BREAKOUT SESSION OVERVIEW
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Experiential Engagement through Employer Challenges
Meagan Hart-Molloy and Elizabeth Schaller | The University of Michigan
Supporting the Unique Career Development Needs of Graduate Students
Yas Hardaway | Pepperdine University, Graduate School of Education & Psychology
Recruiting, Onboarding, Activating, and Retaining Diverse, Multi-generational Staff Members
Carolyn Serdar | Carthage College
Helping Students Get Unstuck with Small Group Internship Cohorts
Chelsea Moore and Meagan Hart-Molloy | The University of Michigan
Transforming Student Employment at Arizona State University and Beyond
Scott Travis and Amy Michalenko | Arizona State University
Integrating Career Readiness into UAB's FYE Curriculum through the Core Curriculum
Brandon Wright | The University of Alabama at Birmingham
Residential Student Engagement Specialist: Bringing Career Development Home
Lexie Avery and Erin Hansen | Binghamton University
Career Tutorials for Students - Scaling Our Reach
Jillian Morley | Utah State University
Seamless Synergy: Integrating Career Services into the Academic Curriculum through Self-Directed Learning Modules
Patrick Massaro and Dr. Stephen Fleming | Rowan University
Creating an Experiential Learning Ecosystem at a Global Scale
AJ Merlino and Rebekah Harriger | Harrisburg University
"Concierge Service" - Providing Proactive & Intentional Service to Employers & Students
Benjamin Cantu | Sam Houston State University
The Career Collaborative: Scaling Career Education through Faculty and Staff Partnerships
Aly Novi and Jessica Lane-Rwabukwisi | Binghamton University, State University of New York
Start Where You Are: Leveraging Life Design Principles Across the Student Life Cycle for Student and Career Development
Lisa Novack, Zain Olson, and Caroline Quinn | Carlson School of Management, The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
2023 VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
BREAKOUT SESSIONS
Experiential Engagement through Employer Challenges
Meagan Hart-Molloy and Elizabeth Schaller
The University of Michigan
Are you looking for a way to provide more connection points between students and employers, all without leaving campus? This webinar is designed to share the University Career Center Employer Challenge program as a practical experiential learning opportunity. Employer Challenges allow students to build deep connections with organizations through short-term, mini-projects that might be virtual, hands-on, case study and more. Each semester, we engage with different organizations to bring a virtual or in-person project to our campus that students can work on throughout one week to better understand different job functions/industries and solve practical business problems. The goal of the Employer Challenge is to not only help students better understand different areas of work, but to also receive critical feedback on the content, creativity, and overall presentation of their final project from the employer partner. Students that engage in the Employer Challenge will also connect with employers in a way that allows them to deeply understand the organization and learn about various roles that they can recruit for in the future. Employers that engage are able to use this opportunity as a more meaningful way to connect with students outside of traditional formats such as information sessions, fairs and on-campus recruiting.
Supporting the Unique Career Development Needs of Graduate Students
Yas Hardaway
Pepperdine University
Graduate School of Education & Psychology
The purpose of this presentation is to bring light to the unique career development needs of graduate students and strategies to support them in an ever-evolving career landscape. Specifically, graduate students often manage multiple life complexities and responsibilities, which may lead to role strain, time constraints, and financial concerns. Graduate students represent a broad range of life stages, generations, degrees, and industries. When it comes to the application of their degree, they sometimes face challenges justifying its ROI, translating their degree outside of academia, and navigating internal academic pressures when pursuing non-academic routes, ultimately impacting their sense of identity. Furthermore, because of the structure of graduate programs, students may be vulnerable to feelings of isolation and face challenges with motivation and self-efficacy. This presentation will build upon an understanding of the current economic market and explore various approaches to assure services are inclusive for graduate students. Specifically, the following areas will be addressed: 1.) the unique career development needs of graduate students, as it relates to identity and wellbeing; 2.) customized strategies for delivering relevant, holistic, and timely graduate student career services; and 3.) diverse approaches for partnership-building, data-driven storytelling, and targeted outreach and marketing.
