UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Dylan Crutchfield understands that the Penn State Smeal College of Business is filled with ambitious, high-achieving students; he was one of them just a few years ago. The 2024 graduate also understands that looking at the future, even for those high achievers, can be daunting.
“Most college students don’t actually know what they want to do,” said Crutchfield, a district manager with ALDI USA. “I did four years of high school, now I'm supposed to go to this college to get a degree, and then I’m supposed to lock in a 9-to-5 situation. There’s this cloud of ambiguity for young professionals.”
That’s one of the reasons Crutchfield and a group of like-minded Smeal alumni are providing their time and expertise to the newly created Early Career Leadership Council, which aims to connect recent graduates with current students to provide relatable advice on ethical leadership, networking and more.
“We have students who are doing amazing things as leaders here, and then they graduate and we don’t engage them anymore. And we need to be engaging those students for a couple of reasons. One is they have the talent and expertise and passion, and it would be great if we continue to leverage that and develop a pathway for them to keep giving back to the college and the university,” said Michelle Darnell, Tarriff Family Director of the Center for Business Ethics and Social Responsibility and Smeal honor and integrity director, who created the council along with Shawn Dommer, the center's assitant director for co-curricular engagement.
“It’s also important that we are bringing alumni and business leaders back so that students understand what ethical challenges look like in industry, but when we bring back alumni who are more senior, the types of problems they face and the resources they have to solve those problems are not the same types of issues or resources a student one or two years out will experience. Bringing back alumni that are one or two years out to talk about these issues and what you can do to resolve them will be critical.”
The council’s primary role is to engage with current students at least once per year through mentorship, case competition support, leadership development conversations and professional guidance. Members are also invited to attend center advisory board meetings, which will help to create meaningful cross-generational networking and mentorship opportunities. The group has already met virtually and in-person to discuss primary objectives and potential benefits to both students and early-career alumni.
“I think once we’re able to make students more aware of what’s available to them, they'll have the opportunity to experience these already great initiatives that the center is running that connect them with early-in-career alum, with more seasoned alumni,” said Anna Shimek, a data analyst with Cisco Systems Inc., “and gives them not only the insights that those alumni provide on how to set themselves up for success as an ethical leader, but also on how to build their networks as college students.”
In creating the council, Darnell and Dommer reached out to former captains of the Business Ethics Team, leaders of the Integrity Advocates program, and alumni who, as students, helped develop the Smeal Ethical Leadership Challenge. Darnell said the organization’s bylaws and terms of service are still being finalized, but it’s likely that council members will serve three-year terms with the possibility of a one-year addition.
Shimek was a captain on the Business Ethics Case Competition Team and a member of the Delta Sigma Pi Business Fraternity during her time at Penn State. Crutchfield participated in Smeal’s Ethical Leadership Challenge, the Phi Chi Beta Business Fraternity and Net Impact, a sustainable business club.
In addition to engaging the current student population, the council also hopes to bring other Smeal alumni back into the fold, whether that’s cultivating mentorship opportunities or helping their companies recruit Penn State students. Crutchfield said he sees potential applications that go beyond the business realm.
“I would love to mediate conversations between young alumni and students and ask questions like, ‘What are you doing now? What are some things you wish you knew earlier? How are you becoming the best version of yourself?’” he said. “Personally, I think if you’re chasing the best version of yourself, then pretty much everything else is going to fall in line.”
Shimek, who was also a resident assistant and member of Legion of Blue, the basketball student section, said she enjoys frequent return visits to Penn State and believes the strength of the council will be the love its members have for the university.
“Once you have the experience of having gone through it, all you want to do is try to help the next generation,” Shimek said. “Because you can’t go back and change what you did at the time, but you can help others do it better than you.”
The inaugural cohort of council members will include:
- Shimek, chair, class of 2023 management information systems major and legal environment of business minor
- Crutchfield, class of 2024 marketing major and Spanish minor
- Emma Pirchalski, senior AI strategist at KUNGFU.AI, class of 2020, management information systems, former Business Ethics Team captain and Powerful Women Paving the Way director in Women in Business
- Katherine Groves, senior operations business project lead with the Hershey Company, class of 2022 supply chain and information systems major, former Business Ethics Team captain
- Lydia Mabamije, consulting solutions associate at PwC, class of 2024 marketing major, digital media trends and analytics minor, former Business Ethics Team captain
- Angela Lam Li, social media specialist, Innisfree (AMOREPACIFIC), class of 2025 marketing major, former Business Ethics Team captain
- Ava Goldberg, people analytics specialist with Lincoln Financial, class of 2023 management major and Spanish minor, Former Integrity Advocate