Your Colleagues

Kaukus’ path shaped by service to community and UB

Arlene Kaukus.

Building relationships has been a central part of life for Arlene Kaukus, UB's director of career services. Photo: Douglas Levere

By MICHAEL ANDREI

Published September 2, 2016 This content is archived.

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“Helping people became a priority early in my life. ”
Arlene Kaukus, director
Career Services

“Helping people became a priority early in my life.”

It was a realization that would eventually guide Arlene Kaukus onto a lifelong course of serving others.

“Following my parents’ divorce, my mother, sister, brother and I had become a household. And at 15, I began working various jobs to help my mother to pay the bills,” says Kaukus, UB’s director of career services.

“One job involved cleaning residents’ rooms in an assisted living facility. I had the opportunity to talk with each person while I worked, so I was able to learn about their lives and they learned about mine. I liked and cared about them, and the experience led me to see them as individuals. That, in turn, started my thinking about making helping people a part of my life.”

After graduating from high school, Kaukus enrolled in Buffalo State College, with the goal of becoming a social worker. Earning a degree in social work would provide her with a pathway to do the work that she enjoyed. It also began a career that would build a deep commitment to work for the greater good of the Western New York community.

“I realized that I enjoyed connecting with others — not just as clients, but as individuals with lives and families and needs of their own,” Kaukus says.

“It was about this time that I began to think more broadly about personal and social responsibility, about how to move beyond simply helping one person at a time.”

Kaukus went on to receive a master’s degree in social work from Case Western Reserve University. By 1979, she discovered the United Way of Buffalo and Erie County. Through its network of agencies, she saw that the United Way was bringing positive change to a much larger number of individual lives than a single, smaller organization.

“I began with them as a relationship manager for agencies that provided health services and who wanted funding assistance from the United Way,” she says.

“It was a delicate balance between advocating for the agencies while also learning that not everyone would receive what they wanted — or even what they deserved. But I saw that the United Way and its staff worked with the agencies for the betterment of the community.”

Kaukus moved within the organization, directing community programs, marketing, managing the United Way’s fundraising campaigns and investments, and holding senior leadership positions. While working at the United Way, she decided to increase her skills and earned an MBA from UB.

“It was a wonderful opportunity to use my social work background and develop new skills that I would call upon throughout my career. The blend of a master’s degree in social work with an MBA gave me the balance between the heart for helping and the skills to effectively lead,” she explains.

At the United Way, Kaukus also discovered what was to become a central tenet of her career: building coalitions and partnerships, and engaging people collaboratively to address outsized issues and complex challenges.

“The United Way touches the lives of so many Western New Yorkers each year,” Kaukus says. “The organization contributes to building a high quality of life for everyone, but the methodology by which it fulfills its mission has changed over the years.

“Collaboration became the key to success: bringing together leaders from business, agencies, non-profits and for-profits to create a shared approach to address issues and challenges that cannot be solved by any one agency alone.”   

Kaukus notes the work that was done by United Way agencies to address the needs of children who have been victims of sexual assault, as well as later adult victims of domestic violence, were examples where collaborative leadership was critical.

“We brought the agencies that are involved together so that a child can speak to one professional and tell his or her story once, and not have to re-experience the trauma of the abuse by engaging with additional agencies and professionals separately. Later, when that model proved successful for children, a similar model was created for adult victims of domestic violence.

“Our society is built upon alliances and working together, yet those seem to be acquired, rather than innate, skills,” Kaukus says.

Kaukus has continued to advocate for partnerships for the past five and a half years as UB's director of career services.

Responsible for serving the career development and readiness needs of UB’s undergraduate, graduate and professional student body, as well as recent alumni, she has directed a successful strategy to encourage regional, national and even international employers to recruit more aggressively from UB’s pool of highly qualified students.

“The careers of the future will require really strong collaborative skills, regardless of the industry or sector,” Kaukus says.

“The global economy changes rapidly from year to year and UB’s role as a provider of skills in the knowledge economy will continue to grow. Proactively building coalitions and public/private partnerships will be important in enabling UB Career Services to help students connect to the working world.”

Some of those connections are made through Career Services’ online tool BullsEye, powered by Handshake; internship programs created collaboratively with companies; and networking events with UB alumni, as well as company site visits for students to learn about a particular company culture or product.

Connecting students to opportunities also occurs through UB’s annual STEM UP and CareerFest, large career fairs that enable UB students to meet and talk with representatives of companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Moog Inc., GEICO, Bloomberg and Roswell Park Cancer Institute, as well as hundreds of others.

Kaukus lets students know that while not everyone comes to college with a clear idea of what they wish to study and why, or what they would like to do upon graduation, Career Services is a key resource in helping students develop that understanding.  

“I tell students that starting early is important — don’t wait until you are ready to graduate. Begin immersing yourself in making connections, especially with alumni. They were once in the same place that you are and can help with an internship, serving as a mentor or perhaps opening a door to a job possibility.”

You have to be open to evolve over time, Kaukus advises. “And as much as we want to be in control, we have no idea what may land in our path on any given day.”

That day for Kaukus came in April 2015, when she learned she had breast cancer.

“Talk about not knowing what will land in our path,” she says. “My immediate concern was for my family and loved ones.

“I did not want to have my family and loved ones worrying about things we could not change. I told them, ‘I will do everything I can to fight this and win.’ I let them know that I was concerned and scared at times, but also at peace.

“I attribute my faith to that sense of peace. I asked them to simply support me through this journey.”

By late May, Kaukus had begun chemotherapy, which would go through September. That was followed by surgery and a month of daily radiation treatments.  

“It turned out to be an eight-month battle, and I was blessed with the strong support of my family, loved ones and friends,” she says. “But I also realized very quickly that the way I was going to get through this, it was important to keep moving forward.”

Arlene Kaukus, right, with colleague Jenna Smith, Career Services' coordinator of assessment and marketing. Photo: Douglas Levere

Her colleagues were inspired by Kaukus’ attitude.

“Through it all, Arlene just kept coming to work,” recalls Jenna Smith, Career Services’ coordinator of assessment and marketing. “She left work very rarely, handling everything with grace and strength, and still putting students first. It was amazing to witness.”

“In every challenge,” Kaukus notes, “there are going to be difficulties and blessings that come along with it. I kept asking myself: How will this experience teach me something that I need to learn?

“I was struck by how many people just kept appearing to help. Friends, colleagues, a great many individuals whom I have known for a long time — and others whom I had not seen in years — helped out in any way they could. Providing meals, cutting grass, asking what I might need.

“During chemo, I would walk every morning to offer a sense of balance and calm. My neighbor saw that as the days got colder, I was still out there and so she knit me a beautiful hand-knitted hat, which I wore everywhere.”

Kaukus says she was amazed by the compassion that was provided by caregivers throughout her cancer treatment.

“When any one of us who were undergoing chemo completed our entire cycle, there was always a big celebration. Huge. It was very emotional.  You were so happy for every one of the people that completed their cycle and admired their strength and courage”

Kaukus says that, in retrospect, there was a lesson learned: “The importance of being humble enough to ask for help.

“It can be a difficult thing to do,” she admits. “I had been accustomed to helping others and serving others in the community. This was a time for me to recognize that people want to help and that being able to ask and accept their help was actually a gift to them.

“Providing others with the gift of allowing them to help was very powerful for me.”

READER COMMENT

Arlene, this was such a truly moving and powerful article. Thanks so much for sharing such a private moment and feat from your life.

 

May God richly bless you.

 

Shelaine Herndon