CCIS expansion brings new hires to campus

As CCIS and Northeastern undergo rapid expansion, it’s not just the ranks of students that are swelling. New advisors are also being welcomed to the campus.

The CCIS graduating class of 2015 was 99 students. By contrast, this year’s incoming class is 265 students, 24 percent of whom are female. And as incoming classes grow, so too do the numbers of faculty, advisors and staff who support students through their years at Northeastern. Among the most recent hires at CCIS are two academic advisors, Jonathan Lee and Jessica Speece, and three co-op coordinators, Yasmil Montes, Jennifer Shire and Smajl Cengic.

“We have been on an unbelievable hiring spree,” says Doreen Hodgkin, Associate Dean of Administration and Student Affairs at the college. “We’re hiring full-time lecturers, faculty, co-op coordinators, academic staff, staff, visiting scientists, post docs. A rapid expansion is happening in all areas of computer science. Fortunately, we’re in a position to quickly move to provide the support we need for additional students.”

And the new advisors are ready to start working with CCIS students old and new. Lee and Speece both say that they are excited to start meeting with students and guide them through their college careers.

Lee previously worked at Miami University in a rural Ohio town. “I’m really excited to experience a different campus culture and larger area, urban center,” he says. Lee is also eager to work with CCIS students because of his own background in the sciences.

Speece also moved to Northeastern from Ohio, where she worked as an academic advisor at Ohio State University. She’s lived in Boston before, and after hearing only positive things about Northeastern from friends who studied or worked here, applied for a position at the university. “I’m most excited to meet the students and to meet the students that I’ll be working with,” she says. “I’m also excited for the Intro to College class and the sections that I’ll be instructing.”

Montes, Shire and Cengic will help CCIS students navigate their co-op cycles, fine-tuning résumés and placing them in companies where they’ll gain valuable work experience ahead of graduation.

Montes moved to Northeastern from Wentworth Institute of Technology, saying that it was the structure of the co-op program and the ability to actually teach a class that compelled her move. “I think that being exposed to expos and working directly with students and employers and offering students those opportunities up front is really exciting,” she says.

Shires joins Northeastern from Charles River Development, drawn by the energy of university campuses and the opportunities afforded to students by co-ops: “I think Northeastern’s got great students and I believe strongly in the co-op experience for students, making their learning relevant to what they hope to do professionally,” she says.

The last addition to CCIS’ co-op team, Cengic, has more than a decade’s experience in employment and earned his graduate certificate in workforce development at Northeastern. He’s joining CCIS from Year Up, a national non-profit that works to empower urban young adults through education and careers.

“I’ve worked in employment for a long time – 15 years – but this is a very special program,“ he says. “Who wouldn’t like to work in the best co-op program in the world?”