Shenandoah University and the office of the United States Army Corps of Engineers Transatlantic Middle East District are less than 10 minutes from one another.
A Memorandum of Understanding signed by the two entities Monday hopes to capitalize on that proximity, as well as the wide swath of knowledge, resources and opportunities that they can offer one another.
“[I]t makes so much sense,” said USACE Commander Col. Philip Secrist. “We’re five minutes door to door from each other’s offices and the campus here. So I’m surprised we hadn’t done it sooner. I’m glad we’re at this point now. And I just see there’s plenty of opportunities in the future for us to continue to work together. It’s gonna be fun, really is.”
The official MOU states that the agreement’s purpose is to “foster a mutually supportive relationship between the Parties,” developing initiatives to help the USACE recruit high quality workers and forming pathways for SU students to explore internship and career opportunities.
But USACE and SU officials said it will do much more than that.
“It’s also just the ability to share ideas and see other ways we can partner with what the university has going on,” said Secrist.
He noted SU’s the Hub for Innovators, Veterans and Entrepreneurs (HIVE), a virtual reality and emerging technology hub that will soon take over an old armory building on campus, as an example of a space where the two entities might collaborate. He also said that he’s hoping USACE personnel can get involved with SU’s Center for Islam in the Contemporary World, perhaps as guest lecturers.
“We work in the Middle East all the time,” he said. “So we really have a lot of exposure to what’s going on in the Middle East.”
And while it’s in the organization’s name, student pathways will not be limited to those studying engineering. USACE seeks candidates from an array of educational backgrounds for a variety of different roles.
They need people to work with biology, natural resources, architecture, construction, contracting and more.
“While it’s engineering, applied technology, virtual reality … it could also be our business school students. It could be our students that are studying history or political science. There’s a lot of career pathways,” said SU President Tracy Fitzsimmons.
Mary Ensogna, a supervisory paralegal specialist with USACE Transatlantic Middle East District who also happens to be a 2009 SU graduate, said she was excited to see what this partnership will do for SU students going forward.
She was a USACE intern as a college student, which opened a door to her current career. Now, with a formalized partnership in place, more SU students could have that kind of chance.
“I’m looking forward to students having the opportunity to know more about a career in federal service and what that looks like and exploring that, because it’s a great organization,” Ensogna said. “We have had students come from Shenandoah University, and they start their career with us and they’ll go on to do really amazing things within the federal government. And then we have other students who have started their career with us and they’ve stayed, like myself.”
That’s another big piece of this partnership. Recruiting college students from a campus in Winchester for a potential career in the same community helps to support a strong local workforce.
Ensogna, who served a tour in Afghanistan with USACE as a 22-year-old, said she came back to Winchester and then wondered what to do next before deciding that the city was now her home.
“I just really fell in love with the city, the community and especially the people here like Tracy Fitzsimmons and Col. Secrist who are really working to improve it and usher in a new generation of great minds,” she said.
Ensogna is not the only SU graduate to intern or work for the USACE. Other Hornets have spent time working behind the highly-secured facility’s walls over the years.
Fitzsimmons said she hopes that officially commemorating this partnership will help show that the two entities have already worked well together, and that they hope to continue doing so going forward.
“It’s a signal that the partnership thus far has gone well,” she said. “And so this is an opportunity to say, ‘We want to take it to the next level.’ It also opens the doors for people to begin really actively thinking about what it could mean.”