Career Center Showdown: Steve Koppi Believes in the Liberal Arts

The Career Center’s seeking a new director. In a three-part series, we’re reporting from the front lines.

Steve Koppi, the first of three applicants for the position of Wesleyan’s Career Center Director, spoke to a small group of inquisitive Wes students and faculty last night in 41 Wyllys. Koppi is the former director of both Mount Holyoke College and Gallaudet University’s Career Centers. If hired, he would replace Michael Sciola, who left Wesleyan in 2012 to become associate vice president for advancement and director of career services at Colgate University.

Koppi spoke eagerly on the benefits of the liberal arts education we’re all so happily receiving. Koppi argued that our generation’s employers are placing more and more emphasis on essential skills that the liberal arts education offers—including writing, reasoning and social/interpersonal skills. It is these skills that Koppi hopes to draw on if he were to be given the opportunity to get us some jobs (and oh, how we need them).

Koppi hopes for Wesleyan’s Career Center to better cater to liberally minded Wesleyan students, presenting them to employers as the “360 degree package”—fully capable of handling the myriad challenges they will face in the workplace.

Want to check out the next two applicants? Stop by 41 Wyllys, Room 112, next Monday and Wednesday.