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C3 Annual Awards

Know a colleague doing exciting things on campus? Nominate them for a C3 award! We’re accepting nominations here through May 1st. Feel free to submit multiple nominations. Winners will be announced at the C3 Conference on May 22, 2024.

 

Congrats to our 2023 award winners!

Outstanding Career Practitioner Of The Year

This award recognizes a UNC-CH career development professional for outstanding performance in day-to-day service to students, campus/employer partners and the university. The awardee demonstrates adherence to the university’s mission while also embracing an unwavering commitment to excellence in serving students and to the career counseling profession.

  • Winner: Tamara Taylor- Interim Associate Director for Career Education/Senior Assistant Director for Career Coaching & Student Belonging, University Career Services
  • The winner of this award is someone who commits excellence to everything they do and embraces the thoughts and ideas of those around them to make the most impact. This person is always thinking of innovative ways to keep students engaged and reach more students across campus.

Rising Star Award

Awarded to a career services professional early in their career who demonstrates strong leadership potential and innovative contributions to the career services profession and UNC-CH. Award nominees have less than 5 years of work experience in the career services profession.

  • Winner: Kelsey Williams- Assistant Director of Internships & Experiential Learning, University Career Services
  • The winner of this award is described as a person who puts “a tremendous amount of effort into all the work [they do].” This person has implemented, supported, and coordinated such amazing work in their office in such a short amount of time. This individual recognizes their gaps and continually seeks ways to become a true “expert” in their work.”

Best Practices/Innovation Award

This award seeks to highlight an innovative and/or consistently effective career services initiative that benefits students at UNC-CH.

  • Winner: Joe Hayes- Assistant Director, Career Development & Employer Relations, Undergraduate Business, Kenan-Flagler Business School
  • The winner of the award is led by their own curiosity and drive for efficiency, and has found new ways to pull information to lead toward wise decisions. This person’s work on employer engagement has helped the development of a tiered system of employer account management leading to systematically assessing employer relations efforts.

Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging Award

This award recognizes an individual or office who, through their initiatives, actions or programming, have demonstrated a commitment to diversity, inclusion and belonging within the domain of career-related activities in the university community.

  • Winner: Catherine Okafor- Assistant Director, Career Development & Employer Relations, Kenan-Flagler Business School
  • The winner of this award is described as bringing passion and knowledge to DEI into their space within unique ways. This person’s commitment to DEI is unparalled, and particularly notable that brining their own identities to the table, they still are mindful of other identities and seek to lift others up. This person envisioned and created Black Women in Business and the program went so far above and beyond everyone’s expectations, bringing together over 80 students, alumni, faculty, and business professionals.

 

Past Awards Recipients 

2022:

  • Outstanding Career Practitioner of the Year: Steve Hicks, Associate Director, Undergraduate Business Career Services, Kenan-Flagler Business School
  • Best Practices Award / Innovation Award: Lori Haight, Director of Career Services, School of Information & Library Science

2020 (not offered in 2021 due to COVID):

  • Outstanding Career Practitioner of the Year: Sandra Chandler
  • Best Practices Award / Innovation Award: Amy Blackburn
  • Distinguished Diversity Initiative: Brandy Arellano

2019:

  • Outstanding Career Practitioner of the Year: Sarah Crockett
  • Best Practices Award / Innovation Award: Sheena Jacobs
  • Distinguished Diversity Initiative: Tamara Taylor & Jayne Davis

Past Awards Recipients’ Testimonials

“The C3 award recognized a pivotal partnership between Carolina Covenant Scholars Program and University Career Services to align college majors with career aspirations for the University’s lowest income students.  Since this award, our partnership has grown. Together, our offices obtained grant funding to provide Covenant Scholars with high impact professional development over the summer months, helping them advance their professional goals and lowering financial barriers to opportunity.” Jayne Davis

“As the 2020 recipient of the Outstanding Career Practitioner of The Year Award, I strongly encourage members of the career services community to consider nominating their peers for one of the C3 awards.  This opportunity to nominate your peers provides a way for those around you who work tirelessly every day in support of our students all year long to be recognized for the great work they do that may not be seen by others around campus.  There are three (3) categories you can select from: Outstanding Career Practitioner of The Year; Best Practices Award / Innovation Award; Distinguished Diversity Initiative.  Surely there is someone within your team who is deserving of recognition!” Sandra Chandler