The Brain Behind Centenary’s New Career Closet
Remi Miller is a senior studying political science here at Centenary College. Her extensive list of extracurriculars includes being the News and Worldview editor for The Conglomerate, being an SGA senator, and recently, starting Centenary’s first professional attire closet. To find out more about the closet, I spoke with her on February 26, 2023, and asked a series of questions about the closet’s development.
Please describe what the Career Closet is.
The Career Closet will offer professional clothing to students that will help them to feel confident when interviewing for jobs, interning, and developing their professional lives. The Career Closet will be accessible for students using wheelchairs and will be inclusive of all socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnicities, and genders, unlike the current off-campus partnership Centenary has with Dress for Success. The inclusivity and visibility of the Career Closet, in addition to operating through a students-helping-students approach, will address the needs of students and normalize the experience of receiving help.
Where did this idea originate from?
I saw on Instagram last year that Louisiana Tech has their own Career Closet, and it made me wonder why Centenary could not offer the same thing to us. The outside perception of Centenary is that every student here is rich, but I know from speaking with students that is not the truth. I think that belief holds people back from getting their needs met, so I brought the idea up at the SGA retreat, and everyone thought it could be a great addition to our college. I contacted Debbie Bury from Career Services and talked to her a little bit about it first. She told me about our partnership with Dress for Success, and when she told me about it, I realized how exclusive it was. So we had a few more conversations last semester, but things really kicked off this semester in January. Our closet is a little bit different from Tech’s because, in addition to offering free clothing, we're offering free interview-readiness training and resume advice in collaboration with Career Services and the Learning Commons.
How long has this entire process of developing the Career Closet taken?
It has taken a lot of time. I’ve been working on it daily since the third week of January. Because so much of this project is dependent on different people offering individual services, I have meetings with several people each day to check on their progress. But in relation to how quickly other projects on campus develop, I would say it's moving at a really good pace, and other people are shocked by how quickly you can get something done. I think it just requires going up to people in their offices and talking with them rather than waiting for them to answer an email. That's what has made the difference.
What has helped you manage this large project? Any collaboration or helpers?
There have definitely been collaborators, the first person being Debbie Bury from Career Services. She has agreed to help me with providing the interview-readiness training, and we will be using the tutors from the Learning Commons to provide mock interviews and give resume advice. We're also putting together a lookbook for students to see examples of how they could wear professional clothing. We hope to use images of real students wearing the clothes from the Career Closet for that. Patrick Morgan, the Director of Library Reference & Instruction, has allowed us to use the room where the closet will be kept and also ask his student workers to keep an eye on it. And there is also Emily Hamann. Emily is a former Centenary student, and she is the organizer of an organization called Out of the Closet. Out of the Closet provides clothing to members of the LGBTQIA+ community and marginalized individuals in need. They collect donated clothing from all around the city and allow me to go pick up the items I need for our closet free of charge. In fact, if students benefiting from the Career Closet would like to give back, a flyer will be posted with their Venmo and Patreon. Marketing believed in the idea, and recently Sherry Heflin offered to give students who frequent the closet free headshots. Lastly, I have asked Centenary graduate Jessie Bonnevier to paint a mural in the Career Closet room.
Since there may be people reading this interested in starting a professional closet in their school or community, can you please describe the steps that you have had to take to get this closet started, and if you could restart this process, are there any steps you would change?
Well, I've never done this before, but the step that I took first was asking former Centenary student Steven Knight for help, and he directed me toward Emily Hamann. Then, I met with Emily and asked her for advice, and the advice that she gave me was to just take care of myself during this process because it can get overwhelming. Other advice I have is to be tenacious and to keep advocating for what you need because you might experience pushback during the process. Systematically, I would start with finding out how you will collect clothing because there are a lot of logistics to consider there. Thankfully we have Out of the Closet that collects the clothing and leaves it for me to pick up, but that could be a whole other beast if I had to organize that process myself. Then, I would definitely start looking at a space because you don’t want to pick up clothes and not have anywhere to put them. Once my collaborations were established with Patrick Morgan and his student workers, Career Services, and the Learning Commons, I asked SGA for the money to furnish the room in which the closet is located. I knew it would be important to have as many details nailed down as possible before asking for the money because it would show that I am better prepared to use that money responsibly.
I understand that you will be graduating this semester. Is there a certain direction you want this closet to take after you leave?
I would like there to be a small team of people to take it over. Right now, it's just me, and it's honestly a lot being a student and doing all this at the same time. So I think it's much more sustainable if there is a team behind it after I leave, and I'm working on establishing a team right now. I just hope that what my collaborators and I have created will still be around for years to come. I think I've gotten as many people on board as possible, even the Provost approved! However, if people think of better ideas or more things to expand this service to students in the future, that would be wonderful.
How can Centenary students and faculty help get this Career Closet to really take off?
This coming Friday [3/3/2023], I'll be hosting a donation drive so that the faculty and former students who have reached out to me and tried to donate things to the closet will have a set time and place to donate. This is also an opportunity for current students who may have extra clothes lying around to also get involved and show kindness to their peers. While we already have clothing from Out of the Closet, I think a semesterly donation drive is a great way to get everyone involved and unified behind one cause to kind of help each other out.
How can people access and use Centenary’s new Career Closet?
The Career Closet is located in Lab B on the first floor of the Magale Library. It's open during regular library hours, and you can make appointments for the interview-readiness training using the Learning Commons website. The training will take place in the same room. Students can go into the closet and look through anything that they are interested in, and if they need help, they can contact one of the library student workers, who are usually sitting at the circulation desk or roaming around. There are some racks for students to take and keep clothes and some racks they can borrow clothes from. It is important that some clothes are reserved for borrowing so that the Closet is always stocked until I or someone else can restock. There is also a QR code for students to scan to schedule a headshot appointment with Marketing.
Any final remarks?
I am blown away by how many people reached out once they heard what I was working on and lent their support. None of this would be possible if people had not resonated with the mission of the Career Closet and been motivated to get involved. It is really beautiful to see how so many individuals from all walks of life have been touched by the same feeling of compassion. To Sherry Heflin, Emily Hamann, Steven Knight, Debbie Bury, Dr. Johnson, and SGA, thank you so much for caring about students embarking on the next step of their lives.
