb earned the Wallace Gobetz Memorial Award for the student with the highest academic average in the Health Administration degree program for adults.

“It’s been a long educational career for me,” says Webb, 44, who is working toward her bachelor’s degree and plans to pursue a master’s. A single mother at 17, Webb enrolled in McGhee in the 1990s while working full time, but took time off to care for her ailing grandmother. She eventually juggled daily visits to the nursing home with work and school.

The first person in her immediate family to earn a high school diploma, Webb hopes to work in healthcare policy. “I want to set better policy for people who lack sufficient resources,” she says, “so they can have access to quality healthcare.”