Director Serves Students on Campus and Beyond

As the director of student engagement initiatives and employer partnerships, Lynn Hart, M.S.Ed., is constantly working—not only on campus and in the community but also at the national level—to create career opportunities for students.

Among Hart’s favorite projects is organizing one of the university’s largest events: the annual career fair, which invites students to connect with employers across all industries represented at New York Tech. This year, Hart launched a competition to see which academic departments can generate the most employer participation, as well as a separate competition for student organizations to increase student participation in workshops to prepare for the career fair. The Spring 2025 ALL Majors Career Fair welcomed more than 100 employer representatives and over 500 students from both New York campuses. The fall 2025 fair also drew a large crowd, and Hart expects the same for this year’s fall fair.

“It’s not just the career department supporting students,” she says. “It’s full university engagement, and students can see their academic department is also helping them find opportunities.” Hart also initiated student and employer outreach and surveys to collect data on how many students landed interviews and jobs after attending the career fair.

Beyond the career fair, Hart also invites individual employers to engage with students and faculty on campus as part of the year-round Employer-in-Residence program she launched last academic year.

“I develop tailored engagement opportunities for employers, including in-class presentations, information sessions, résumé reviews, mock interviews, and on-campus recruitment, while also encouraging them to propose additional activities aligned with their expertise,” Hart says. “This flexibility allows employers to highlight emerging skills, industry expectations, and niche areas that students may not yet be aware of, ensuring students’ preparedness and understanding of professional expectations.”

In addition to her work on campus, Hart’s efforts recently extended to the national level. She and colleague Adrienne McNally, M.S., senior director of career success and experiential education, served as New York Tech representatives at the highly selective Alliance for Strategic Innovation (ASI) Career Services Design Workshop hosted by the Council of Independent Colleges in March. The workshop’s goal was to gather input from career services and employment experts at universities across the United States to conceptualize what a potential National Center for Careers and the Liberal Arts might look like.

“They brought us all together to share ideas and talk about the challenges in higher education,” Hart says. “We discussed our beliefs about why a college degree is still valuable, and we explored strategies for how we can create shared resources to support student career success.”

Workshop participants also discussed ways career services professionals can help graduates attain the full value of their college education as employees in their field.

“We collaborated on developing a prototype concept, exploring key questions such as the challenges it would address and proposed solutions, the intended users and their needs, its functionality and key features, and the functional, emotional, and institutional value it would create,” Hart says.

She emphasizes the importance of New York Tech being involved in these types of discussions. “Our participation in large national conversations increases our voice as an institution of higher education,” Hart says. “The ASI requested our input because we are the people actively working in these spaces. They will review our feedback to determine the most appropriate direction moving forward.”

In her own career, Hart has also had to figure out which direction to go. Before coming to New York Tech, she worked in special education, teaching and supporting families who had students with learning and developmental disabilities. Leaving the special education field pulled at her heartstrings.

“When I came here, I hesitated to leave the work I was so passionate about. But I quickly realized that promoting inclusion and supporting students remains just as important at this level, and that there is still meaningful work to be done to help every student thrive,” says Hart, who serves as the co-chair of the neurodiversity affinity group at the Eastern Association of Colleges and Employers. “Whether I’m meeting with employers or working with students, I have an inclusion mindset. I carry that passion with me, no matter the setting.”

By Ashley Festa