DELAND -- Joseph Protopapa, director of integrated career services and employer relations at the Career Center at the University of Akron (Ohio), has been selected as Stetson University's executive director of career development and academic advising. He starts this month.
Protopapa will lead a new, innovative university initiative merging Career Development and Academic Advising. The new initiative is designed to assist students in navigating their liberal learning experience and help them market that experience toward graduate study and employment. His priorities initially will be, in collaboration with the rest of the CDaAA staff, to create a strategic plan for career development and academic advising. He'll also eview the annual academic advising plan and processes, lead the improvement of graduation outcome data collection and distribution, examine ways to further realize experiential career learning (such as internships and job shadowing) and develop an e-portfolio system to assist students in making connections in their learning.
Additionally, Cindy L. Oakley-Paulik has been named assistant director of Academic Advising, starting this month. Oakley-Paulik joins Stetson from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Protopapa has been with the University of Akron's Career Center since 2005, working his way through the ranks to become director of integrated career services and employer relations earlier this year. From 2007 to 2009, he also taught career planning at the University of Akron. He was an elementary and middle school teacher from 2000 to 2003. He is a member of the National Association of Colleges and Employers, graduating from its Management Leadership Institute in 2009, and serving on its Membership Engagement Committee in 2011-12. He is a member of the Midwest Association of Colleges and Employers and received the organization's 2011 High Five Award.
In 2010, Protopapa received the Center for Transforming Student Services' Innovation Award. He also belongs to the National Society for Experiential Education, the Cooperative Education and Internship Association and the Ohio Cooperative Education Association.
Protopapa completed his undergraduate education at Ohio University and earned his Master of Arts in Education, with a major in higher education administration, from the University of Akron. He and his wife Kathleen have two children, Ana, age 4, and Jackson, age 2.