Every Tuesday at 11 a.m., students and faculty of the Center for Calling and Career gather in a conference room of Carter Hall to ask and answer questions about life after graduation. Underclassmen and upperclassmen alike come for Chick-fil-A and stay for tips on how to navigate future plans for graduate school, job searching, networking and other features of professional development.
These “Buffalo Brunches” are only in their second year, but co-leaders Leda Goodman and Dr. John Plating believe that they are key to helping students prepare for life after graduation and making the Center for Calling and Career more accessible to the student body.
The Center for Calling and Career has adopted the American Buffalo as a mascot for these brunches, which Plating explained serves as an “icon of resilience.” When the American Buffalo senses an approaching storm, it does not try to outrun the storm; instead, it runs directly into the storm so that it comes out the other side as quickly as possible. Plating hopes that the brunches will encourage students to “be the buffalo” by facing their anxieties about the future head-on and working to prepare for them.
The Buffalo Brunches began as a collaboration between Goodman and Plating as an attempt to answer students’ questions for a post-pandemic work environment and prepare them for success after graduation. Goodman sees this type of guidance not as doing work for students but as preparing students to tackle the tasks ahead of them.
“I don’t navigate the obstacles for them, I equip them to navigate things competently,” Goodman said of her work as a professional resume writer.
Plating and Goodman pick topics for the brunches based on what questions they most commonly receive from students. These topics include professional resume writing, budgeting, workplace habits and interview preparedness. Plating and Goodman also keep an eye out for the most recent or developing trends in the workforce.
“There are things that we’re aware of that students aren’t, so sometimes we add different topics in because we know that they will be important,” Goodman said.
Twice per semester, the Buffalo Brunches pause their regularly scheduled programming for ScotsOnDeck events which provide opportunities for students to interact with alumni in their field of study. These alumni are approximately ten years removed from graduation; enough time to have settled in their career, but not so long ago that they have forgotten the uncertainty of being a student, Plating explained.
Students have responded positively to the brunches, though Goodman and Plating hope to see more growth and engagement moving forward. Like many things on Covenant’s campus, the Center for Calling and Career relies on word-of-mouth communication to bring in more students.
“We just really hope that students will encourage other students to come to [the brunches],” Goodman said.
Senior Sarah McCreight (‘23) attended a brunch focused on preparing for graduate school and found it helped to demystify the process of applying for graduate programs. Not only did she feel less anxious about the next step in her education, but she wanted to take advantage of the skills that the Center for Calling and Career offered.
“I walked out feeling like they really cared,” McCreight said. “I know they’re doing their job and doing it well.”
Even though this was the first and only brunch that McCreight attended, she expressed curiosity in attending more and imagined the Center for Calling and Career expanding the brunches to address the specific career paths. She envisions discussions based around writing essays for graduate school or, in her case, focusing on graduate school options for psychology majors.
Students interested in attending the remaining Buffalo Brunches this semester can register on Handshake beginning on the Thursday before each brunch. The brunches have restarted for the spring semester with some new topics and some repeated topics, allowing students to catch topics that they missed the first time and hear from different slates of alumni.