One of the most frequent requests from undergraduates when they speak to alumni is for assistance with career planning, internships, mentorships, and job placement. They also want advice from alumni regarding graduate school and/or post graduate degrees. The alumni board established the Career Development Committee a number of years ago, co-chaired by Tom Silver ’81 and Rob Novo ’79 to address these ongoing requests. Mu Chapter has established a series of programs for our undergraduates and alumni to take advantage of.
18th Annual NYC Career Event
November 7-8, 2024
After the success of the 17th Annual NYC Career Event, Mu Chapter is returning for the 18th Annual NYC Career Event on November 7-8, 2024. The event will consist of a Thursday–night dinner at the Cornell Club, courtesy of Wayne Forman ’80 and the educational foundation, and office visits with various alumni on Friday.
We have again booked the A.D White Room in the Cornell Club, a 760 square foot historical library named after the Co-founder of Cornell, a tribute to the A.D White library here on campus. Overlooking 44th Street, this room will play host to the 18th Annual Career Event and set the stage for another productive and rewarding night of conversation and collaboration.
Beverages will include soda, wine, beer & water. Appropriate dress is business casual.
Thank you to all Sigma Pi alumni who attended the dinner and hosted undergraduates last year, and we cordially invite you to join the event once again this year. Alumni who weren’t able to attend last year, we hope that you will be able to make it this year, not only to meet the undergraduate brothers but also reconnect with other Alumni from around the country and have valuable conversations and share your experiences.
If you are able to make the dinner and/or host undergraduate at your offices, please reach out to Justin Simon at Jts295@cornell.edu or Janet Conyette at jconyette@elevateims.com for more information.
We look forward to seeing familiar faces from last year and getting to know the wider Mu Chapter of Sigma Pi Alumni cohort.
Schedule of events:
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7
10:00 am–6:00 pm: Office Visits
6:30–8:30 pm: Networking Dinner with Alumni
Cornell Club of New York
9:00 pm: Gathering with Young Alumni
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8
8:00 am–6:00 pm: Office Visits
Sigma Pi Educational Foundation
Internships
As part of the Educational Foundation’s mission to provide Sigma Pi brothers with opportunities that enhance their undergraduate experience, the board approved the creation of three paid internships, with individuals supporting career services, the educational foundation, and technical support service. The Educational Foundation intern is a liaison between alumni, undergraduate brothers, and the Ithaca Community, overseeing communications, promotions, and coordination of the program. The career-services intern supports the development and coordination of the alumni/student mentor program, which includes 70 brothers and alumni. The intern also helps to coordinate career-services events and the Distinguished Alumni Speaker series throughout the years. The tech-support services intern helps build out and manage the tech infrastructure that connects alums and undergrads. The tech services intern is also responsible for operations, management, scheduling, and upkeep for the Richard Cahoon’77 Tech Center. These internships enhance our current investments in the Tech Center as well as help us expand our community programming, marketing, and development efforts. In addition, the interns benefit from direct interaction and mentoring from Foundation Board members.
Sponsoring Students for Select Industry and Business Conferences
From time to time, the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation has also provided funding for students to attend industry and business conferences, such as the DealBook Conference.
The Richard Cahoon Tech Center – Alumni Distinguished Speaker Series
The Tech Center, funded by a generous gift from Richard “Dick” Cahoon ’77 to the Mu Chapter of Sigma Pi Educational Foundation, is a state-of-the-art video-conferencing system that enhances and facilitates interactions between undergraduates and alumni. The center plays a pivotal role in Sigma Pi’s focus on career and mentoring. The Tech Center allows for one-to-one and one-to-many webcasts between alumni and undergraduates, promoting dialogue and assistance for students with career planning, internships, mentorships, and job placement. The undergraduates also want advice from alumni regarding graduate school and/or post graduate degrees. Many of our alumni are scattered across the country and around the world. The Tech Center bridges those distances for our students and alumni. As such, the Richard Cahoon ’77 Tech Center aligns with the Mu Chapter of Sigma Pi Educational Foundation’s mission.
Check out the photos of the Tech Center.
The Alumni Distinguished Speaker series has included over 20 alumni, speaking over the last couple of years about their career experiences. The speakers provide deep and personal insights from a wide range of classes and functional experiences, ranging from finance and music and concert promotion to business start-up. Select speakers include Andrew Ross Sorkin ’98 (New York Times), John Zimmer ’06 (Lyft), Zach Crane, ’10 (Moore Capital Management), Grant LaFontaine ’10 (YouTube), Quin Garcia ’06 (AutoTech Ventures), and Ben Dreier ’15 (Boosted Boards).
Entrepreneurship Conferences Sponsored by Sigma Pi Educational Foundation
The Mu Chapter of Sigma Pi Educational Foundation has sponsored two conferences on entrepreneurship for undergraduate brothers. The third Mu Chapter Technology, Social Media, and Career Conference will be held on Saturday, April 21, 2018, in Ithaca. In conjunction with the Entrepreneurship at Cornell Celebration, the Sigma Pi conference will focus on social media and entrepreneurship. The last conference, held in 2016, featured six speakers and was extremely well received by the undergraduate brotherhood. The event was attended by over 50 undergraduate brothers and alumni. The keynote speaker was Felix Litvinsky, managing director of Blackstone LaunchPad at Cornell University. Blackstone LaunchPad is an experiential campus-based program designed to introduce entrepreneurship as a viable career path and to develop entrepreneurial skills and mindset through individualized coaching, ideation, and venture creation support.
In addition, Zachary Schulman ’87, the director of Entrepreneurship at Cornell (E@C), spoke about the Cornell entrepreneurship program that was created in 1992 to promote entrepreneurship education, experiential learning opportunities, programmatic activities, and events for the Cornell community. Sigma Pi alumni speakers included Quin Garcia ’05, managing director of AutoTech Ventures, a venture fund investing in ground transport startups focused on connected, autonomous, energy efficient cars, motorcycles, commercial vehicles, and services; Randy Ottinger ’80, founder of Leader-2-Leader, a firm that helps founders, CEOs, and senior leaders build great companies with the strategies, cultures, and networks to accelerate growth, innovation, and financial value; Ali Hamed ’14, co-founder, CoVenture; and Dan Smalls ’92, founder of Dan Smalls Presents, a talent-buyer, concert-promotion, and event-production company based in Ithaca, New York. Tom Silver ’81, president of the Mu Chapter Educational Foundation, discussed the ways undergraduates could partner with the foundation on entrepreneurship endeavors. Brody Ehrlich ’10 and Brian Lederman ’10 spoke about a new initiative to help secure funding for undergraduates’ entrepreneurial and business projects. If you’re an entrepreneur and would like to be involved in further promoting entrepreneurship with the undergraduates as a speaker or as a mentor to an undergraduate, please reach out to Rob Novo at robn1979@gmail.com.
