Dana (Bruxvoort) de Andres
March 27, 2018
Dana de Andres (2017)
Dana (Bruxvoort) de Andres lives in Denver, CO, where she has established a career in marketing for international development nonprofits. Outside of her day job, she volunteers at the Denver County Jail, developing a program to support inmates transitioning out of jail. She is an avid rock climber and loves exploring the Rocky Mountains. She is passionate about her houseplants and good grammar.
What year did you graduate and what was your concentration?
2011, Public Communication
What extra-/co-curricular activities did you do?
I was a writer for the Index and Detours, the president of Lambda Pi Eta (the national honor society for COMM) and a member of Campus Christian Fellowship.
Did you go to grad school? If so, where? Was it immediately after you left Truman or did you wait? Why?
Dana at graduation (May, 2011).
When I finished at Truman, I had no intentions of going to grad school, but a bit of world travel and some nonprofit work made me realize I wanted to pursue a career in the international development field. I needed additional education in order to do that. So, I waited three years after graduation from Truman to start grad school. I’ve since earned my M.A. in International Development from the University of Denver.
What was your first job after graduation?
My initial paying job was a PR internship at FleishmanHillard in St. Louis. After that, I interned for a development organization in Thailand, which influenced my decision to attend grad school.
What work do you do/What are you doing now?
I am the Content Manager & Writer at Water For People, a nonprofit that focuses on promoting safe water and sanitation services in nine countries. In my role, I spend my days writing and project managing content that serves two purposes: fundraising to expand Water For People’s work and educating our audiences about the impact of our work. This includes direct mail, web content, email, social media, annual reports, press releases and media pitches, overviews and summaries, presentations, and more.
Dana climbing a water tower in Bolivia during an asset collection trip (2017).
My favorite part of my job is planning and executing asset collection trips — most recently to South America where I conducted 44 interviews in 10 days in some of the most remote parts of Bolivia and Peru.
How has your Liberal Arts/COMM education helped you?
What I really appreciated about the Communication program at Truman was the mix of hard and soft skills. Yes, you have to take theory classes (more on these later), but there are also opportunities (via classes, clubs, and on campus media outlets) to get very tangible hard skills that employers really value.
What would you say a COMM student should absolutely do while at Truman?
Two things. First, write for the Index (now the Truman Media Network) and in general, pursue any opportunities to write in shorter forms that aren’t research papers. When writing for student media, you have to be able to:
- produce articles every week, which gets you in the practice of writing often (and helps you build your portfolio).
- write succinctly but still get all of the important information across, which is a critical skill.
- get used to being edited heavily and often, which is good to get used to early in your career!
Second, take Publication Design & Layout. I have used basic Adobe Creative Suite skills in every nonprofit marketing job I’ve had and it is such a great “hard skill” to have as a marketer. It even was one of the clinchers to getting my first job out of grad school, despite having fewer years of marketing experience than other candidates.
Which class did you dislike at the time you took it, but now you’re grateful you took it?
Just chilling outside Campbell Apartments during Kirksville’s “Snowmageddon” (2010).
It’s a stretch to say I disliked these classes, but I would say I was skeptical about the value of Communication Theory and Persuasion Theory; however, I have come across so many instances where I have applied principles of theories learned in these classes (Thanks Dr. Self and Dr. Cianciola!). I did my final Persuasion Theory paper on the Narrative Paradigm, and I find myself in so many situations in my job where the Narrative Paradigm is hugely applicable.
What was your greatest accomplishment at Truman?
The ways I grew personally and academically at Truman opened my eyes to the world, leading me to move to Thailand for six months, which has resulted in working in a field I truly love. I’m proud of the ways I pushed myself to grow during college, and so happy with the trajectory it set me on. Life would look so different if it weren’t for Truman.
Why is Truman a good place for a student to study?
Truman gives you a lot space to tailor a program to exactly what you want. I was able to get two minors (Music and Psychology) alongside my Communication major! Class sizes are small, so you are able to interact more with professors than at larger universities. Personally, I loved the simplicity of life on campus and in Kirksville and found it to be a great place to spend my four years for college.
What advice would you give someone who wants to go into the same line of work as you?
Take every opportunity you can to become a good writer and storyteller. Even outside of marketing roles, writing is arguably the single most important professional skills you can have. Write all different kinds of content — long, short, print, digital — and get feedback on how you can craft your writing to tell the stories that will most resonate with your audiences.
What do you miss most about campus/Kirksville?
Dana with her friend & roommate, hanging out by Pickler Library (2009).
I made some lifelong friends at Truman and I miss having them in such close proximity! We’re now scattered across the country and often reminisce about our time in Kirksville — summertime farmers’ markets, long-distance running through every corner of town, frequent dinners at La Pachanga, and so much more.
What tag line would you create for the COMM department at Truman?
“Communication: The Foundation of … Everything.”
If you could come back to Truman and teach a class for a semester, what would be its title and what would it be about?
Nonprofit Marketing and Communications! It would focus on the types of communication you most commonly work on in nonprofits (social media, emails, annual reports, press releases, and impact stories) and rely heavily on storytelling frameworks and elements of persuasion and the narrative theory.
What did we not ask that you think is important for people to know?
It sounds so cheesy, but follow your heart. If you pursue a career in public communication and marketing, you will be spending 40+ hours a week “selling” something. It might be a product, an event, a cause, or an idea. Whatever it is, for you to truly to it well, you need to believe in it from deep down.
Dana borrowing a senora’s hat in Bolivia during an asset collection trip (2017).
Selling things I truly believe in — programs to keep kids out of human trafficking, micro-finance to empower women to overcome poverty, and clean water to save millions of lives globally — has made me excited to get up each day and left me knowing I made some sort of small difference in the world.
If you would like to hear more of Dana’s story, you can follow her on Instagram (@dana.deandres) or on Twitter (@dana_deandres). You can check out some of Dana’s work with Water for People here and here. Below is a video Dana helped produce for the charity Friendship Bridge.