The VISTA Project

Mary Kate Luft served as the Transform Mid-Atlantic (TMA) AmeriCorps VISTA Career Readiness Program Coordinator from 2019-2020. She was placed with the Achieving Collegiate Excellence and Success (ACES) program at The Universities at Shady Grove (USG) campus in Rockville, Maryland.

The Challenge
The ACES program—a strategic partnership between Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), Montgomery College (MC), and USG—was designed to close equity gaps and increase college enrollment and completion for underrepresented student populations. While academic pathways were clear, a critical systemic challenge remained: ensuring these students were fully workforce-ready and equipped with competitive career competencies upon graduation. The program required sustainable infrastructure, formalized curriculum frameworks, and robust employer engagement systems to scale effectively. Furthermore, the final quarter of Mary Kate’s service term was disrupted by the sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, demanding an immediate operational pivot from in-person programming to virtual environments.

The Solution

Drawing on her strong foundational background in humanistic studies, international peace studies, and theology, Mary Kate stepped up to address these systemic gaps directly. Serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA Leader, she worked to strengthen student support systems by designing and implementing targeted career readiness resources and professional development frameworks. Her work with the ACES Career Readiness framework proved to be a critical precursor to wider career readiness implementation across Maryland, laying foundational groundwork that aligns with the transformative goals seen today in the Maryland Blueprint. Through intentional coaching, strategic resource creation, and capacity building, Mary Kate empowered both VISTA members and the students they served to navigate educational and career pathways more effectively.

Mary Kate leveraged her background in Industrial-Organizational psychology and human communication to build heavy capacity across curriculum design, logistics, and data analytics. To establish institutional memory and standard operating procedures, she designed and drafted the ACES Career Readiness Facilitators Manual and an ACES Career Readiness Resource Guide intended to make the program adaptable as a national model. She also cataloged regional resources and co-created strategic, progressive programming tailored to Montgomery College student levels.

In addition to curriculum development, she provided crucial operational support for high school and college career readiness tracks. She managed employer relationship tracking, organized business partner networks, and co-facilitated high-impact professional experiences including student career immersion trips to major employers like Emergent BioSolutions and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Mary Kate tracked, compiled, and assessed student usage and learning development outcome data. Her analytical support culminated in the co-creation of an institutional annual report presented directly to major community stakeholders and philanthropic funders, such as the Hess Family Foundation. When the pandemic hit, Mary Kate worked quickly with her team to digitize curriculum materials, transitioning career readiness content into virtual modules to ensure that students who missed scheduled live sessions maintained equitable access to vital professional training assets.

The Legacy
By the conclusion of her service term, Mary Kate's work established a permanent foundation for the ACES Career Readiness pathway. Her efforts left USG with finalized student handbooks, a streamlined employer engagement blueprint, and data frameworks that verified the measurable impact of targeted career intervention on student professionalism. Her contributions effectively turned a localized program into a highly scalable, sustainable workforce initiative.

---

Life After VISTA

Following her highly impactful VISTA service year, Mary Kate was hired directly onto the permanent staff at The Universities at Shady Grove, where she spent the next three and a half years as an ACES Career Readiness Coordinator. In this expanded professional capacity, she managed career development coaching, e-learning initiatives, and individual support systems for 900 Montgomery College ACES students, while also engineering the program's inaugural ACES Career Readiness Summer Report in 2021.

With over seven years of specialized experience implementing student engagement, workforce development, and institutional strategies, Mary Kate continues to drive cross-functional growth at USG. She currently serves as the Manager of Recruitment & Transfer Access at the Rockville campus. In this leadership position, she spearheads large-scale enrollment events, orchestrates marketing and outreach campaigns for prospective transfer students, collaborates closely with regional K-12 and community college leadership, and manages an active recruitment team. Her career remains deeply rooted in her core passion: deploying technology, clear messaging, and intentional training systems to empower diverse student cohorts to achieve their highest academic and career milestones.