On Feb. 13, College President Sian Leah Beilock announced the appointment of Joseph Catrino as the inaugural executive director of the newly established Dartmouth Center for Career Design — a successor to the current Center for Professional Development. In his role, Catrino is set to expand the Center for Professional Development into a “best-of-its-kind resource” for students to plan their career paths, according to Dartmouth News. A career administrator and educator, Catrino served as the founding executive director of career and life design at Trinity College from 2021 to 2025, where he used a “unified framework” to strengthen “career development, student success and retention services.” The Dartmouth sat down with Catrino to discuss his background in education and his plans for the Center for Career Design.
Can you tell me about your background in education and career development?
JC: I’ve been in higher education since 2002. Starting at the University of Hartford, I worked at Yale University, Quinnipiac University and Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. — where I come from. My career encompasses many different areas of higher education, including admissions, recruitment and admissions marketing. I started teaching in 2007, and that opened the door to an opportunity at Quinnipiac to move into career development, which continued on to Trinity. My role at Trinity was really a cool job because it encompassed student success — it was careers, it was life design — and I taught every semester as a part time faculty member. I really enjoy working with students, building things for students and helping them figure out what their career design and life design look like.
What drew you to Hanover and Dartmouth’s career development program?
JC: It was a great opportunity. I had been a part of the Career and Life Design Center at Trinity, and to have an opportunity to come to a beautiful place like Hanover and to work at a school like Dartmouth was a dream. When this opportunity presented itself to me, I got really excited to come in and work with the folks at the Center for Professional Development. I consider myself a pretty lucky guy. I’m honored to be the inaugural executive director. There are a lot of really cool things that I think we can do with students to help them really think about their career design. How can you make informed decisions about your career? That’s the coaching model that we are going to implement. We want to create a situation where every student gets their own personalized coaching.
What are some of your main goals for the Center for Career Design?
JC: Sitting here on day nine, I’ve taken the last week and a half to just do a lot of listening, and I’m going to continue to listen. I really do believe in a listening tour. I’ve already had several meetings with groups of students where I just ask them questions about their experience here and what their career process has been. Listening to what the students have to say has been really important to the implementation of the strategic goals that we will have going forward, which include driving deeper connections with alumni, parents and families.
Looking to the future of career development, how will the ever-changing job market and rise of technology impact career design at Dartmouth?
JC: That’s what I study frequently. Part of my job is to understand what’s happening in the workspace, what workforce trends are happening and where different industries are going. The reality here is that artificial intelligence is changing the world of work and disrupting the workforce. We had the pandemic, we have economic disruption and we have technological disruption with AI. There’s a great impact on different industries. People are also living longer, which means that people are working longer. For the first time in our history, we have five generations in the workforce. People in their 70s are working with people who are 22. Think about the differences in how a 22-year-old might work compared to a 77-year-old. It’s a different workforce, and it creates challenges for supervisors. Someone who is 77 and someone who is 22 have different beliefs and different ways of communicating. They embrace technology in different ways.
Students are going to ultimately have to figure out how they can work alongside AI. How can they learn to leverage AI in the work that they do? I think every field is going to feel some impact of AI. What does that look like and how do you work alongside it? Skills like critical thinking and communication are truly important, and I think they’re the fundamental foundation of a liberal arts education. As a Dartmouth student, you have these skills to work alongside AI and technology. It’s something that we’re leaning into and trying to stay ahead of because it’s important to know what these technological influences are going to be.
What lasting impact do you hope to have on Dartmouth students and the Center for Career Design?
JC: I want students to leave Dartmouth students feeling like they’re prepared for their career and their life. That’s always at the front of my mind. I work in higher education for students. I enjoy working with students. I’ll engage students in different projects, partner with them, give them advice, coach them, counsel them and whatever else they need. I believe in the work of the students. I want to make sure students walk out of here saying, “I got a sense of who I am, and now I’m informed on where I want to go and what I want to design for myself.”
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
