
The university announced today that career services expert Brooke Buffington has been named associate vice president for career and professional development, overseeing the McCree Center for Life Success.
With more than 20 years of experience in higher education, non-profit, and corporate sectors, Buffington is set to engage the MBU community and help lead plans to build programs focused on student success and career development, strong internship and job pipelines, engaged learning, outcomes data and processes, and external partnerships.
“Brooke Buffington is a game-changer. One of the best career professionals in the country, Brooke is intensely collaborative and motivated to partner with students, faculty, staff, alumni, and employers to advance student success and hasten achievement of Elevate MBU strategic plan goals,” said President Jeff Stein. “Brooke brings deep experience supporting faculty, counseling students, building employer relations, and leading internship and study away programs. Her successes in engaged learning, business, screenwriting, and Division-I athletics have been marked by collaboration, creativity, operational efficiency, and outcome achievement. Most importantly, she is student-centered and driven to ensure every student achieves the future they desire.”
Buffington will join MBU from Elon University, where she serves as assistant vice president of the nationally recognized Student Professional Development Center. In 2023, The Princeton Review ranked the center ninth in the country for career services, based on student ratings.
She brings to MBU a breadth of experience in areas such as counseling, program development, corporate and employer relations, networking, career readiness, and engaged learning initiatives in internships, study abroad, and study away. Her official start date will be May 1.
“There is no better gift than to have the opportunity to positively impact someone’s life,” Buffington said. “As a career services professional I seek to make that impact every single day. I am inspired by Mary Baldwin’s mission and the students at the university.”
“Brooke Buffington is a game-changer. One of the best career professionals in the country, Brooke is intensely collaborative and motivated to partner with students, faculty, staff, alumni, and employers to advance student success and hasten achievement of Elevate MBU strategic plan goals.”
— President Jeff Stein
Expanding and building success in professional development services
Under Buffington’s leadership, the McCree Center team will continue to enhance and grow career services, internship development and support, and employer relations in collaboration with faculty and staff across the university.
“I am looking forward to hearing faculty and staff members’ needs and goals to learn more about how they are already working with students to fulfill career and graduate school aspirations,” she said. “Spending time getting to know the faculty and staff at MBU will allow me the opportunity to identify future campus collaborations and establish crucial partnerships that will continue to drive student success.”
Buffington will also oversee opening the McCree Center’s services and support to alumni, as well as online and graduate students, including those in the Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences.
Her appointment is funded through the McCree Center gift from generous donors and longstanding supporters Gabby and Donald McCree.
Suzie Dull named senior director
Suzie Dull, who has ably served as McCree’s interim leader providing personalized guidance to students and expanding MBU’s relationships with employers locally and beyond, will be named senior director of the McCree Center.
With a strong background in workforce development, business engagement, and program strategy, Dull has played a key role in expanding partnerships and enhancing student opportunities. Prior to joining Mary Baldwin, she served as business development manager at Blue Ridge Community College, where she spearheaded training initiatives and fostered collaborations with regional employers. She also brings valuable experience from her time at the Greater Augusta Regional Chamber of Commerce, where she strengthened economic partnerships and developed membership programs.
“We are grateful to Suzie Dull for her outstanding leadership as interim executive director and the work of Suzie, Andrea Livick, and Jada Smith to re-build the center’s operations and engage deeply with our students,” Stein said. “We are extremely fortunate to have Suzie as senior director.”
Collaborative and person-centered approach
NCAA Division I (D-I) gymnastics records, screenwriting, leading study abroad and study away programs, and running a national product line are just a few of the accomplishments Buffington brings to Mary Baldwin.
Her 10-year tenure at Elon began in career services for the Love School of Business, and has ever since centered upon delivering best-in-class service to students.
She led the business school career team to a Top 30 national outcomes ranking, building relationships with employers like Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs, and Google, and matching opportunities to Elon students’ industries and locations of interest.
“Career preparedness works best when it lives in an ecosystem of individuals (faculty, staff, and fellow students) supporting one another,” Buffington said. “This support allows students to discover who they are and what they’re passionate about, while determining how to utilize the skills they’ve developed to pursue internship and post-graduation opportunities.”
“Career preparedness works best when it lives in an ecosystem of individuals supporting one another. This support allows students to discover who they are and what they’re passionate about, while determining how to utilize the skills they’ve developed to pursue internship and post-graduation opportunities.”
— Brooke Buffington
After a national search, Buffington was selected to oversee all of Elon’s career and professional development initiatives, where she worked closely with academic representatives to better understand the unique needs of students and alumni; reimagined career programs and events; and provided strategic planning leadership to optimize student outcomes and align with overall university goals.
She also teaches at Elon — including a course she co-created to inspire students to explore their unique career aspirations — and as an adjunct professor for Wake Forest University, and has co-led study abroad and study away programs in Tanzania, Peru, New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C.
“I am a natural developer who sees the best in people and hopes that we all have the opportunity to live with purpose, while understanding that purpose is unique to each individual,” she said.
Prior to Elon, Buffington held various roles at the Michelin Career Center at Clemson University, and she earned an MA in counseling from Wake Forest, on a full academic scholarship.
For her undergraduate education, Buffington earned a full athletic scholarship for D-I Atlantic Coast Conference gymnastics to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She still holds university records in the sport to this day. After earning her BA in communication studies, she joined Newell Rubbermaid, eventually managing a product portfolio worth $200 million in top-line sales.
Outside of work, Buffington and her family enjoy time spent outdoors: her 12-year-old daughter is a horseback rider, and her husband an avid fisherman. Also a creative, Buffington co-wrote and co-produced the independent feature film Chalk It Up, which is available for viewing on Amazon Prime.