Faculty and Staff Summer Conference 2024

Career Readiness in the Curriculum:

The “Career Readiness in the Curriculum” track provides educators with a structured approach to integrating career preparedness into academic programs, beginning with an overview of the concept and its significance for student success. It offers practical sessions on designing and assessing curricula with career readiness in mind, using a variety of tools such as rubrics and modules adaptable to different teaching formats. Participants engage in hands-on workshops to apply these strategies directly to their courses, with a focus on interdisciplinary application and leveraging campus resources. A key component includes a panel discussion with employers and alumni, offering insights into the skills and competencies valued in the workforce. The track emphasizes collaboration with career centers to enhance curriculum effectiveness, culminating in actionable plans for educators to implement career preparedness strategies in their teaching practices.

 * For session times and location please refer to the conference schedule.

Learning Outcomes:

During this track, faculty and staff members: 

• Grasp the essentials of career readiness integration into curricula, emphasizing its significance for student success in the workforce.
• Master the design and assessment of career-preparedness-focused curricula using adaptable tools and methodologies for diverse teaching formats.
• Apply interdisciplinary strategies for career readiness in academic programs, leveraging campus resources and engaging in hands-on workshops.
• Gain insights from employer and alumni panels on valued skills and competencies, informing actionable plans for curriculum enhancement.
• Collaborate with career centers and academic colleagues to implement and refine career readiness initiatives, ultimately empowering students for professional success.

Session Abstracts:

Session 1: Scaffolding Career Preparedness into the Curriculum – an Overview

Career Preparedness is not simply about job prospects or professional trajectory. Meaningful career curriculum is about self-actualization and self-efficacy. Here at Cal Poly Humboldt a group of faculty in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and key members of staff believed  that students are more likely to succeed in their studies when they know what it’s ‘for’ and so created a long-term collaboration in the area of  career curriculum. The goal was to address what we saw as both the practical and the equity ‘gaps’ between the co-curricular efforts of the Career Center and the classroom. This session will recount the progress, note the missteps, and offer some lessons on the care and nurturing of staff/faculty relationships that look beyond ‘student success’, towards ‘life success’ through the self-exploration process we call career preparedness.

Session 2: Career Preparedness in the Curriculum – Impact on Students

This session builds on Session One by offering a discussion of assessment-aware design for career integration in the curriculum. The session includes the CPP context for assessment while offering specific examples of career curriculum at both the course and programmatic level. Examples include rubrics, exercises, and modules that can be dropped into any course with different course modalities and formats in mind. This discussion serves as preparation for the working sessions on syllabi and program outcomes.

Session 3: Working Session

Bring your syllabi or your curriculum map. Our team will support you while you highlight and implement career preparedness in your course(s).

Session 4: Career readiness in different disciplines 

Making a major a home happens on many levels. Helping students recognize and embrace their scholarly area of study and professional intentions has vital roots in their major of choice. Asking an engineer to help with an art portfolio or an English professor to help with jobs in Wildlife makes no sense, yet we expect career centers to cover the entire spectrum of options and underutilize the expertise housed in each department. Many career products are standard but given estimates that 85% of jobs are achieved through some kind networking, connections in the specific field are vital to success. This session will look at some of those similarities and differences and how faculty and staff can be more complementary as they guide students to the options found in their major, college, or campus.

Session 5: Resources for Incorporating career preparedness in your courses and curriculum

How do you know whether your students feel prepared for a career after graduation? What educational practices do students correlate to career preparedness? And what are some resources on your campus to help with integrating career preparedness into your courses and/or curriculum? This session will introduce available data sources to better understand the career status of our students and alumni, along with resources that can help with designing and updating your course content.

Session 6: Employer Panel 

Hear from employers about the type of career preparedness they expect to see in recent graduates and how that ties in to the courses that students take.  

Session 7: Collaboration with the Career Center

What resources are available to faculty members from their campus’ career centers? What are some impactful ways to integrate career center resources into your curriculum? Career center professionals from Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly Humboldt will discuss their experiences integrating career preparedness into the classroom and offer insights on challenges and successes.

Session 8: Working Session

Bring your syllabi or your curriculum map. Our team will support you while you highlight and implement career preparedness in your course(s) or program.  

Career Readiness through Campus Student Employment:

This track presents a holistic approach to integrating National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Career Readiness Competencies into campus student employment, fostering essential skills for the dynamic job market. Beginning with an in-depth exploration of competencies such as communication, critical thinking, teamwork, digital literacy, leadership, professionalism, and career management, participants will learn to recognize and develop these skills in student employees. The track progresses to practical applications, offering strategies for incorporating competency development into daily tasks despite managerial time constraints. Special emphasis is placed on the Iowa GROW® initiative and guided reflection practices, highlighting their effectiveness in connecting classroom learning with workplace experience. This approach not only enhances student employment as a high-impact activity but also equips managers with tools for fostering a learning-centric work environment.

 * For session times and location please refer to the conference schedule.

Learning Outcomes:

• Gain a comprehensive understanding of NACE Career Readiness Competencies and their importance in student employment.
• Learn practical strategies for integrating competency development into student employment practices.
• Understand how to use the Iowa GROW® initiative and guided reflection to make student employment a high-impact learning experience.
• Equip managers with tools and strategies for incorporating guided reflection into their management practices, enhancing students' competency awareness and workplace performance.