Recruiting, Onboarding, Activating, and Retaining Diverse, Multi-generational Staff Members
Carolyn Serdar
Carthage College
Carthage College’s career services center, The Aspire Program had a major exodus of staff members in spring 2022 including the leadership. This session will be a case study in how the new leadership intentionally recruited, onboarded, activated and retained a diverse group of employees in southeastern Wisconsin. Through a variety of recruitment techniques, 10 new staff members were on boarded between August 2022-March 2023. Competitive offers were made to staff members to ensure they felt excited to begin their journey at Carthage College. Through professional development training with the Career Leadership Collective this brand new group of staff members became a tight cohort who learned the nuts and bolts of career development and then collectively created Aspire 2.0. The leadership inspired activation in the team to leverage strengths from previous roles and create a new culture of work. Staff members were empowered to set their own schedules and provided flexibility in work locations. While there have been a few bumps along the way, overall the team has come together as a diverse cacophony of voices and experiences to help students. As a result, student appointments have increased substantially and the faculty have come to trust the staff to provide professional development programs. Due to the new stability of the team and leadership, respect for The Aspire Center has increased tenfold. Additionally, program development has exploded in new ways with fresh ideas. With all the new talent, we have been able to scale programs throughout the college by partnering with faculty members to include our My Aspire Plan (MAP) to be included within the college curriculum. This session will leave attendees with practical solutions to solving the talent shortage in higher education and the way to build a culture of collaboration.
Helping Students Get Unstuck with Small Group Internship Cohorts
Chelsea Moore and Meagan Hart-Molloy
The University of Michigan
We’ve all been there: You meet with a student, and they leave with energy and a plan for how to move forward in their internship search. A couple weeks later, you see them again and the student stressfully laments that they haven’t made any progress. We get it. Students are busy. They are navigating challenges like mental health concerns, balancing jobs, family and school, and more. On top of that, internship searching can feel intimidating and overwhelming. It’s easy to get stuck. At the University of Michigan’s University Career Center (UCC), we’ve been experimenting with ways to help students carve out time for their search, make real progress, and get expert advice from our staff. In 2018, we launched Internship Labs – dynamic group strategy sessions for students to learn how to look for an internship and get work done during the lab. Internship Labs have been a huge success for our office, but some students wanted more long-term guidance. Long-term guidance is not scalable at the 1:1 level, so we have turned to a small group approach. In 2021, the University Career Center piloted small group internship search cohorts and the program has continued to grow since. Students sign up to join a 4-5 week cohort. In this cohort they learn strategies for internship searching, but more importantly, they: (1) carve time out of their busy schedule actually to accomplish tasks. They leave the session with action items done and clear goals for the week before the next session. (2) They have access to expert career coaches checking in and guiding them through each step. They feel supported and like they have a go-to person they can always connect with. (3) They collaborate with their peers and lean on each other throughout the process. Through the program assessment, we saw students reporting success in our main goal: actually filling out that application, actually reaching out for an informational interview…getting the ball rolling! Students reported that the cohorts helped them carve out the time they needed to get work done when they were struggling on their own. In this session, participants will learn about the cohort program and will also brainstorm other creative strategies to “unstick” students at their institutions. Learning Outcomes: As a result of this session attendees will:
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Understand how to structure opportunities for students that create a supportive peer network for mutual growth and learning.
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Learn how to create a program that helps students build the essential skills and strategies necessary for conducting a successful internship search. (3) Brainstorm strategies for initiating action-based learning opportunities on their campuses.
Transforming Student Employment at Arizona State University and Beyond
Scott Travis and Amy Michalenko
Arizona State University
At Arizona State University, an innovative initiative is underway to revolutionize student employment by seamlessly integrating work and learning. This effort, fully aligned with ASU's Charter and driven by the goal of enhancing student success, is going national! Join us in this session as we unveil The Work+ Collective, an expansion of our efforts aimed at not only sharing these transformative ideas and valuable resources nationwide but also fostering a widespread influence on the landscape of student employment.
