on campus - Article - Manhattan College

12 manhattan.edu
Sounding as Smart as You Are:
Alum Endows “Communicating for Career Success” Program
“All of us have to interact with people,”
Peter E. Dans ’57, M.D., says. “And I
think communication skills are essential,
no matter what we do.”
Dans, an associate professor of medicine
and public health at Johns Hopkins
University, is living proof of how far
communication skills can take you. After
graduating from Manhattan, he went on
to graduate from Columbia University
College of Physicians and Surgeons,
founded an adult walk-in clinic and a
sexually transmitted disease clinic in
Dr. Peter E. Dans ’57 received an honorary Doctor of
Science degree at the Fall Honors Convocation in 2003.
Denver and a migrant health clinic in Fort
Lupton, Colo., now the hub of nine rural
community health centers, and was
awarded a Robert Wood Johnson health
policy fellowship in the U.S. Senate.
He is also the author or co-author of
more than 100 scientific articles, book
chapters and other works of medical
literature, and was awarded an honorary
doctorate of science at Manhattan College’s
Fall Honors Convocation in 2003.
In fact, it was at Fall Honors that Dans
started thinking about the importance
of good communication skills. Knowing
firsthand how important professional
appearance and comportment would be
in the world the honored seniors would
be entering after graduation, he saw an
opportunity to help prepare them for it.
Not long after his visit to campus, he
endowed the “Communicating for Career
Success” program, a three-part series
of seminars designed to help students
present themselves in a professional
way. The first session was held in the
spring of 2005, with the two following
segments in the fall of the same year.
A repeat of the series was scheduled
for March 27, April 3 and April 10.
The series, held in the Academy Room
in Leo Engineering, is a continuation
and expansion of the “How to Give a
Presentation” seminar that had been a
requirement of the center for career
development’s mentor program for the
past four years. All three segments of both
series were presented by motivational
professional Susan Murphy of New Jerseybased
Murphy Motivation, who had
delivered “How to Give a Presentation.”
The first segment of the series, which
was open to all students, as well as the
businesspeople and professionals involved
in the mentor program, was titled “How
to Present Yourself and Your Ideas.”
The session covered formal presentation
skills, body language and speaking
succinctly. Public speaking generally
“scares people,” Murphy says but is
often inevitable in professional life.
The strategies covered in the session
are ones that will come in handy not
just in students’ professional lives but
anytime they are dealing with people.
“I always tell attendees, ‘It’s just how
to look and sound as smart as you are,’”
Murphy says. “It’s how you handle your
body, so it doesn’t get in the way of
your mind.”
The second part of the series covered
building relationships with co-workers,
employers, friends and acquaintances, and
the third built on the skills developed in
the first two sessions, as well as general
manners, physical appearance and dress.
The series have been well received by
participants. According to Doris Pechman,
assistant director of the center for career
development, students enrolling in the
sessions listed many reasons for attending
the series, including to prepare themselves
for the job search and interview process,
to overcome their shyness and be able to
speak in public, to develop confidence,
and to learn to present themselves in a
professional way. And from all accounts,
the series has left them feeling more
confident about all of those things.
“I was particularly inspired by the
enthusiasm and participation of the
student participants,” Murphy says. By
the end of the seminars, she says, “the
progress was remarkable — they made eye
contact, shook hands, said thank you.”
Dans says he would like to see the
program “built up so it reaches more
students,” and the center for career
development would like to see it happen.
While the original endowment provided
for only the first two sets of series, the
center for career development is hoping
to continue to offer the program to
students in the coming years.
After all, the lessons in the seminar
go beyond just professional success.
As Dans said, communicating well is a
skill used in every aspect of life.
Murphy agrees. Learning how to
effectively relate to other people, she
says, is “vital for success and happiness.”