Emanuel "Skip" Sturman '70 should feel quite at home when he begins his new job as director of Career Services in February.
Sturman, who held the same position from 1982-91, will be replacing Bill Wright-Swadel, who left to take a similar position at Harvard University.
Senior Associate Dean of the College Dan Nelson, who chaired the search committee for Wright-Swadel's replacement, said Sturman was the most qualified individual selected from a nation-wide pool of applicants.
"Mr. Sturman understands the needs and goals of students at a school like Dartmouth when considering career goals and aspirations," Nelson said. "He has a good sense of what is happening in the employment world and an understanding of the role of the Career Services office in a liberal arts institution."
Sturman will take up the reins next month from Associate Director Kathryn Hutchinson, who served as the interim director during the search.
The Career Services director counsels students, meets with staff and visits employers. The director also speaks to alumni clubs, runs workshops and organizes panel discussions, Sturman said.
Nelson said Sturman, who holds a masters in college student personnel administration, met all the College's criteria.
Sturman has a "strong background in career services work, is good with students, and can manage an office," Nelson said.
Director of Alumni Relations Nelson Armstrong, who served on the search committee, cited the criteria used to select a new director as "leadership and management skills, the ability to work with a team, and a sense of vision in terms of where an office can go given available resources."
He said the committee chose Sturman because he has "a wonderful point of view. He knows Dartmouth from the inside, and he has been in the world of work as an employee specialist."
Sturman's relationship with Dartmouth stretches back a long way. He studied government at the College as an undergraduate, worked in the Career Services office from 1978 to 1991. He was the interim associate director of the Amos Tuck School of Business Career Services office from 1994 to 1995.
Nelson stated in a press release that Sturman left the office of Career Services in 1995 to found CareerWorks, a business that "offer[s] individuals and employers a wide range of career consulting and out-placement services."
Sturman explained that he left the College in order "to see where Dartmouth left off and I began." He quoted Robert Russell, author of "To Catch an Angel", "I knew it too well, I fitted in too well, I liked it too well. I had to leave because I was afraid to leave."
Sturman said his business may continue under new management after he returns to Dartmouth, but he stressed that his time will be spent working with students. Any involvement with CareerWorks would be a peripheral endeavor, he said.
"When I left, I harbored the notion that someday I might return to Dartmouth," Sturman said.
Last June, Sturman saw the opportunity to return to his old job with "freshness, new vitality, and insights."
Sturman said his experiences since leaving Career Services in 1991 would make this directorship very different from his last one.
"It's going to be very different because I'm very different," Sturman said. "New experiences allow me to see the office through a very different prism than when I left."
Sturman said his goal is "to offer the best career services possible."
"The first thing I need to do is listen to students and colleagues ... to really get a sense of what they see as the pressing needs of the office," he said.
