Recorded Member Mentoring Webinar

Starting a Career Center in Higher Education

By Dr. Lucila Bance, Ms. Joyce Tan, and Dr. Sungsik Anh

Recorded on Sep 26, 2023

Three APCDA Members will share their experiences starting or building a career center in a university.  Whether you are starting a career center, converting a placement office to a career center, or trying to improve the center you already work in, this webinar should be useful to you.  The panelists will discuss:

• What purpose/goals/objectives would a university career center have?
• Assuming funds are tight, what would you consider essential in your career center? (include staff, technology, books, etc.)
• How would you sell this project to the administration and faculty

Panelists will address these three questions, then take your questions.

Prof. Lucila O. Bance, PhD, RGC, RP was the Director for the Counseling and Career Center of the University of Santo Tomas until her retirement. Her PhD is in Psychology, while her master’s degree is in Counseling. She managed the Center with the largest number of counselors in the country. A former President of the Psychological Association of the Philippines and Vice-President of the Philippine Guidance and Counseling Association, she taught both in the undergraduate and graduate school of UST, in the field of Psychology and Guidance and Counseling.

Joyce Tan, Senior Specialist and Lead in Career Engagement at the Career Development Office with Singapore University of Social Sciences, has over 20 years of professional experience within the financial services, real estate and most recently education industries, in Europe and in Asia. Since 2008, she has focused her efforts on building and developing career services at higher education institutions, coaching individuals, as well as creating and designing competency development workshops. Ms. Tan coaches and supports undergraduates in their career development endeavours through opportunity creation, as well as design and instruction of workshops and courses towards the expansion of undergraduates’ employability skills portfolio.

Dr. Sungsik Ahn is an assistant professor at Keimyung University, South Korea. He is a Certified Career Service Provider (CCSP), Global Career Development Facilitator (GCDF), and Facilitating Career Development (FCD) Instructor. He previously worked for a university career center for 12 years and received the Minister’s Award for his excellence of services. His professional and research interest includes developing career centers, training career development practitioners, and evaluating counseling and programs. He was the South Korea Country Representative of APCDA, and he is currently a board member of the Career Development Association of Korea.