New Career Center to see students from first year through to first job

Jayne Swanson, program manager in the Career Center, offers career counseling to Todd Prull, a senior majoring in political science and communication studies. Photo by Kirk Murray.

Call it a career insight. One of those moments when you see with utter clarity what your next job move should be. For veteran career counselor Jerry Paschal, who started June 3 as executive director of Iowa’s Career Center, it’s the kind of bend-in-the-road moment you hope to see your students experience. As he flew from Iowa to his then home in South Carolina, Paschal experienced one for himself.

“Someone had told me about this great opportunity and the exciting things that were going on here in Iowa,” Paschal said. At the time, he had been director of graduate programs placement at the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina for 15 years and fully expected that to be his last stop on the career trail.

“I came to interview, and on the plane back to South Carolina I knew this was exactly what I wanted to do. The excitement, the energy here, the commitment by the president of this university to career-related issues for students. You’ll find very few universities in the country where career issues are addressed by the president. Attention is being paid to those things.”

It was a change not just for Paschal but for the University as well. Prior to his joining the staff here, there was no executive director for the Career Center. In fact, there was no office called the Career Center. Instead, career services for undergraduates in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Tippie College of Business, the vast majority of the student body, were divided between two offices, Career Development Services (CDS) and the Business and Liberal Arts Placement Office (BLAPO).

In general, CDS served students during the early part of their time at college. That office handled issues like career guidance, helping students choose majors, and linking students with internships and other experiential learning opportunities. Then just before graduation, when students began the search for their first jobs, BLAPO took over. They handled services like researching companies, distributing résumés, arranging interviews, and scheduling on-campus visits from employers. Now both sets of services will be provided by one office.

“We want to make sure that there’s continuity for students,” Paschal said.

Under the new scheme, a student may see the same adviser through all stages of their college career, opening up more possibilities for meaningful mentoring relationships.

“People who have been called career advisers in CDS and people who were called placement specialists in BLAPO will now be called program managers,” Paschal said. “They’re going to be generalists in terms of the full range of services that they provide to students. But they’re going to be specialists in the types of students they serve. We’re going to have program managers who specifically deal with students in business, the hard sciences, and other areas of study.”

Plans are now afoot to put the two offices together literally as well as figuratively. For now, the Career Center continues to operate out of the old offices of BLAPO in Phillips Hall. But the design is under way for a new building to be called the Career Center, which is currently up for approval by the Board of Regents, State of Iowa. It will be located on the same block as Daum Residence Hall, near the Blank Honors Center which is now under construction.

The same continuity Paschal plans to provide to students will be reflected in the new building itself. Although it bears the name Career Center, the new building also will house the Admission Visitors Center, currently located in Bowman House, and the Academic Advising Center, now in Quad Residence Hall. It will also feature classrooms ranging in size from small seminar rooms, to mid-sized classes of 50-75 seats to a 400-seat auditorium. So every stage of a student’s development can happen under one roof, from the first campus visit as a prospective student through to the first full-time job.

“This will be a state-of-the-art building in every regard,” Paschal said.

The classrooms and the career advising offices will feature the most current technology. There will be videoconferencing facilities for job interviews with distant employers. The building will be connected by covered bridge to the Honors Center, which in turn will be connected to Daum Residence Hall for easy access.

“We want students to show up for interviews fresh,” Paschal said.

Paschal believes the restructured department and its new building will be a model for how career services can and should be delivered.

“About six other schools have built new career center buildings, but none of those schools has focused on the whole process,” Paschal said. “I think we’re going to be the prototype that other universities will follow.”

Article by Sam Samuels