By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Bowling Green State University unveiled a new launching pad for Falcons Friday.
BGSU President Mary Ellen Mazey celebrating the opening of the new Career Center.
In cutting the ribbon for the new Career Center and Student Employment Center on the second floor of the Bowen-Thompson Student Union, President Mary Ellen Mazey said: “It’s about coming to Bowling Green State University and preparing you for that lifetime of success.”
When she first came as president in 2011, one of the first questions she asked Provost Rodney Rogers was where career services were located. The offices, he said, were in an academic building – Math Science, to be precise.
That would not do, Mazey said.
The new center realizes her vision of putting the Career Center at the heart of student life, in a place where about 50,000 people a week pass through. “It’s right here, front and center,” she said.
The design, Jeff Jackson, BGSU assistant vice president for Student Career Success and director of the Career Center, is meant to welcome students into the space, with lounge area with comfortable seating extending out from the office. That’s where employers might come to have a milk shake or nachos with prospective employees. That leads into conferences rooms where they can meet one-on-one with employers.
That’s part of how the new center is designed to connect students with employers. That may be a job on campus, an internship, or the job that starts their careers, Jackson said.
The office is central to the university’s internship guarantee. BGSU promises that every student will have an opportunity to have an internship or other experiential learning, a co-op job, research project, study abroad, Jackson said.
On hand were two people at the opposite ends of the career spectrum.
Leigh Dunwood, a junior from Columbus, came to BGSU with little idea what she wanted to do with her life. What she knew was “I wanted to help people.”
Through her work with the Career Center – she’s now a student ambassador – and career counseling, she has her sights set on going into higher education student affairs. That is, she’d wants to be doing what Jackson is doing.
Mike Kuhlin worked at career services at BGSU for two years after he graduated in 1968 with a degree in journalism. He met his wife, Sara, during that time. She worked in the financial aid office nearby, and they married in December, 1971.
Once he was engaged, Kuhlin had decided that “I needed to broaden my horizons and do something else.”
“So I used career planning and placement to get a position with Ohio Bell in an accelerated management history.”
Kuhlin stayed with the company and its successor entities through tumultuous times of mergers and acquisitions. He was part of the team that created Ameritech and was there “to shut off the lights” when the firm became AT&T Inc. Kuhlin retired as senior director of corporate relations.
He and his wife, who died in 2013, continued to have close contacts with the university. Their generosity led the university to name the new School of Media and Communication the Michael and Sara Kuhlin Center in their honor.
Jackson said that the new career and student employment home will greatly enhance his office’s ability to help students make those kind of connections.
That starts with the location. He said the space in Math Science was good, but unless a student knew what they were looking for, they wouldn’t find the office. So students in other majors wouldn’t necessarily be aware of the office and its services.
Any students coming through the student union will be aware of the office. “They know we are here now. … Everybody comes to the student union.”
Jackson, who came to BGSU three years ago, said that the programming offered has already been developed. From his first day on campus, he knew that a new center was in the works. So he and his colleagues wanted the programs in place so they would be “ready to rock and roll” when they moved into their new home.
The space provides a number of amenities for employers, both spaces where they can meet with a groups of students as well as conferences rooms where they can conduct interviews.
Jackson said he’s very solicitous of employers. “I want them to have as wonderful an experience as possible,” Jackson said.
The center has an advisory council of 22 companies. The center hosts an annual symposium in late summer to bring employers together to discuss their needs.
Those are companies, he said, who can hire a broad range of graduates. Employers with more focused needs are connected with those specific academic units related to those disciplines.
Angie Abouzied, a talent acquisition specialist for Pro Medica, said that the health care corporation hires many BGSU students. That includes students in health professions as well as graphic designers. Just recently three students who were interns in her office got jobs with the company.
The new center, she said, will help employers to connect with BGSU students.
Jackson said his office is trying to get students to engage with the career center earlier in their time at BGSU. Career staff even reach out to prospective students and their parents.
“You don’t have to wait until your junior and senior year” to start thinking about an internship, he said.
Those experiential learning opportunities give students a chance to explore their chosen field. They get to explore the many facets of a particular career, he said. The center offers “whatever we can do to help them understand this is the track I want to be on.”
And in some cases, they may learn that maybe a particular career isn’t what they want.
That’s very important. “Every time they change their major it extends their time, and they end up donating more money to BGSU,” Jackson said. “I always tell parents, ‘I don’t want you to give us one extra dime.’”
He said more than 4,000 students annually take part in an experiential learning, and Jackson said the goal is to continually increase that number “so students know the plethora of options out there.”
The Student Employment Center helps students connect with work while still on campus. That includes, Jackson said, the 2,500 students with on-campus jobs.
Having campus jobs keeps them more connected to the university, and in that way helps retain them as students.
The center also houses the WorkNet program. Every student, Jackson said, is automatically signed up for WorkNet which has a database of about 17,000 employers across the country.
Mazey in her remarks said that later this semester, BGSU will unveil its Falcon Flight Plan. “That’s going to guarantee that every student, when they leave here, has their career path laid out for them”
Those plans will provide a direction. “You have to be flexible,” Mazey added. Kuhlin probably didn’t envision a career as a corporate executive when he was a student here, she said. “You just never know what that BGSU degree will lead to.”
