The Career Center will be led by former director of Harvard University's Office of Career Services William Wright-Swadel next year, Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta announced Monday.
Wright-Swadel comes to the University with 25 years of experience in the field-serving in his post at Harvard for the past decade and counseling individual students in the years prior-which makes him perfect for the position of Fannie Mitchell Executive Director of Career Services, Moneta wrote in an e-mail.
"Bill brings extensive experience with students who are incredibly talented high-achievers with incredibly diverse interests," Moneta wrote in the e-mail. "This is a great fit for Duke students."
Wright-Swadel will replace Sheila Curran, who is leaving the University to start a consulting firm geared towards the needs of career services offices, Chris Heltne, director of communications for student affairs, wrote in an e-mail.
During his tenure, Wright-Swadel hopes Duke students will get in the habit of taking advantage of the Career Center's resources early and often, he said in the statement.
"Duke's diverse group of students need access to an effective career community if they are to develop the balance of dreams and reality necessary to set and achieve goals across a lifetime," he said in the statement.
The diversity of the Duke student body makes an individualized approach to career services paramount, he added.
"The Career Center will work with each student to really find out who he or she is, to activate that person, and to include and bring out as much of that person as possible in the choices they make throughout their college experience," Wright-Swadel said in the statement. "The goal is to enhance their education: to first broaden their exposure to new experiences consistent with their interests and then to focus their efforts in the right place, at the right time."
When deciding between candidates for the position, administrators relied upon feedback from consumers of the Career Center's services.
Students were involved in all aspects of the search for a director, reviewing applications, lunching with candidates and conducting interviews.
Vice President of Student Affairs Lauren Maisel, a senior who interviewed all candidates considered for the position except for Wright-Swadel, said student feedback was essential to the process.
"The Career Center is so essential to Duke's mission that having students involved is critical to picking someone who will work well with Duke students," she said.
Over the course of the process, the breadth of professions presented at the Career Fair, the extension of the Career Center's hours and the expansion of counseling services for freshmen emerged as issues of particular importance to students, Maisel said. She added that from what she has heard, Wright-Swadel was the candidate who spoke most directly to those concerns.
"From my perspective, I was looking for someone who would actively solicit student feedback and student opinions before making any of these important changes," Maisel said. "I look forward to working with [Wright-Swadel]."
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