Academic Disciplines are Also Stakeholders in Career Readiness

By Jose Santos, Professor of Social Science & Co-Director, Career Readiness Fellowship at Metropolitan State University

Eric Lloyd correctly tells us that both higher education and industry share responsibility for career readiness. Industry needs a host of skills. Colleges should teach them. Yet Lloyd points out that higher education and industry think and act differently, and serve different purposes. Students and graduates can fall into this gap, and our collective responsibility lies with them. 

Who Else Can Help Bridge this Gap? 

Alongside educational institutions and industry, academic disciplines represent an important third set of stakeholders accountable to students and graduates. How do programs as different as English, Marketing, Biology, Fine Arts, and Sociology each form part of a sustainable ecosystem that links education to industry?

Instructors are trained by and network within specific disciplines, represented in the various academic departments across college campuses. Each discipline provides unique skills and networks. Ideally, graduates use these to transition from school to career. At Metropolitan State University, we’ve found career readiness blooms by fostering each discipline’s unique gifts. 

Why Does this Work? 

Because academic disciplines represent active and productive connections, they rally resources and labor, existing both between universities and externally. Instructors receive disciplinary training at multiple schools, and receive professional development from disciplinary organizations that network with both universities and industry partners. Professors go to disciplinary conferences, publish in disciplinary journals, and both learn and teach the skills their discipline fosters. Students encounter all of these disciplinary influences in their respective instructors’ coursework. Fostering disciplinary career readiness nurtures new growth in things that already exist.

Logistically, this means presenting career readiness to instructors as a problem to solve, focusing on the unique context of their course and the major’s content. Metro State’s Career Readiness Fellowships fund faculty from multiple programs with the stipulation that each must design an “artifact” for their courses or departments. They learn (and argue) together in workshops, but each creates something unique, a concrete deliverable, which they can implement immediately. Artifacts have included course assignments and projects, student self-assessment tools, tools for curricular assessment, and networking plans with industry partners.

We quickly found that each discipline has something unique to offer. Simply put, business, STEM, the liberal arts, and others rarely approach career readiness the same way. Instead, disciplinary differences mean students approach career readiness in different courses through multiple lenses, benefiting from various forms of expertise. 

Examples that Make the Point

Some artifacts show us how this works. A Writing, Literature, and Language instructor taught students to organize their writing and effectively integrate quotations, paraphrases, and summaries through an essay based on career aspirations. A Management professor designed an audit for his major, evaluating career readiness efficacy across their courses. One Psychology professor has students articulate their skill growth through the phrase “I am able to (full or partial description), as evidenced by (list skills or behaviors)” (a tool from the American Psychological Association’s CABE initiative). Applying the CRAAP test designed by California State librarians, a Library faculty member taught digital literacy by teaching students to evaluate the credibility of career websites. 

By fostering disciplinary approaches, we also influence networks outside the university. These instructors make novel contributions through disciplinary conferences, initiatives, and publications. Linking education and career, their professional organizations are uniquely positioned to facilitate ecosystemic growth.

What Can This Produce? 

Let’s take one example. Anthropologists working in both education and industry collaborated to create the Anthropology Career Readiness Network. It provides job seeker tools, instructor guidance, lists of professionals to visit classes and network with, and even a workbook for use in courses. While written by anthropological experts, these tools work for any student, educator, or job seeker. The network even offers consulting visits with anthropology departments focused on program building and assessment. When disciplines go to these lengths, they build the bridge between school and career.

In Summary:

All academic disciplines absolutely share responsibility for career readiness, alongside education and industry. Mathematicians, anthropologists, psychologists, artists, economists, and the rest might seem to have different goals, but they’re on the same page when it comes to wanting students to succeed. Each has the duty and privilege of figuring out the unique contributions from their own careers, and passing those on in class. Students then learn to use multiple approaches and tools to pursue career readiness. Career Ecosystem efforts at schools like Metro State show this can begin with individual instructors on each campus, bringing their discipline’s network and expertise into the classroom, while also tapping into and fostering a career readiness focus in their professional organizations and collective ethos. 

Jose Santos

Professor of Social Science

Co-Director, Career Readiness Fellowship

Metropolitan State University

Jose Leonardo Santos is a professor of social science at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he co-chairs the Career Readiness Fellowships. He received his BA in anthropology from Brown University (1999) and his MA (2005) and PhD (2008) in cultural anthropology from Southern Methodist University. He previously researched immigration, evangelicalism, and masculinity. His dissertation research became the book Evangelicalism and Masculinity: Faith and Gender in El Salvador in 2012. From 2012 through 2022, he often featured on Minnesota Public Radio, discussing topics including politics, gender, race, and more. He now researches issues in higher education, including teaching, learning, the COVID-19 pandemic, shared governance, political polarization, as well as cuts and closures to colleges and universities. Currently, he co-chairs The Society for Applied Anthropology’s Public Sector Crisis Workgroup.