Joanne Tobiessen looks at the
word “retirement” with suspicion.
Tobiessen prefers to see the years ahead as a time
to explore an array of activities that she says she has put aside for too many
years, from art to traveling.
“Retirement
is a word that's heavily laden with implications,” she says. “We all tend to
get into certain rhythms in life, and this will be an opportunity to explore. I
like to think of it as a time when I can 'reinvent' myself.”
A
political science major in college with a long interest international relations
(she has her B.A. from Northwestern), travel will be a big part of her agenda.
So, too, will be art, reading, and community activities.
Tobiessen
is a good example of what she often tells students –that they probably will
have a number of careers during their lifetimes. After graduating from college,
she went on to earn a master's in social welfare from the University of
California at Berkeley. After working at the University of North Carolina's
Developmental Evaluation Clinic, she came to Schenectady with her husband,
Peter (a professor of biology at the College). She was a social worker with
United Cerebral Palsy for several years before becoming the director of the
Career Development Center at Russell Sage College in 1979. She became director
of Union's Career Center in 1983.
She says
she has seen a number of dramatic changes in her time at Union – an electronic
recruiting system that lets students and employers contact each other
twenty-four hours a day, for example. Yet, even though the whole career search
process has sped up, it retains a need for personal contact.
“We still
place a tremendous emphasis on counseling students, there still is a great deal
of personal contact and encouragement between students and alumni, and
employers still want to meet and get to know the people they're interested in,”
she says. “We are a 'high-tech, high-touch' operation.”
Tobiessen
remembers that when she arrived at Union, the annual career festival was held
in Alumni Gym, where employers would talk with students while other students
and staff jogged around the second-floor track. Students who wanted to sign up
for interviews would show up early in the morning so they could be first in
line, and they laboriously typed their resumes.
It was
also a time when students didn't have the support they have now. “Our whole
society is much more aware that students need relevant experience while they're
in college,” she says. “Students and their parents know this, and companies
routinely are looking for internships and co-ops.”
The
Career Center's reach has expanded to meet those changes. The office encourages
alumni involvement as much as it can (its career network now has more than
1,300 alumni who provide advice, suggestions, leads, and other kinds of help),
and it cooperates with other colleges in several consortia that give students
more access to employers (e.g., the Liberal Arts Career Network, a consortium
of twenty highly-selective colleges that has an database of 26,000 internships).
“I really
want to thank all the alumni who have been such an important asset to our
work,” she says. “We truly value the time and expertise they have shared with
our students – and I've enjoyed working with alumni all around the world.”