{"id":222271,"date":"2024-12-04T16:21:27","date_gmt":"2024-12-04T21:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=222271"},"modified":"2025-03-19T12:44:21","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T16:44:21","slug":"uconn-waterburys-career-closet-service-learning-students-champion-professional-success-and-equity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2024\/12\/uconn-waterburys-career-closet-service-learning-students-champion-professional-success-and-equity\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Waterbury\u2019s Career Closet: Service-Learning Students Champion Professional Success and Equity\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Students in Dr. Laura Donorfio’s HDFS 4007W course teamed up with Lisa Carrozza, Center for Career Readiness and Life Skills, and Heather Price, Director of Community Innovation and HDFS 2016 graduate, to organize UConn Waterbury’s second “Career Closet” held on November 19th and 20th. \u00a0The event was a huge success, with over 125+ students visiting and over 1,000+ articles of clothing distributed. \u00a0The free event allowed students to pick out professional clothing for future interviews\/careers. \u00a0All clothing was donated by community partners, including Waterbury City Hall coordinated by liaison Ali DeGirolamo, Mayoral Aide and HDFS 2020 graduate. This service-learning class helped students gain experience with project management, developing a budget and timeline, identifying and engaging with community partners, and developing marketing and social media plans. \u00a0Important class discussions centered on connecting experiences to the National Association of Colleges and Employers career competencies, meeting the diverse needs of all students on campus, including culture variation, inclusive sizing, gender organization of clothing, and what it means to dress \u201cprofessionally\u201d for various careers today.<\/p>\n

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UConn Waterbury Career Closet Fall 2024 (Steve Bustamante\/UConn Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Deneliz Espinal, a student in the class shared, \u201cHaving an open discussion about topics such as gender, inclusive sizing, and what is considered professional in this day and age really helped us understand what we needed for students and what challenges we might face.\u201d Students developed an informational PowerPoint on the dos and don\u2019ts of professional dress, behavior, communication, and what can score a winning interview. \u00a0Activity booths were stationed around the room and included a professional photo booth, how to tie a tie, and how to sew a button, etc. Tote bags, with a class developed logo for the event, were provided to all attendees.<\/p>\n

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Officer Dublin teaches students how to tie a tie at the UConn Waterbury Career Closet. (Steve Bustamante\/UConn Library).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr. Donorfio shared that \u201cInitially the students were unsure of the benefits of this course having a service-learning component, but over the course of the semester, they took ownership and understood why this experience was invaluable, particularly for their professional futures and employment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lisa Carrozza said “The success of the 2nd annual Career Closet reflects the incredible impact of service-learning students taking ownership of a meaningful initiative. By providing professional attire to their UConn Waterbury peers, they not only expanded access and equity, but also helped create opportunities for students to make lasting first impressions. This achievement was made possible through an incredible campus collaboration with Dr. Laura Donorfio and Heather Price, whose support and dedication were instrumental in bringing this vision to life again this year.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UConn Waterbury’s “Career Closet” led by HDFS students, provided free professional attire to 125+ students, fostering career readiness and inclusivity through hands-on learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":222276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2625],"class_list":["post-222271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-waterbury"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-26 00:16:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222271"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227116,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222271\/revisions\/227116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/222276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222271"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=222271"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=222271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}