Return on investment
The Knowlton Center turns 10
Ten years ago, Denison set out to reimagine what career exploration could look like in a liberal arts environment. The goal was ambitious: move beyond a traditional career services office — where career prep typically happens toward the end of the undergraduate journey — and begin to equip students for their careers almost as soon as they arrive.
Today, the Austin E. Knowlton Center for Career Exploration is a comprehensive ecosystem that helps students identify their interests, build in-demand skills, and launch quickly into lives and careers of purpose. Recognized as one of the nation’s top career services programs, ranked #2 in the country by The Princeton Review, the center is a defining strength for Denison, made possible by the leaders and donors who believed in reinventing the nature of career preparation.
“Our greatest achievement may be the cultural shift we have made within Denison,” said Raj Bellani, vice president of external affairs, career outcomes, and chief of staff. “Students now understand this to be part of their education.”
As the world of work evolved, Denison recognized that career preparation should not exist apart from academics; it should be woven throughout the curriculum. Donors saw the opportunity early, helping build a proactive, personalized suite of programs that connects students to mentors, experiences, and professional networks from their first semester on campus.
Students begin navigating possibilities through the Journey Program, reflecting on their strengths, values, and aspirations while imagining multiple futures for themselves. Career coaches help them connect those interests to industries, while internships, consulting projects, professional residencies, alumni mentors, skills-based learning, and graduate school preparation — free to all students and recent grads thanks to donor generosity — provide real-world experience along the way.
The result is not a standardized route, but flexible programming built around the individual student.
“We let students tap into a system of resources that meets them where they are,” said Melanie Murphy, executive director of the Knowlton Center. “There isn’t a single prescribed way for students to benefit. Instead, we help them explore, experiment, and discover pathways they may not have known existed.”
Because of sustained philanthropic investment, the center has grown alongside student demand. Career coaching appointments have more than tripled. Participation in signature programs continues to rise, including support for all Denison alums negotiating workplace dilemmas, career pivots, or questions about emerging technology and AI.
Internship funding in particular has expanded dramatically, helping ensure that financial circumstances never prevent a student from pursuing a transformative opportunity. Donor-funded stipends help students engage in hands-on learning experiences that might otherwise be financially out of reach, whether that means supporting unpaid internships, offsetting housing costs in expensive cities, or enabling students to pursue placements with organizations around the world.
The result is a generation of graduates who leave Denison with knowledge and intellectual curiosity as well as practical experience, professional confidence, and meaningful lifelong connections.
Those relationships — among students, faculty, alums, employers, and career coaches — have become the foundation of Knowlton’s success. They are also the reason employers increasingly seek out Denison graduates.
“Not only have we hired students as interns, but we have also offered a few of those interns full-time employment opportunities,” said Kate Smiley of Park National Bank. “Denison students stand out during the interview process for being prepared, knowledgeable about relevant and emerging technologies, and personable.”
Employers consistently point to the same qualities that have long defined a liberal arts education: critical thinking, communication, creativity, and the ability to learn quickly. Through the Knowlton Center, students pair those strengths with practical experiences and industry-relevant skills that make them early standouts in their fields
As Denison looks ahead at What We Can Be, the Knowlton Center’s work continues into the next decade and beyond. Its impact can be measured in internships funded, graduate degrees earned, network connections made, and job opportunities unlocked. But its true legacy is found in the confidence of Denison graduates who leave campus prepared not merely to respond to the changing world of work but to lead it.
Kate Smiley
Park National Bank
Setting the stage
Internships unlock careers in the arts
When Karen Kendig Simon ʼ73 reflects on her time at Denison, she sees a clear throughline leading from her successful, arts-focused career back to a particular opportunity during her senior year that set it all in motion.
As a theatre major, Simon spent a semester in New York City, working alongside a Broadway musical from casting through opening night. That experience — seeing behind the curtain of every aspect of a top-level production — transformed her understanding of the profession, expanded her network, and ultimately launched her career.
“It was that internship that allowed me to graduate from Denison one weekend, then move to New York that Monday,” Simon said. “I learned so much and I made so many contacts that I had job opportunities waiting.”
Today, she and her husband, Jim Simon ʼ73, are helping Denison students create their own career-defining moments through the Karen Kendig Simon ʼ73 Endowed Fund for Theatre Student Internships. The fund provides support for theatre students pursuing internships and professional experiences in acting, arts administration, design and lighting, stage management, musical theatre, playwriting, and related fields.
“I’m really interested in helping students get out there in the world,” she said. And the words of one of her faculty mentors, Professor William Brasmer, never left her. “He said, ‘What I can do for you is teach you to teach yourself.’ In New York, I had to still be resourceful and resilient,” she said. “But I learned those skills at Denison, and from this experience.”
The fund’s first recipient, Alex Kolb ʼ27, is already putting that vision into action. A theatre major from Colorado Springs, Colo., Kolb spent the summer participating in Denison’s Chicago Theatre Summer Internship Experience, an immersive program that places students in Chicago’s nationally recognized professional theatre community.
“I was drawn to Denison for its expansive theatre program and the terrific opportunities it offers,” Kolb said. “After graduating from Denison, I hope to continue to work backstage wherever I can and eventually become a professional playwright.”
When Simon saw his resume, she was impressed. “I thought, ‘Wow, this kid has it together probably much more than I did.’ I’m sure he’ll be successful,” she said.
Through internships like the one Kolb experienced and others coordinated by Denison’s Knowlton Center, students gain practical skills, professional connections, and firsthand insight into careers across industries. For students pursuing creative fields, those experiences can make all the difference.
“I absolutely needed to do an internship like that to get my foot in the door,” Simon said.
She also hopes her gift sends a broader message about the enduring value of the arts. At a time when conversations about career preparation often focus on technology and emerging fields, she believes creative disciplines remain essential.
“I hate to see the creative part of our society being whittled away,” she said. “The arts gave me not only a broader life, but financial success, too.” Simon parlayed her internship into three careers in entertainment: acting roles in two national tours, including Grease; ten years at NBC-TV as manager of talent relations for the network; and founding the Speakers Network, representing celebrities and media personalities for speaking engagements.
Most of all, Simon sees the internship fund as an investment in possibility.
“I felt doing this could make a difference in somebody’s life,” she said. “The internship made a difference in my life. I think it can make a difference in theirs, too.”
Through support like the Simon family’s, Denison students can pursue meaningful professional experiences, build confidence and connections, and take the first steps toward lives and careers shaped by purpose and creativity.
Karen Kendig Simon, circa 1973
Karen Kendig Simon ’73