Tia Cunningham is passionate about supporting students in all the ways – how they connect, how they belong and how they grow beyond UMD into meaningful careers. As the School of Public Health’s Assistant Program Director for Student Engagement, Cunningham oversees the Student Engagement Initiative (SEI) which runs many events and programs aimed at making student life welcoming, vibrant and supportive. She spoke with Fid Thompson about how she aims to propel SPH students forward.
How do UMD SPH students get support with career development?
When students look ahead to graduation, so many are engulfed in anxieties about the future and how to navigate this transition. They wonder: How do I get a job? Where do I start? How do I apply? It can feel paralyzing.
So STEP, short for Students Transitioning into Effective Professionals, answers those concerns by offering highly practical skills and tools for succeeding in the job market. Our University Career Center offers incredible resources but we also know how useful it is to have a course oriented specifically to students in the school of public health. And now STEP is an academic class (SPHL 111) so we encourage students to just go on Testudo and register!
Who is STEP for?
The goal of STEP is to support students in their careers and to help diversify our public health workforce. Originally, we focused on students from underserved backgrounds, for example first-generation students, first-semester students, transfer students or students with less than 2.9 GPA. Diversity is still our mission! But the program worked so well we decided to open it up to the whole school, while maintaining an emphasis on students from underserved populations.
Why get involved in STEP?
The STEP course functions like an intensive 8-week BootCamp on updating resumes, cover letters, and interviewing in multiple platforms for industry-specific internships.
This is not just theory! Everything students learn in SPHL 111 is practical and will be directly applied to the current internship market. Yes, students are applying for real internships through the course! This year we are working with local public health employers - for example Mary’s Center, Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and the Prince George’s County Health Department. Through the class, these organizations will provide direct feedback to the students regarding the quality of their internship applications. What a rare opportunity! And if the application is strong and interviews go well, these partners will offer students internship positions for the summer or even this coming spring.
It’s a win-win, students get feedback from real professionals and the professional community gets a window in on the incredible student talent coming out of the School of Public Health!
You also work hard to create a community of belonging for SPH students – why is this so important?
The research is pretty clear that when a student is involved outside of the classroom, they can cultivate a sense of belonging. A sense of belonging has a positive correlation to academic success and is supportive of mental and emotional health. Research also suggests that employers are actually two times, sometimes three times, more likely to hire a candidate who was involved in extracurriculars at their institution. Student grades and retention rates generally go up when they are involved in student groups or campus organizations.
A big part of our work in the Student Engagement Initiative this year is tracking data on student engagement outside of the classroom, their sense of belonging within the school, and the connections with academic performance. This is an area that we, in Student Affairs, are really trying to understand post-pandemic. Academic affairs and student affairs have been siloed traditionally, but in reality they are two sides of the same coin, both contributing to student experience and success. So we are excited to be bridging this research gap within our SPH community because it’s clear that the richness of student life and belonging outside the classroom is integral to our students’ success.
What's coming up for students?
We have our Welcome Week with a ton of fun activities, including our Involvement Fair, and our first ever Boris’s Block party. Not to mention all the student groups. On main campus, you have the First Look Fair and most of the SPH departments are offering some type of welcome experience!
