Williams to Appoint New Director of Career Services
by Jeremy Sher

This fall, MIT will appoint a new director of the Office of Career Services and Preprofessional Advising. The search is projected to last until late October or early November, at which point the search committee will submit a final list of names to Rosalind Williams, the Dean of Students and Undergraduate Education, who will choose between the finalists.

The Office's mission is to assist students and alumni in finding and choosing careers. Said Professor of Mechanical Engineering Borivoje Mikic, the chair of the search committee, "On the one hand, there are very active job-placement activities going on within the office, and on the other hand, there are the continuous activities of the office," (such as preprofessional advising). "The Office also serves the outside community" by providing assistance to companies looking to hire students. In the past year, the Office brought on campus over 700 interviewers, who conducted over 10,000 interviews with over 2,000 students.

As an advisory committee to Dean Williams, the search committee will give her two to three people to choose from. Besides Mikic, the committee includes undergraduate student Kira Huseby of the Department of Mathematics, graduate student Stacy Morris of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Trisha Brady of the Real Estate Office, Associate Dean Leo Osgood, the director of the Office of Minority Education, and Professors Woody Flowers, James Kirtley, and Paul Levy, of the Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Urban Studies and Planning, respectively.

From the pool of applicants to the position, the search committee will select fifteen to twenty people for further review. "We are still welcoming--actively seeking--new applicants," said Mikic. When this --stage of the process is completed, the committee will have --identified five to six people who will be asked to interview on --campus. The final list will come from this second stage of review.

The search committee is looking for a number of characteristics in an ideal applicant. "First, you would like someone who would think strategically, because that office has to follow fast changes in the globalized economy. The person should be flexible," Mikic said. "MIT is a special school; we are a science and engineering based school. We would like to see someone who has experience working with that type of environment." In addition, the person should have a "proven record of innovation," but should also be able to "manage people in the office to work as part of a team, keep morale high, as well as manage the budget."

Because of the Office's preprofessional-advising work, Mikic feels that the new director should have some background in counseling; in addition, the director should have some "publications which reflect his or her ability to function in an academic environment," as well as a master's degree. "We would like [the director to have] effective training which enables collaboration" with other offices at MIT, he said. Finally, Mikic mentioned that the new director should "understand how much information technology could add to the efficiency of the Office." Because the Office provides information services to students--including a new online site for job --listings--the committee expects that "more information technology --will be used in the future of the Office," he added.

The director must be able "to work laterally, to collaborate within MIT," said Mikic. In particular, Mikic feels that the Office should maintain very close relations with the Dean of Students and Undergraduate Education, with the Faculty, and with outside employers. The relationship with the Dean is important because the preprofessional-advising activities of the Office "are very relevant to undergraduate advising", he said. Mikic added that "the Faculty is also a source of a large number of leads [for job opportunities]. It's very important that the Office stay visible and keep good relations with the Faculty." The Office must maintain relationships with outside employers, in order to work with them on the methods of recruitment at MIT.

To recruit applicants to the position, the search committee has advertised in "key places," and is "making a visible effort to reach those qualified people by networking," said Mikic. "We're consulting with everyone, so I hope we will be very balanced," he added. In its networking efforts, the search committee has involved members of the Corporation who live in the Boston area, members of the Visiting Committee to the Office of the Dean of Students and Undergraduate Education, and some of "those people who are hiring ... students," according to Mikic. A Visiting Committee is a group of Corporation members and other individuals who conduct a review of each MIT department and a few other offices, such as the Dean's Office, every two years, and deliver that report to the Corporation. The committee is conducting "outreach, in making the search visible, in bringing the best people to apply."

The new director will replace former director Robert K. Weatherall, who has left MIT in connection with the Institute's early-retirement program. "He served the Office well," Mikic said of Weatherall. "We have a very good interim director, [Elizabeth Reed]; she's really first-rate."