Dear Pipe Dream and Binghamton Students:

We in the Fleishman Center write to thank the editorial board in their recent opinion piece, SOM or SOL, for shining attention on a topic of great interest to us, too. Helping our students become successful is a university-wide responsibility, and I appreciate that your editorial alluded to the need for a “combined effort.” As a liberal arts graduate myself, I am a believer in the lofty ideals of a liberal arts education. While those values are ones we must continue to support and help students articulate, I am also a firm believer that preparing our students to be career-ready does not have to be a mutually exclusive concept. Preparing our students to be successful in their careers after college should also be part of what we do.

As your article wisely noted, the university needs to guide students beyond the typical paths one might consider for a history or English major; that is precisely why I have advocated that we make first destination data of our graduates both transparent and easily accessible so that students can see the wide variety of interesting paths available just from our own recent graduate data alone.

We in the Fleishman Center are very intentional in conducting outreach to organizations, including those that recruit from our significant liberal arts student population. This year we recruited 22 new employers for the fall fair, 60% of which were recruiting all majors. Out of the 123 employers represented at the fair, 45% were recruiting all majors. Last year we collaborated with CCPA to reach out to organizations to attend the fair that we knew might also be of interest to some Harpur students, and so that there were not duplicative events. At the same time, many of the organizations of interest to our liberal arts students do not have large HR departments specifically aimed at college recruiting, nor do they tend to recruit on college campuses through campus interviews or career fairs. Fairs can be terrific opportunities to connect with organizations that do, but we would never suggest that students solely look to career fairs as a single source of job opportunities. Students need to take a more proactive approach, a regular message we present to students.

In the meantime, I invite the writers of the editorial or any other students frustrated with the fair to meet with us and provide input on what employers you would like to see at the career fairs, represented in the winter NYC employer visits and our newly created spring break Washington D.C. visits, or perhaps one of our 30 yearly Cool/Hot programs (80% of which involved Harpur alumni last year) where we partner with Alumni Relations, schools, and departments to bring alumni to you. These are all collaborative programs we coordinate but rely upon partner career offices and Harpur Edge to make successful. Our door is open and we look forward to working with everyone across campus to foster a culture of career success.

Kelli K. Smith

Director, University Career Services