MC AGAIN ACHIEVES 99 PERCENT PLACEMENT RATE FOR GRADS
Release Date: January 31, 2002
It has been said that “a degree from
Monmouth College is a step to success,” and an overwhelming of percentage of recent MC
graduates will agree.
Vice president for student life/dean of
students Jackie Condon recently announced that the six-months-after-graduation placement rate
for the 202-member Class of 2001 was 99 percent. That figure was 99 percent in 1998 and 2000.
In 1999, it was 100 percent.
Condon said 33 percent of the 2001 graduates
went into business management or accounting positions, while another 30 percent have become
teachers. Nineteen percent of the Class of 2001 enrolled in graduate school, 8 percent are in
social services and 5 percent are in computer- or science-related fields.
Condon credited Monmouth’s Wackerle 4-Year
Intentional Career and Leadership Development Program as one of the key reasons for its
placement success.
“The Wackerle Career and Leadership Center
does an excellent job creating opportunities for students to interface with employers,” she
said. “The program encourages the development of those skills and characteristics that will
make students successful in the workplace. Simply put, our students are just better prepared
when they start their job search. Since the creation of this program, our placement rate has
never been under 99 percent. I’m proud of everybody at the Wackerle Center for all their hard
work.”
The center is directed by Mindy Damewood,
who said, “Our purpose is to educate our students about how to compete in successful
employment and graduate school searches. Clearly, these students have gained the necessary
skills and have gone on to be successful in terms of securing jobs or finding programs to
continue their studies.”
Condon also noted that Monmouth College has
increased the number of internships that it offers and that Monmouth’s Teacher Candidate
Directory and Senior Resume Book are seen by many local and regional employers, helping
upcoming graduates more easily receive the type of exposure they are seeking. “I noticed that
a lot of the respondents to our survey cited the two books we put out, as well as the
placement association, as key aids to their successful searches,” said Damewood.
In addition to Monmouth’s internal work,
Condon credited the Illinois Small College Placement Association, a consortium of liberal arts
colleges in the state.
“They provide quite a few services,” she
said, which include an electronic resume referral service that students and employers from a
variety of fields can access.
“Experience has shown that these graduates
will change jobs four to five times in their lives,” concluded Condon. “We don’t simply offer
a placement office. We teach our students how to gain meaningful employment for the rest of
their lives.”
Released
by the Office of College Communications
Barry McNamara, Associate Director of College Communications
Phone: 309-457-2117
Fax: 309-457-2330
|
