SBC’s Career Services Team Presents at Professional Conference

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Career services director Wayne Stark and associate director Kristin Ewing were in San Antonio Nov. 27 to 30, and they weren’t there just to stroll the Riverwalk.

Stark and Ewing were presenting at the Southern Association of Colleges and Employers’ “Synergy in San Antonio” conference. Sweet Briar’s No. 5 Princeton Review-ranked career services team spoke on “Tapping Potential in Your Own Back Yard: Forging Synergistic Relationships between Campus and Community.”

Stark and Ewing gave a multi-media presentation highlighting the benefits to college career services offices that develop successful relationships with local municipal organizations.

“By working with such groups as the Lynchburg Office of Economic Development, Chamber of Commerce and Young Professional organization, Sweet Briar College has been able to create excellent opportunities for the constituents it serves,” Stark wrote in summary of the presentation.

The pair discussed how such collaborative relationships also strengthen other college or university constituencies such as admissions, college relations and academic departments, as well as the municipal organizations with which they partner.

Setting the standard

In other news, SBC’s career services office has been getting some attention since it was ranked No. 5 for “Best Career/Job Placement Services” in the 2008 edition of the Princeton Review.

In short, people want to know how they did it. Stark recently received an e-mail from Pepperdine University requesting an interview to ask a “few questions regarding the organization and function of your career services department.”

According to the e-mail, Pepperdine’s office of the president and Alumni Leadership Council is conducting a best practices study of career services.

“As a recognized leader in these departments, you are a university that we wish to use as a benchmark,” wrote Leadership Fellow Kevin Mills, who is conducting the study.