Prior Winners (National Student Employment Week)

Let’s take it back to the fall of 2019, where we could only assume that I am doing my standard “interview as many students as I can and get them through the hiring process before the first football game” song and dance. I scheduled an interview with a freshman named Vivica Rojas. She not only showed up twenty minutes early, but with a four-page document on ideas for improving our in-game promotions and creating a better atmosphere at games (a first of its kind from a first-year student). Not only was I beyond impressed with her interview and obviously hired her immediately, but I have saved that document to this day.

Vivica took her first year in stride, learning from the upper classman and finding her fit not only on our team, but at Monmouth. One of the things I admire most about Vivica, is she came to college with a mission and she started the second she set foot on campus. A communications major, Vivica was jumped on as many opportunities as she could involving herself with Hawk TV, WMCX, and Community Lifestyle, a nonprofit providing summer camps and after school children in housing authority in Hoboken, all while maintaining her EOF status. When faced with the COVID-19 pandemic and not being able to participate as much with our marketing team, Vivica got involved with our Monmouth Digital Network to assist in broadcasting home events, broadening her communications background even further.

Fortunately, we have since been able to return to “regularly scheduled programming,” which is where I have had the opportunity to see Vivica really take the reins and set the definition for leadership on our team. This past year, I had two returning students who had worked a full athletics season, from football to baseball (and to put it into perspective, this number is usually somewhere between eight to ten). Of these two, one was a sophomore, the other was Vivica. Our first football game was early in the school year was nothing short of fire by trial and not the best performance by our marketing team. I met with Vivica and she told me she was ready to step up and by my right-hand woman. I hired 14 new students. Vivica trained 13 of those 14 on our various game day positions. As any team that is young, we faced our challenges, but just six months later, I am beyond impressed with the students that we have, a majority of which I can attribute to Vivica leading the way. Not only does she have a knack for teaching, but in four years, I have never seen Vivica have a bad day. She always brings a positive attitude, she is incredibly warm and welcoming to everyone she comes in contact with and is truly a bright light no matter the circumstance. The combination of personality and ability has truly created a force.

If you have been to an Athletics home event before, I can guarantee you’ve seen Vivica. Maybe you’ve seen her calming a nervous National Anthem singer, she is after all the best hype woman in the country and will cheer you on from start to finish of the two-minute performance, or maybe you’ve seen her behind the fan camera pumping up the crowd. Maybe you’ve seen her executing the on-field/court promotions, demonstrating free throws to the youth team or participating in the dance contest with the child who inevitably gets shy once they are in front of a crowd. Maybe you’ve seen her stewarding the many birthday parties we host every game or taking photos for Shadow the Hawk’s social media. You might see her directing the spirit squads, our in-game DJ, running back and forth to ensure the production matches what’s in the game script, or finding an extra t-shirt to give the child who didn’t win the Rooney’s shootout. Vivica has not only taken on any and every task that I have thrown in her direction, but she has done it was a smile and while teaching her fellow coworkers how to do it as well. She has been the face of our athletics marketing program this year, and continues to blow me away with her ability to lead to our student team. I’ve never felt more comfortable having a student run our game day operations, she is truly built for this role and industry.

Now, please allow me to tell you what you do not see. Vivica is in our office multiple times a week assisting with game day preparation and creating marketing plans for various events. She has massively contributed to increasing out student engagement, participation and attendance with the Athletics Department, by doing things as small as scheduling National Anthem singers, to being a driving force behind more than forty campus organizations participating in our first ever Athletics Trunk-or-Treat this past fall. She has gone beyond just campus connections to involving the Monmouth county community in our events, for example, our extremely successful Pride night last weekend. Vivica assisted in not only inviting outside and on campus organizations, but promoting the event, writing the extensive game scripts we use for each event, and executing everything the day of. She has truly gone above and beyond in this role, while maintaining a 3.3 GPA, participating in Hawk TV and WMCX, and being involved in her own nonprofit.

It has been an absolute privilege to supervise and work with Vivica over the past four years. Her growth in this job and in life has been nothing short of amazing to be apart of. I have no doubt that she has an incredible future ahead of her and will succeed in anything that she puts her mind to. She has been an incredible asset to our department and positively impacted the lives of so many peers, fans, and coworkers, including myself. She leaves her legacy in all of the students she has trained and the story I will continue to share of the only student to ever walk in with a printed marketing plan for an interview.