Over the past few months, the Center for Career Education has settled into using LionSHARE to advertise all its career opportunities. Although the new job-search service is fully accessible to students in Columbia College, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the School of General Studies, and four post-baccalaureate and professional schools, Barnard students have only limited access to its services. Barnard's Office of Career Development should strengthen its ties with CCE to give its students full access to LionSHARE.
Students in the University's three coed undergraduate colleges have already seen how useful LionSHARE can be in searching for a job or internship. Earlier this semester, this Editorial Board commended CCE for providing a job-seeking service that offered tools like calendars, data on employers, and the ability to handle all one's career needs in one place. However, Barnard students are barred from many of the site's useful features. While they can see available jobs on LionSHARE, they are prevented from submitting their resumes to employers. Similarly, they are invited to recruiting events on campus but prohibited from participating in on-campus interviews. Employers that Barnard students meet at recruiting events often direct them to online applications, but their limited access to LionSHARE puts these jobs out of the reach of Barnard students or forces them to apply with the general pool of applicants. The current policy seems to taunt Barnard students with opportunities that are almost, but not quite, available to them.
Both Columbia's CCE and Barnard's OCD should reform their restrictive policies and make their services available to more University students. Barnard students study alongside CC, GS, and SEAS students, and should have equal access to their job-seeking service. In return for access to this service, the Office of Career Development should share its resources with students from the other undergraduate colleges. Barnard's career center maintains close relationships with alumnae, and it is understandable that they may want to reserve these connections for their own students. Nonetheless, if maintaining a separate alumnae list prohibits Barnard women from using LionSHARE and applying to jobs, then this is not a wise or reasonable trade-off.
CCE and OCD are already valuable resources, but both Barnard and Columbia students would benefit from greater collaboration between the two departments. The implementation of LionSHARE has been successful, and access to its services shouldn't be restricted to a subset of the student body.
