Mark Dempsey

Background

About Mark Dempsey

After starting my career in the Los Angeles entertainment business, I shifted to higher education to leverage my media experience in communications and project management. I started in independent film production, reading and evaluating screenplays and managing film projects at different stages, from development to production to distribution. As a screenwriter, I worked as an uncredited writer-for-hire and came very close to getting two of my own specs scripts produced. Those years in Hollywood taught me a lot about clear written communication, the creative process, and the importance of organized workflows. If there’s any thread to my career it’s that I’m the rare creative type who’s meticulously organized. I parlayed that entertainment experience into an education position at UCLA Extension where I co-taught an online course on Hollywood financing and negotiation (back before online courses were truly fashionable) and helped program and implement special multi-day contract seminars to teach media best practices to international executives and students. Working in that intersection of media and education is what led me back to my home state of Texas and Collin College. Today, at Collin College’s National Convergence Technology Center, I continue to use creativity, writing, and project management skills to support faculty and students across the country. This includes implementing and managing complex education events, the largest of which - Summer Working Connections - welcomes over 90 attendees each July to my campus for an intense, five-day training session. Whether at UCLA Extension or Collin College, the challenge has been the same - it’s only the subject matter that has changed. Instead of supporting media education, today I'm supporting IT education. I recently deepened my expertise in supporting education by volunteering at my alma mater SMU. I spent several years serving as the Director of Communications for the Diamond M Club, the fundraising arm of the SMU marching band. I managed all of the organization’s social media and wrote all of the monthly newsletters, which required me to self-learn a number of new digital media skills, many of which of have proved useful at my “day job" at Collin College. My communications efforts helped boost membership and donation numbers. It continues to be a thrill both to craft impactful written and visual communications and to deliver successful, impactful events for a greater good. This is what drives me every day.