STAFF SPOTLIGHT

Career services director helps students translate liberal arts into a world of opportunity

By Fred Richardson

Kate Brooks, director of Liberal Arts Career Services, ruefully tells the following joke: “What does the liberal arts major say to the business major? ‘Do you want fries with that?’”

The joke, of course, is tongue-in-cheek, but in telling the joke Brooks is acknowledging a serious point — that many liberal arts majors believe they are at a disadvantage when they enter the working world. To help address those concerns, Brooks is charting a bold new path for Career Services and the students it serves.

Hired from Dickinson College in February 2003, Brooks quickly set out to reinvigorate Career Services. She began by reorganizing the staff, creating an advising team and adding a full recruiting staff.

‘Not only does a liberal arts education help students learn how to think critically, it gives them knowledge that is needed by employers,’ says Kate Brooks, director of Liberal Arts Career Services. - Photo by Christina Murrey

Next she set out to consolidate Career Services from two separate offices into a single office that would be more inviting to students and employers. Brooks oversaw the relocation of Career Services into an expansive new office suite within the Flawn Academic Center.

The new Career Services Center, which opened this past September after a $1.2 million renovation, provides students an inviting new space to explore their career interests. The center now boasts an impressive resource library, scheduled advising and four hours per day of walk-in advising services.

The new facility also is helping Brooks achieve one of her top goals: recruiting the recruiters. Employers now have at their disposal a conference room for recruitment information sessions that can hold up to 20 students. The center also has interview rooms that create a professional but comfortable ambience.

The combination of the new facility and Brooks’ high energy is making an impact. More than 800 organizations are registered with Liberal Arts Career Services. Those organizations include a diverse range of major employers, including Archer Daniels Midland, Hewitt Associates, Lehman Brothers, Neiman Marcus, the American Red Cross, BASF, the FBI, the Peace Corps and McKinsey & Co.

Through its recruiting program and the AccessUT database, more than 2,100 jobs and internships were posted for College of Liberal Arts students in 2005. In addition, Brooks has worked to increase the number of large employer events hosted by Career Services.

Just as important as the new facility is Brooks’ philosophy and the desire to help students understand the worth of their liberal arts education.

“We haven’t been as effective as we should in that area,” says Brooks. “We need to help students understand the value of their degree in the workplace. That’s what led us to define our mission as helping students translate a liberal arts education into a world of opportunities.”

To demonstrate her point, Brooks tells the story of a former student from a film class she taught who earned an internship at CNN. The news team he was assigned to produced a story on conflict in the Middle East and needed a film clip to complement the story. The intern suggested a clip from “High Noon” that he remembered from Brooks’ class. The producers used the clip he suggested and eventually offered him a job.

“Not only does a liberal arts education help students learn how to think critically, it gives them knowledge that is needed by employers,” Brooks says.

The story illustrates how liberal arts majors can use their wealth of knowledge in the work place, Brooks says.

“Not only does a liberal arts educa-tion help students learn how to think critically, it gives them knowledge that is needed by employers. Our job is to help them realize the ways the knowledge they’ve gained is of value.”

One way Brooks hopes to accomplish this goal is through a “Liberal Arts in Management” class she will teach in the fall aimed at helping students make creative connections between their coursework and career opportunities and to develop skills to articulate the strength of their degrees to employers. 

 “In reality, a liberal arts degree is tremendously powerful when applied intelligently. We need to help our students understand their value and effectively position their skills and education to succeed in the job market,” she says.

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