Dawn McCaw (center), assistant director of the Career Resource Center, works with a group of students in the center’s new conference room, which comes complete with Internet connection and a projection screen. Later this summer, a digital signage system will be installed outside the center to advertise programs, events and resources. The center has collaborated with Instructional Media Services on both projects.

The Career Resource Center staff has seen a sharp increase in student drop-in visits since moving to the Humanities Building in January.

Tonda Highley, associate dean of student advising and director of the Career Resource Center, attributes the more than 57 percent increase to the new visibility of the center on the academic side of campus. Highley said students pass the new center in Humanities room 105 every day and they are more apt to stop in to speak with a counselor, use the center’s computers or practice their interviewing techniques.

“We are so enthusiastic about being among the students and faculty,” said Highley.

Visits to the new offices have not been limited to students. According to Highley, faculty members often stop in to request information for students or develop fieldwork opportunities for their classes. Also, the center is now included as a “hot spot” on the Admission Department’s campus tours.

“We all feel such a positive sense when we come in here,” Highley said of her staff’s new space with its green walls, windowed walls and increased space.

The center’s move from the seventh floor of the Haggerty Administration Building (which is now home to the Center for Research, Regional Education and Outreach) coincided with a shift in the center’s mission. While helping students obtain internships and secure employment after graduation has always been a part of the staff’s work, these elements are now the driving force of their efforts.

The Career Resource Center’s front doors on the first floor of the Humanities Building. The center’s staff begins moving to its new location this week.

In an effort to bring student advising and career support to the center of campus, the Career Resource Center is moving from the Haggerty Administration Building to the Humanities Building, beginning Jan. 14.

Tonda Highley, associate dean of student advising and director of the Career Resource Center, is excited about moving to the heart of campus. “We’ve been interested in finding a more accessible space for students,” said Highley.

The major highlight of the new location is that it is closer to classrooms and faculty offices and is now across the concourse from the Academic Advising Center (in the Wooster Science Building), an office that the Career Resource Center works closely with in preparing students for meaningful careers after New Paltz.

The renovation of rooms 105, 105A and 105C in the Humanities Building will provide the center with seven new offices, a waiting area, a reception area, interview rooms and a conference room. The center, which is also the training site for students completing practicums in the Mental Health Counseling Program, will have additional space to carry out training. The center will also be working with Instructional Media Services to install digital signage outside of the new location to announce the center’s programming and events.

The waiting area (left) and an office (right) in Career Resource Center in the Humanities Building.

Highley said the move has allowed the department to continue enhancing its services towards their new focus established at the beginning of 2008. “We have shifted our department’s focus towards services to support students seeking internships and post-graduate employment opportunities,” said Highley.

For more information on the Career Resource Center, visit www.newpaltz.edu/careers.

New art on display in Humanities

This fall, the latest additions to the Humanizing Humanities project include five pencil drawings by Aleanna Luethi-Garrecht (Art) hanging in the second-floor corridor of the Humanities Building; two oil paintings by Thomas Sarrantonio (Art) hanging in the first-floor corridor; two oil paintings by Amy Cheng (Art) hanging in the south foyer and a five-canvas photograph by local photographer Steve Jordan hanging at the concourse building entrance. The project originated in 1998, the brainchild of Peter D.G. Brown (Foreign Languages), with the goal of revitalizing the look and feel of the Humanities Building with new furniture, lighting, windows, carpeting, painting, redesigned stairwells, the banning of advertising flyers from classrooms and the installation of air conditioning in 2008.