Colorado State University Honors Career Counselor and Ram Fan at Annual Distinguished Alumni Awards Dinner

Colorado State University is recognizing an outstanding staff member and student mentor as the College of Liberal Arts 2005 Honor Alumnus. Bill Shuster, who counsels business students and student-athletes at Colorado State, will be presented with the award at the annual Distinguished Alumni Awards dinner on April 29.

Shuster graduated from Colorado State with a history degree in 1987 and received his masters in business administration from the university in 2000. He is the career counselor for the College of Business and an adjunct professor within the college. Shuster also is a member of the Goal Oriented Leadership Development, or GOLD, team, which provides counseling to student athletes. He attends numerous sporting events and is the faculty adviser for the women’s club lacrosse team.

"Bill Shuster truly exemplifies an outstanding alumnus who has given back to the university and genuinely values the role and mission of Colorado State University," said Heather Hardy, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts.

As a career counselor, Shuster is responsible for providing career development resources to 2,300 undergraduate business students and over 200 graduate business students and business alumni. Over the past years, Shuster has taken the career planning in the College of Business to a higher level, providing added developmental career exploration opportunities for students. Some of the events he has developed include an enhanced Mock Interview Day, which has grown in the past four years from 12 employers in one room into having over 40 employers in multiple rooms.

"As the career counselor for the College of Business and two-time alumnus of Colorado State University, he understands the value of education and making sure students are prepared as they enter the working world," said JoAnn Cornell, assistant director of the Colorado State Career Center. "He has passion, pride and so much heart for Colorado State, which is in no small part exemplified by the various roles, activities, events and outreach efforts he provides to give back to the university to help prepare students for life after college."

Another project Shuster worked on was providing assistance to distance-education MBA students through an intranet server, providing career advice as well as job listings. He also assisted in implementing a one-credit Career Class designed for second semester juniors and seniors. The class, which focuses on providing tools needed for a job search, has had a 100 percent job placement success rate.

Shuster has been honored with several academic and corporate awards. He has been inducted as an honorary member into Sigma Iota Epsilon, a professional management fraternity, and Golden Key Honor Society. He was named Professor of the Year in 2001 by the Business College Council and has been honored for his teaching in the College of Business by business honoraries Beta Gamma Sigma and Alpha Kappa Psi.

On the corporate side, Shuster has been recognized for outstanding achievement by companies such as Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, Level 3 Communications, Advanced Energy, Accenture and Bain Consulting.

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