The Financial Aid Office expanded its efforts to help students find campus and off-campus jobs by opening a new office whose services are available to all students regardless of their financial need.
"The office isn't just for people on work-study anymore," said Ann Affleck, director of the student employment office. "It really is for all students on campus."
The College opened the Student Employment Office, which remains under the auspices of the Financial Aid Office, as a separate entity in order to expand the program to all students.
"We've been looking at the need for a student employment office for the last 15 years and each committee that has studied it has reached the conclusion that there ought to be a student employment office, but budget reasons have always prevented its formation," said Ginny Hazen, director of financial aid.
In past years, the duties of keeping a roster of student jobs and soliciting employment opportunities have been passed from Career Services to the Financial Aid Office.
"At least half of the jobs on campus were never advertised," Hazen said. "Before this office no one had a handle on student employment which is allocated $3 million yearly."
"No one really knew where the jobs were and how many students wanted jobs," she said.
Affleck said she hopes to combat these problems quickly, while at the same time remaining committed to helping students find jobs.
"The Student Employment Office will provide services to employers to help them develop new jobs on campus and manage their current hiring process now," she said.
Hazen said one of the office's primary concerns will be locating more employment opportunities.
"The first step the office has to take is to go out and find out where the jobs really are so that we can try to encourage departments and employers to advertise," she said.
"The office is going to be out there trying to 'sell' students as employees both to departments and also outside the Dartmouth community," she said.
Affleck said she found that in previous years there has been a considerable lack of information given to students and employers about employment opportunities.
"There is a discrepancy between some employers who hire lots of students and are very familiar with the hiring process and employers who maybe hire a student every once in a while and are still not sure what to do and even potential employers who are daunted by the whole thing so they don't even hire students," she said.
"Hopefully I will be able to reach all of them through the Student Employment Office," she said.
Both Affleck and Hazen stressed the need for student feedback for the office to succeed.
"I'm hoping that students give us feedback in terms of how we can make the services more valuable to them because it was created for students," Hazen said. "We really want to know what they need and will do whatever we can to provide that service."
"I would really like for students and employers to come to rely on the office not only for the process for posting and finding jobs but also advising," she said.
"I expect in the coming months to be highly visible on campus and if there are problems or issues that people see, I want them to come in or blitz me about them," she said.
The office, which is located in the basement of Thayer Dining Hall, will hold an open house tomorrow from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m.
"We will be debuting new services including the new Federal Work-Study Community Program and a Student Temp job service," Affleck said.