Integrating Career Readiness into UAB's FYE Curriculum through the Core Curriculum
Brandon Wright
The University of Alabama at Birmingham
At the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), we recognized the need for early career-related interventions for our students. To address this, we embarked on a transformative journey to revise the UAB Blazer Core Curriculum. Our innovative approach involved integrating two career-related learning objectives into all First Year Experience courses across every academic program. This initiative ensures that every first-year student at UAB receives a career-related intervention in their first semester, fostering a culture of awareness and learning. Our presentation will delve into the process of this curriculum revision, the partnerships formed with faculty, campus partners, and external collaborators, and the significant impact this initiative has had on student success, institutional effectiveness, and graduate outcomes.
Residential Student Engagement Specialist: Bringing Career Development Home
Lexie Avery and Erin Hansen Binghamton University
Developing creative strategies to engage with students seems like an ever-evolving line that just keeps moving. In Fall 2021, the Fleishman Career Center partnered with Residential Life and Housing to create a new graduate-level role focused on increasing the career readiness of students living on campus. With a residential campus of about 7,500 students, two graduate-level staff were placed within first-year-specific communities and brought career programming home. The Residential Student Engagement Specialists (RSES), engaged with 1,273 unique students in the 2022-2023 academic year, and engaging with upwards of 40% of the first year students living in their designated communities. In the 6 residential communities at Binghamton, we saw engagement increase by 10% from 2021-2022 to 2022-2023 academic year. By integrating the graduate students in the community, it builds trust, credibility and excitement around career exploration, education and preparation.
Career Tutorials for Students - Scaling Our Reach
Jillian Morley
Utah State University
The Career Design Center at Utah State University created an open Canvas class filled with modules on a variety of career development topics such as career exploration, resume/cover letter writing, interviewing skills, networking strategies, job offer negotiation, graduate school application prep, and more. These modules were designed with the purpose to scale the reach of the Career Design Center and provide more career development to the entire student population. As a land grant university, Utah State University has students across the entire state of Utah, but with a very small team of 6 career design specialists. The ratio of students to specialists was too large where we could not make a significant difference in 1:1 appointments. So, this open Canvas class was created to extend our reach across the state and make our resources/content accessible to all students. Over the course of 1.5 semesters, we saw the class grow from about 100 to about 2,000 active students. This has been an excellent place to share information with students about career fairs, helpful classes, and many other career related topics through the announcement feature. The canvas class is continuing to grow as we add more topics and students and strategize on how to engage employers in the class. Through this session, participants will get a close look at the Canvas class, learn about the successes and challenges of building and maintaining the class, and discuss ways to make something like this even more impactful.
Seamless Synergy: Integrating Career Services into the Academic Curriculum through Self-Directed Learning Modules
Patrick Massaro and
Dr. Stephen Fleming
Rowan University
In this breakout session, our focus is to spotlight the process of creating a Self-Directed Learning Module series within career offices, effectively harnessing it as a tool to actively engage students. More precisely, it will delve into the intricacies of developing and employing the Self-Directed Learning Modules (SDLM) and how the Center for Professional Success did so through collaboration with faculty from the College of Humanities & Social Sciences. These modules, designed for asynchronous engagement, contain 6 to 7 five-minute videos that take approximately 30 to 45 minutes to complete. Each video boasts a diverse lineup of presenters, including students, faculty, staff, and accomplished alums. Modules are seamlessly integrated into students' designated Canvas accounts and are thoughtfully categorized based on three separate series that concentrate on the underlying career needs of students' academic year. The Beginner module functions as a supportive hub for students commencing their exploration of the career landscape, encouraging research and introspection. Transitioning to the Intermediate phase, students are empowered to define their academic and career ambitions, fostering proactive control over their future success. The Advanced module imparts essential insights enabling students to discern and secure promising professional and advanced educational pathways. Upon each module's completion, students receive a Certificate of Completion, a tangible testament they can provide to their professors as evidence of achievement. Lastly, the session will unpack how strategic partnerships with faculty members in the College of Humanities & Social Sciences were established and how these relationships allowed us to embed the modules across our academic curriculum. Since its launch, 111 classes have completed an SDLM module, impacting an engaged student cohort of 1,908. This initiative has effectively bridged academic affairs and career development realms, enriching both facets.
