Davidson College Names Chief Career Officer to Guide Students’ Career Pathways
April 24, 2025
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- Mark Johnson
Mike Summers, a veteran leader in career guidance and executive search across the higher education and corporate worlds, will join Davidson College as chief career officer and executive director of the Betty and B. Frank Matthews II Center for Career Development.
Summers comes to Davidson after eight years at Lafayette College, where he is associate vice president and leads the Gateway Career Center. He restructured and expanded that office to focus on the center’s four-year career development program, a valuable parallel to the Matthews Center’s emphasis on students engaging with career programs starting in their first semester on campus.
Summers begins at the Matthews Center on July 15.
“Davidson ensures that students get more than career advice,” Summers said. “The college provides and continues to build out a learning-for-life program. I’m excited to join a team that supports students from all directions: career planning and guidance, employer connections and engagement and extraordinary help from alumni.”
Prior to Lafayette, Summers led employer relations for the college and School of Business at Wake Forest University. He also spent eight years in executive search consulting, beginning with a focus in the biotechnology and pharmaceuticals industries. His career began in sales and as an account manager with eye health company Bausch & Lomb.
Mike is a proven leader who will help ensure that our graduates are prepared for jobs that did not exist when they enrolled or for continued education that opens up even more fields where they can make a difference. He will help leverage the powerful mix of students’ exploration and self-reflection in the classroom, their intensive experiences across internships and global projects and our extensive alumni network to build robust pathways for their leadership and service in the world.
Davidson’s Strategic Plan, which Hicks guided, includes a four-year "Learning for Life" pathway that includes career coaches as part of an integrated advising model. The aim is to assist students in developing intellectually, personally and professionally. All students will have access to at least one high-impact experience before graduation and emerging technologies to complement resources already available on campus or through alumni.
Summers will be the first career center leader to carry the chief career officer title at Davidson, reflecting the college-wide role for career development and networking with employers in the Charlotte region and beyond, alums, parents and friends of the college. The college partnered with the national search firm of Heidrick and Struggles to identify the inaugural holder of that title.
The Matthews Center provides career planning, advising and workshops for professionalization and skill development and recruiting programs across a wide range of fields and graduate programs. During the 2023-2024 academic year:
- The career center conducted more than 3,600 advising interactions with current students and alumni.
- The center also held 139 employer events or interview days.
- Among first year students, 83 percent engaged with the career center.
- Six months after graduation, 92 percent of the members of the class of 2024 were employed or in graduate school.
The Matthews Center’s career fairs have drawn a 200 percent increase in student attendance over the past three years.
