INSIDE; CAREERS AND KU
University Daily Kansan, October 26, 1983
Page 20
Placement Center seeks to aid students
By JILL CASEY Staff Reporter
Students who are taking advantage of the University Placement Center's services may discover that the job of finding a job is not only frustrating, but that the center itself may be confusing as well.
The placement center operates from its main offices at Carruth- O'Leary Hall and from six other offices, at the schools of Architecture and Urban Design, Business, Engineering, Journalism, Law and Social Welfare. The center keeps student resumes on file and compiles a master list of all companies that intend to interview on campus.
VERNON V. GEISSLER, director of the placement center, said that the center didn't guarantee job placement, but it did "bring contacts and students
But Frederick Madaus, placement director for the School of Business, said that some students could miss out if they didn't understand the University's decentralized approach to job placement.
Because the system is decentralized, company interviewers are encouraged to go to the school that has the most hiring potential. For example, a company looking primarily for public
accountants would go to the placement center in the School of Business.
But if the company also sought liberal arts graduates, those students might be unaware of the interviews being scheduled by the business school.
In the alternative centralized system of job placement, the advantage would be that "everyone goes through the same door". Madusa said.
GEISSLER SAID, however, that the decentralized system at KU was effective "as long as students are knowledgeable" about looking beyond their school's placement center for job opportunities.
Moreover, KU students recently have had a harder time finding jobs.
Pamela Madl, placement director for the School of Engineering, said that many of the Spring 1983 graduates were slower in finding jobs in past years. "It took a lot more work," she said, for these grades to find jobs.
Madaus said that finding jobs for business graduates last spring also was somewhat difficult. In a survey of spring graduates taken over the summer, however, 75 percent of the respondents had found work.
Geissler, who is a member of the Board of Governors for the College Placement Council, recommends that students have their college and vocational center and at their individual schools by the end of their sophomore year. Students also should
try to get a summer internship between the sophomore and junior years, he said.
THE PLACEMENT CENTER conducts several workshops during the year for students who want to learn how to use their sharpen their interviewing techniques.
Madusa stressed that students should not rely on campus interviews or research to get answers.
"KU is not on the main road to every place," Madaus said. Directors in the placement office, he said, can give students access to companies that don't come to campus to interview or offer internships.
Madua also said that students could contact some companies by talking with KU alumni hired by those companies. The placement center keeps a list of those alumni on hand for students.
The placement center, he said, also has directories that include lists of companies that often employ KU staff. The company are updated every two or three years.
MADAUS IS CONVINCED that jobs are available if students make efforts to acquire skills.
Both KU and Kansas State University directors said that their starting salaries for all graduates placed are at or above the College Placement Council's average starting salary figures.
Jim Henry, assistant director of the University Placement Center, prepares for a mock interview with Marilyn Craig, Aurora, Colo., sophomore.
Public administration program yields city managers nationwide
By JOHN REIMRINGER
Staff Reporter
The graduate program in public administration at the University of Kansas has turned out more than its share of city managers over the years.
"You know you can't be positive, but we believe that more city managers graduated from this program than any other." John Nalbandian, director of KU's public administration program.
The city managers of Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, and Oklahoma City are KU graduates. So is the city administrator of Washington, D.C. More than 100 cities across the country, in more than 30 states ranging from New York to Florida to California, are managed by KU graduates.
More than 20 cities in Kansas have city managers who graduated from KU, including Wichita's city manager and Lawrence's city manager, Buford Watson.
IN THE MANAGER-COUNCIL form of city government, the city council makes the policies. The chief administrative officer is the city manager, a professional who is not supposed to be politically motivated. The manager carries out the council's policies.
Members of KU's master's public administration program, which is a branch of the political science department, cite several reasons for its
success in producing city managers. One reason is its selectivity.
"We only admit 15 students a year to the city management part of the program," said Nalbandian, who was named director in August. "He made it its small, kind of specialized emphasis."
In describing the requirements for admission, Mel Dubnick, associate professor and a former director of the program, said, "A good GPA, of course, is going to be a requirement. We use a 3.0, but this year, for instance, the pool of applicants was well above that."
HE SAID THAT an applicant's social science background was also considered.
nut Dubnick said that people without a strong social science background could be accepted if they had more experience.
"That's more important, perhaps, than any other single factor," he said. "It 'like you want to be a lawyer or you want to be a doctor — we view this as a profession."
A SECOND REASON for KU's success is the program itself, which was started in 1948 and is one of the oldest in the country, Nalbandian said. Although schools offering a degree in public administration are common, few emphasize city management.
kU's city management program lasts two years, he said. Students spend the first year on campus, where they take graduate courses in city management.
THE STUDENT SPEND the second year of the program as full-time intern in city government. Salaries for interns range from $11,000 to $21,000 a year, depending on the city. Internships may also include benefits such as health insurance.
During the second year, students return to campus three times for week-long seminars and classes.
Dubnick said that KU's alumni have also contributed to the program's success.
"Budig has called them the most fanatical alumni associated with KU," he said. "When ever it's possible they try their hardest to take up a KU intern."
Nalbandian said, "Several KU graduates have been presidents of the International City Management Association. They're very well-respected in the organization."
BRUCE WORNER. A second-year student who is an intern in Wichita, said that the strong alumni support was one of the reasons he chose KU's program.
"You kind of got a sense that you had some real direction in this program. It wasn't like you were just going on to school because you didn't have anything better to do," he said.
Nalbandian said that most of the students who were accepted into the program made it through a series of interviews.
"We work with them. We figure that once you're accepted we're going to help you all we
can " he said.
Many students in the program do not leave campus to become city managers.
"I say very few of the people who graduate now will become city managers." said Dubnick. "First of all, the top-level positions are being filled at a rapid rate and we must evaluate around the country, being city managers."
"It takes a unique personality — you live a fishhawk type of existence."
DUBNICK SAID THAT many people settled for positions as assistants in city management, and that others accepted similar management positions in private business.
Many people become city managers on a small town level.
"One of the big debates in last year's class was whether you should go for an internship in Wichita, or whether you go to a place like Salina or Winfield," Dubnick said. "People were making choices knowing that that's the career track they're starting in on.
"Maybe 15 to 20 percent of all the people who are in the profession really become city managers of the caliber of the city of Lawrence or above," he said. "Perhaps only the best, or the ones who are best able to cope with some of the stresses of the job, actually do get up to that level."
CITY MANAGER'S salaries vary with the size of the community they work for.
A small-town manager may make only $11,000
a year, said Dubnick. Some of them even have to manage two or three small towns at one time. A city manager, on the other hand, could make from $30,000 to $120,000 a year.
Dubnick said that the total compensation was difficult to estimate because city managers often received fringe benefits such as cars, membership and other benefits. In pay, in some cities, managers receive a house.
"Everyone negotiates their own unique package," he said.
PART OF THE reason city managers are paid so well, Dubrick said, is because they are hired and fired by the city council. If a new council is elected, a manager can be out of a job.
A city manager may work with a city 20 or 30 years, or he may be fired in his first year.
"It's a high-risk business. It's a fishbowl existence, and I wouldn't do it no matter what." Dubnick said. "I tell this to everybody who comes into the program. It takes a real true commitment and a belief in the profession to want to do this."
Dubnick said that he thought people had a tendency to leave the profession after two or three years.
"These people are pretty high pressure, pretty good at what they do, and so if they're good in the public sector, it's likely they'll be damn good in the private sector as managers," he said. "These guys, once they reach a certain plateau, will usually find other things."
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