BVU Graduate Shares Leadership Practices, Instruction with Greater Community
1993 alum Angie Chaplin returned to campus for presentations, workshops, one-on-one sessions
Angie (Vyverberg) Chaplin came to Buena Vista University in 1989 with every intention of becoming a TV news anchor. An internship experience changed her career trajectory, eventually resulting in a different, albeit very rewarding career that now finds her serving as Founder/Owner of Mindful Leadership.
Chaplin returned to campus earlier this semester to work with students, faculty, and staff in a variety of settings, ranging from one-on-one meetings to class sessions to a workshop and presentation cohosted by the Storm Lake United chamber of commerce organization and BVU Career & Leadership Development.
“Angie brought so much knowledge and enthusiasm to campus for Leadership Week,” says Mandi Mollring, Director of BVU Career and Leadership Development. “She met with several student groups and delivered the message that leadership happens at all levels. Additionally, the daily activities she helped plan and execute provided great building blocks for students to gain skills and be able to communicate them to professionals.”
“It was almost a full-circle experience for me,” says Chaplin, who established her personal and corporate leadership consulting practice three years ago. “Following my graduation from BV, I worked in Admissions and then in University Marketing & Communications as Editor of the Alumni Magazine.”
Where Chaplin once interviewed and featured alumni in BVU publications, she’s now being featured.
She credits the liberal arts focus of her undergraduate experience as one factor that allows her to adjust and move through various industry fields, ranging from communications to marketing to higher education to human resources to organizational development.
It’s a long way from the visions she had of being at the TV anchor’s desk.
“At BVU I was heavily involved in Innovation Video,” she remembers. “I had a talk show; I was the News Director; I went to Phoenix to intern.”
And while there, Chaplin was assigned to cover a drive-by shooting at a high school.
“There was an excitement everyone had in covering that story,” she says. “I prepared and got the quotes we needed and rushed back to the station for the story. Amid all that I thought, ‘Wait, people are excited about a shooting at a high school?’”
Chaplin soon realized she wasn’t as passionate about hard news like a school shooting. She pivoted and earned a degree with emphases in public relations and broadcast journalism. As her career has moved, she has remained in contact with those who influenced her most at BVU.
“I can see now that BVU was the place where I began understanding, in a general sense, what leadership was all about. Leadership was embedded in every activity we had,” she says.
Leadership research serves as the foundation for Chaplin’s coaching, facilitating, and mentoring efforts today. She works to integrate data-driven solutions with strength-based approaches to create solutions for leading people, processes, and projects.
Along the way, she has appeared on Iowa Public Radio, WHO-TV, in Des Moines Business Record, and more, and has further demonstrated her communication skills in interviews with TV anchors. She also celebrated sobriety, doing so publicly with a Facebook post at her 30-day milestone three years ago.
“I share my story out loud, letting others know they’re not alone,” she says. “My struggle was for 10 years in the very dark end of alcohol addiction. I thought I was the only one. My ability is to communicate, use my voice on behalf of the people who often feel the need to suppress their voice.”
Chaplin says her leadership isn’t solely immersed in statistical data; it is also enmeshed in her sobriety.
“By being sober, I became a better leader,” she says. “Everything I needed to know about sobriety, I learned from all those practices surrounding leadership.”