Creating an Experiential Learning Ecosystem at a Global Scale
AJ Merlino and Rebekah Harriger
Harrisburg University
In our session titled "Creating an Experiential Learning Ecosystem at a Global Scale," we dissect the innovative strategies Harrisburg University employs to implement a cohesive experiential learning framework across diverse campus settings, including Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Panama, Dubai, and online platforms. Utilizing a centralized Office of Career Services & Experiential Learning, we've crafted a robust experiential curriculum that addresses multiple aspects of applied learning—from internships to applied projects and professional development seminars—all governed by a collaborative committee comprising faculty, staff, and administrators. Our approach effectively manages the challenges of full institutional buy-in, new faculty onboarding, and cost while addressing issues of inequity in experiential learning. Through a mix of informative presentations, interactive exercises, and real-world case studies, participants will gain actionable insights into establishing scalable and equitable experiential learning programs. Outcomes include practical guidelines for supporting experiential learning in various environments, developing assessment methods for competency-based education, and fostering collaborative campus-wide buy-in. This holistic strategy enriches student learning and bolsters enrollment, retention, and workforce preparedness.
"Concierge Service" - Providing Proactive & Intentional Service to Employers & Students
Benjamin Cantu
Sam Houston State University
Have you ever thought about how to increase student & alumni engagement with employers? Have you thought about trying to do this outside of using a 3rd party CRM system but don't know how you would do it? Learn how the Career Success Center at Sam Houston State University embarked on a 6 month process to launch a "Concierge Service" model of engagement for students, alumni, and employers. The Career Center spent 3 months of planning goals and outcomes related to our new model of service and researched alternatives to using traditional online platforms for engagement. The result - increase in employer sponsorships, better tracking of employer engagement with our students, tailored and targeted communications to our students, increase in social media engagement and followers, and finally a statistically significant increase in First Destination Survey completions.
The Career Collaborative: Scaling Career Education through Faculty and Staff Partnerships
Aly Novi and
Jessica Lane-Rwabukwisi
Binghamton University, State University of New York
This session will introduce a new initiative at Binghamton University titled "The Career Collaborative." The Career Collaborative is a multifaceted initiative led by the Fleishman Career Center for faculty, staff, alumni, employers and partners to co-create meaningful career education opportunities in partnership with our team. The Collaborative aims to provide relevant career tools, education, employer and alumni connections, funding opportunities and transformational service geared toward our partners in order to immerse 100% of students in career and personal growth. During our session, we will discuss the planning and implementation process, including the development of our Academic Partnerships team who have primarily led this initiative. We will highlight lessons learned throughout the process with a special focus on how we are navigating this initiative at a Research-1 institution where career services remains under student affairs, separate from academic affairs, with strong traditional institutional cultural norms to keep them separate. Finally, we will include initial outcomes from our first semester (number of courses/students reached), and plans for growing the initiative moving forward.
Start Where You Are: Leveraging Life Design Principles Across the Student Life Cycle for Student and Career Development
Lisa Novack, Zain Olson, and Caroline Quinn
Carlson School of Management, The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
The University of Minnesota- Carlson School of Management Undergraduate Program has embraced life design concepts to help students build their college and career planning experience. Through strategic integration of student life and career development functions, implementation of two required courses: Design Your Life and Design Your Career, undergraduates are learning to "start where they are," "prototype," and "try stuff" throughout the college lifecycle, which begins even before the first day of college. Attendees of this interactive session will gain an overview of life design, hear how it has been leveraged in co-curricular and academic spaces to help Carlson students connect and explore, and identify ideas for weaving life design across their college's student life cycle, including courses, student engagement and career planning work. The presentation will include an overview of both qualitative and quantitative course learning outcomes from a pre- and post- course assessment.