Career Services Pioneers

It is genuinely a profound privilege for me to introduce, or reintroduce, Dave Bechtel to my career services colleagues in the HireBig10Plus organization.

When I first broke into the profession forty years ago, Dave already established himself as a powerful influence in our field. Under his tutelage, the University of Illinois Career Development and Placement Center Publication Series offered practitioners several invaluable resource books. Those publications addressed career development theory and practice, job search innovations, womens’ career issues, best practices in career planning courses and peer counselor programming. Thus, it was no surprise that these publications were staples found in college and university career centers nationwide. 

In 1984, Dave published the results of study funded by a National Endowment of the Humanities grant.  The Early Career Patterns Among Humanities College Graduates publication was highly regarded in our profession. It also became a valued text for academic departments and liberal arts colleges, and referenced in articles and books written in support of the liberal arts education.  David further influenced colleges’ and universities’ delivery of career services with his article entitled The Organization and Impact of Career Programs and Services Within Higher Education which appeared in the Summer, 1993 The Changing Role of Career Services issue of the New Directions for Student Services Series. This publication series is widely read by Vice Presidents and other senior administrators of Student Affairs.

In the late 1980’s, Dave was approached by the College Placement Council (now the National Association of Colleges and Employers) to join a select team of seasoned professionals to conceptualize and form the CPC Management Leadership Institute for Career Planning and Placement. He provided leadership to these efforts and served on the faculty of the first Institute conducted at the University of Minnesota in 1991. Fittingly, when NACE revamped the Institute in time for its offering in Cincinnati in 2001, Dave was once again tapped to share his expertise as a faculty presenter.

Dave took very seriously his role as mentor and steward of the college career services profession. He established himself as a leader in our field through service in professional associations.  He served in a variety of leadership roles in both the Midwest ACE/MCPA and CPC/NACE through service on the Board of Directors for both organizations. Dave also mentored his own staff members into leadership service. As a result, there are former NACE officers, including a former president, and several former MCPA/MWACE presidents that owe a huge debt of gratitude to Dave for his support of their service.    

Arguably, the most prestigious individual award in the career services profession, the NACE Academy of Fellows recognizes those long-serving leaders that contribute to our field through the advancement of knowledge, leadership, and/or excellence in professional practice. Dave was among the early recipients of this award not long after its establishment.

Specific to our HireBig10Plus, what is perhaps the most prestigious individual award is aptly named after Dave – The David S. Bechtel Career Educator of the Year Award that recognizes outstanding contribution to the field of career development. As you progress through this year’s virtual Allerton Conference along with hundreds of other career services professionals representing 17 if this nation’s great universities, remember that this professional experience is indelibly linked to Dave and his invaluable contribution to the professional learning and growth of career services practitioners.

Written by Tim Luzader, Executive Director of Career Success at Purdue University

A Magic Conference - A Magic Place

Prior to Penn State joining the Big Ten Conference in 1990, David Bechtel, the long-time Director of Career Services at the University of Illinois, invited me to present a program at the Allerton Conference. That was my first exposure to Allerton and the Big Ten Conference, and I was not sure what to expect. I was impressed with the Allerton Conference Center, but I was even more impressed with the conference itself for the reasons enumerated below.

First, the remote nature of the Center kept the focus on substantive topics and not on the hotel facilities or non-conference entertainment and attractions. Second, the conference program was designed so the topics were chosen by the participants rather than by some out-of-touch conference committee that had a particular topic to promote. Third, because the program topics were not known in advance, sessions took place in the "here and now" rather than being canned, pre-planned, or dominated by sophisticated but only modestly relevant AV presentations. Fourth, the conference participants were true peers from other Big Ten Universities all of which are of similar size, purpose, and mission, all confronting similar problems and challenges. That is unlike NACE sessions which are often dominated by small liberal arts and community colleges with only modest relevance to Big-Ten-type institutions. Fifth, the conference is free of corporate participants who tend to focus on recruitment issues rather than campus-based career development issues. Finally, the conference center food is simple and nutritious, and the cost is low.

During my tenure as the Director of Career Services at Penn State, we never missed an Allerton Conference. At the time, Penn State was the farthest East member of the Big Ten, and our participation always involved extended van travel which eventually became known to our staff as "Big-Ten Van Therapy!" I have fond memories of that Van Therapy and of the many productive discussions that took place with our many Big Ten Career Services colleagues.

Let the Magic continue.

Dear Friends,

It is with great pleasure that I write to you all as you participate in the 2021 Allerton meeting. I hope that you will enjoy this meeting as I always did. Let me first introduce myself. I am Kitty McGrath and was the Director of Career and Placement Services at the University of Notre Dame from 1983 to 1998. It was my pleasure to have been invited to participate in a number of Allerton meetings during that time even though Notre Dame wasn't a Big Ten or Big Twelve school. The photo that you see includes my husband, Gary McGrath, who was also a participant in this meeting as Director of the Career Services office at the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts before I came to Notre Dame. We were married in 1998 and both took positions at Arizona State, Gary as Dean of Students at the Polytechnic campus and me as Executive Director of Career Services for the four campuses. We retired in 2010 and are thoroughly enjoying the Arizona sunshine.

The Allerton meeting was a unique time for many of us. The content of the meeting was an on-the-spot development allowing everyone to submit topics or questions. The participants were all career services professionals from large universities in the Midwest. At the meetings I attended, the orientation was primarily toward what I would define as career development. There was not an employer focus nor were there professional speakers giving prepared presentations. The freedom to explore topics of specific concern to individual attendees was probably one of the highlights of the meeting.

Given the open format, attendees generally brought up very current issues, areas of growth and change in the field. The growth in technology had an impact on the entire range of services so was often the basis for discussion.

I felt that there were a number of ways in which these meetings were valuable. Meeting and often really engaging with colleagues you hadn't known before was a primary plus. It offered the opportunity to compare service delivery systems and to challenge ourselves to look at new and different methods of all kinds of career challenges.

It is exciting to know that the Allerton meeting continues to provide a unique context for career services professionals to learn and to have a thoroughly enjoyable experience together. I hope that you will come away from this meeting with a whole raft of new ideas to consider for the coming year.

Best Wishes,

Kitty