Mark McFadden

The McComsey Career Development Center (CDC) on AU’s campus is a crucial resource for alumni, as well as current students. Mark McFadden MS ’99 the director of the CDC, is very hopeful for the future and encourages all alumni to seek any help that they may need at the career center.

McFadden notes that during this school year, 2008-09, the CDC has made 369 alumni contacts including “face-to-face meetings as well as working with alums via e-mail.”

“The number of alums we work with…is much easier to track with the new database system,” says McFadden. He notes that in the 2007-08 school year the CDC met with 242 alumni which was approximately 14.5 percent of all appointments, and in 2006-07 they met with 201 alumni which made up about 12.6 percent of all appointments. “The problem with the 2006-08 stats is that we could not track the number of alumni that we worked with electronically…it is safe to assume that the numbers for the previous years would be higher,” says McFadden.

For the current school year, the overall appointments and contacts for alumni is at 18.8 percent; which compared to the 2006-08 school years is a significant increase. However, the stats will continue to grow until the end of the school year. “The 2008-09 data is incomplete; we will continue to gather this data until the end of this semester,” says McFadden.

McFadden says that the alumni do use the CDC when they need it, and because of the current economy the use has increased. With technologies such as Linkedin.com, contacting alumni is easier and more efficient. “Since the beginning of the academic year, this group has grown from 200 to 492,” says McFadden. This is a 150 percent increase over the past seven months. He says that these numbers represent an increase in the ease and comfort of online networking, as well as the need to secure as many resources as possible in these tough times.

McFadden says that the career centers on college campuses have grown in the past 10-15 years. “When I was attending the University of Pittsburgh in 1984-85, we had a bulletin board for job postings,” says McFadden. He said that there were no career fairs or networking opportunities 25 years ago, and that services to students and alumni have come a long way.

Tags: Alfred University, Career Development Center, Mark McFadden

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