INFORMATION FOR

William Wright-Swadel

Durham, NC--Duke students have been the beneficiaries of a vibrant campus Career Center since the 1940s—when the groundbreaking Fannie Mitchell raised the program to national prominence. With the appointment of William Wright-Swadel as the new Fannie Mitchell Executive Director for Career Services, the legacy is in good hands.

Wright-Swadel comes to Duke with more than 25 years of experience in Career Services, the past 10 years at the head of Harvard University’s career program. At a time of transition and opportunity, Wright-Swadel believes accessing campus Career Center offerings early and often will help students successfully navigate present and future choices.

“We [at the Career Center] work at the intersection of dreams and reality,” he says. “Duke’s diverse group of students need access to an effective career community if they are to develop the balance of dreams and reality necessary to set and achieve goals across a lifetime.”

The students here at Duke are extraordinarily gifted, and as such, each has a wide range of interests they want to explore, says Wright-Swadel. The difficult part for most students is choosing among those interests. At this pivotal moment in their lives, students can turn to career services with confidence.

“The Career Center will work with each student to really find out who he or she is, to activate that person, and to include and bring out as much of that person as possible in the choices they make throughout their college experience,” says Wright-Swadel. “The goal is to enhance their education: to first broaden their exposure to new experiences consistent with their interests, and then to focus their efforts in the right place, at the right time.”

Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta says Duke is fortunate to have recruited Wright-Swadel. “The career development and support needs of our students have become increasingly critical and complex. Under Bill’s leadership, I have every confidence that Duke students will be well served by our Career center.”