Two John Carroll University students recently worked with the Cleveland Cavaliers media team to produce digital assets for Black History Month and Women’s History Month. The students received this opportunity through the Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion’s (CSDI) Wayfinders program.
The Wayfinders Program is funded through a grant from the Cleveland Fenn Foundation to provide students with professional development opportunities such as workshops, micro-internships, and career exploration. Since September 2020, the program has worked with organizations like Ignatian Solidarity Network, LGBT Center of Greater Cleveland, Leadership Medina County, Medwish International, and most recently, the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Graduate student Dzsen Hegyi and Kayla Langford '24 both learned of the Cavs micro-internship through the Wayfinder’s program in October and applied right away. After getting accepted, CSDI connected the two students with the Cavalier's social and digital media teams virtually. In this meeting, the Cavs introduced the students to their respective projects and showed them the roles of a social and digital media team for a professional sports organization.
Once the students learned more about the team and their assigned projects, they got right to work. Both Hegyi and Langford have graphic design backgrounds, so they used those skills to design flyers for two of the Cavs' monthly campaigns. Hegyi especially appreciated her task in designing a Woman’s History Month flyer, commenting, “My favorite part of the internship was the freedom to create. The Cavs team gave very few specifics which seemed challenging at first, but helped me make important design choices early on.”
Langford was similarly tasked with creating a Black History Month flyer. She also went the route of creativity by designing her own template for the flyer. The design she came up with included dynamic fists in the air and the use of Pan-African colors: red, green, yellow, and black. “It was really nice to get feedback from the graphics team,” she said while remembering her later conversations at the internship. In those conversations, Langford and the team adjusted the design to fit the Cavs brand, but even those adjustments, “didn’t take away too much from the original concept I had in mind.”
The students finished their projects by the end of December and are now seeing the fruits of their labor. Langford’s promotional graphic has already been used for the Cavs’ February match-up with the Bulls on Feb. 2, and Hegyi’s will be revealed in March.
Both Langford and Hegyi found the experience with the Cavs beneficial, both from a skill and professional standpoint. Both students got to use what they learned when crafting their own designs and also work with a team to put out a final product for a sports organization. “I think that John Carroll having a connection through Wayfinders into outside organizations is very beneficial for students,” said Langford. “It allows us to get a foothold into the real world and also to learn, grow, and flourish.”
The Wayfinders program is about building relationships between students and people within the organizations, too. So, to establish an even more personal connection, CSDI took a group of 40 students to Cavs games on Feb. 2 and Feb. 11, where they could network with the organization’s DEI and marketing team. Program Coordinator Daniella Flores said that “opportunities like this help mend the gap between diverse populations and the corporate world. We strive to provide more equitable opportunities for our students by continuing our partnership with the Cleveland Cavaliers in forthcoming years.” It’s no wonder these experiences brought students closer to the Cavs as a professional sports organization and closer to their own professional future.
To learn more about the Wayfinders program, visit https://www.jcu.edu/csdi/wayfinders-program