Session Abstracts:

Session 1: Unpacking the NACE Career Readiness Competencies

In today's dynamic job market, equipping students with essential career readiness competencies is paramount. This two-part session aims to help faculty and staff integrate the NACE Career Readiness competencies work into student employment experiences. Participants will delve into the intricacies of communication, critical thinking, teamwork, digital literacy, leadership, professionalism, and career management, gaining a deep understanding of each competency. Through interactive discussions, activities, and practical examples, attendees will recognize where and how these competencies manifest in the daily work of student employees. 

Session 2: Competencies in Action 

Expanding on the foundational understanding established in the first session, this session delves into the behaviors associated with communication, critical thinking, teamwork, digital literacy, leadership, professionalism, and career management. Equipped with an understanding of these behaviors and skill-building tools, managers can learn to integrate competency development into the daily tasks of student employees. Given the time constraints managers face due to many daily responsibilities, this session's main objective is to facilitate tool sharing and provide practice opportunities through interactive activities. This approach enables managers to immediately apply the strategies learned.

Session 3: The Iowa GROW® Experience

Iowa GROW® (Guided Reflection on Work) uses brief, structured conversations between student employees and their supervisors to help students connect the skills and knowledge they are gaining in the classroom with the work they are doing and vice versa. Iowa GROW® is focused on making student employment a "high-impact activity," one that requires students to reflect on their learning and connect their learning within and beyond the classroom. During this presentation, we will discuss how student employment can enhance student success, provide an overview of the Iowa GROW® initiative and outcomes, outline how you can implement GROW® with your student employees, and share other strategies beyond GROW that can help organizations build a learning-centric student employment experience. 

Session 4: Integrating Reflection in the Student Experience – Tools for Managers 

This session focuses on leveraging guided reflection into the regular workday with student employees. The primary goal is to equip managers with practical tools and strategies that they can immediately implement. Through interactive exercises and discussions, participants will engage in hands-on practice to facilitate reflection within their management practices. By the end of the session, managers will have gained a deeper understanding of reflection practices and will be equipped with the necessary skills and tools to cultivate reflective practices among student employees, ultimately enhancing their competency awareness, development, workplace performance, and future readiness. 

Jeremy Podany

Founder & CEO, The Career Leadership Collective

Session Details:

"Transforming a Career Ecosystem on Campus"

Every higher education institution has a Career Readiness Ecosystem. This ecosystem may or may not be working effectively or to its fullest potential, but it can equitably transform the future of all students. In this session, Jeremy Podany, CEO and Founder of The Career Leadership Collective and the nation's leading expert on building capacity in Higher Education Career Ecosystems, will share trends, best practices, and research on how to build an effective career ecosystem across campus.

About:

Jeremy Podany is the Founder and CEO of The Career Leadership Collective, a consultancy that has done business with over 1,000 colleges and universities since 2017 on the systemic career development needs of higher education. The Collective is the inventor of the National Alumni Career Mobility (NACM) survey and the EMBARK first destination data service, which were both acquired by Lightcast in 2023. Jeremy enjoyed nearly 20 years working in higher education, primarily in career services. His inventions and consulting solutions have systemically helped thousands of university leaders and hundreds of thousands of college students with career education and career mobility.

Dr. Olukemi Sawyerr

Associate Vice President, Office of Academic Innovation - California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Session Details:

The future of work is evolving rapidly. While a college degree remains valuable, graduates often face a competitive job market unprepared for the skills and experiences employers seek. This keynote explores the critical need for higher education institutions to integrate career preparedness into their curriculum and in all co-curricular activities. Higher education promises a path to social mobility, yet unequal access to career preparedness resources perpetuates existing inequalities. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds often lack the social capital, professional networks, and career guidance readily available to their peers. This creates a significant barrier to career exploration, skill development, and ultimately, successful post-graduation outcomes. Integrating career readiness into higher education is not just beneficial, but an equity imperative.

About:

Olukemi Sawyerr, Ph.D., is the State Chair and Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Council on Education Women’s Network Southern California. She is the inaugural Associate Vice President for the Office of Academic Innovation (AI) and professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at Cal Poly Pomona. AI curates opportunities for experiential learning, discovery, and innovation. Dr. Sawyerr is leading the career and professional readiness initiative to prepare Cal Poly Pomona students for the future of work, human and civic engagement. She is the Principal Investigator on Cal Poly Pomona’s National Science Foundation I-Corps Site grant, and the NSF CPP INVESTS grant. Her current research interests focus on entrepreneurship education and its impact in higher education and has appeared in multiple peer-reviewed journals and national and international academic and professional conferences. She holds a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from Texas Woman’s University and a doctoral degree from the University of North Texas. 

Mathew Brink

Chief Content & Programs Officer, National Association of Colleges and Employers

Session Details:

Established in 1956, NACE is a professional association that connects nearly 17,000 college career services professionals, university relations and recruiting professionals, and the business solution providers that serve this community.  In 2015 NACE launched its Career Readiness Initiative to address a fundamental need for new college graduates and the professionals who serve their career development needs and recruit them into the workforce: a shared understanding of what is needed to launch and develop a successful career, a common vocabulary by which to discuss needs and expectations, and a basic set of competencies upon which a successful career is launched. In this session, Matthew Brink, NACE Chief Programs and Content Officer will discuss the origins of the NACE career readiness competencies, best practices from campuses that have successfully scaled competency implementation, and a general framework of how the competencies can move us forward in building a successful workforce.

About:

Matthew Brink is chief content and programs officer for the National Association of Colleges and Employers. He oversees professional development services, meetings and events, content, and all research initiatives. An experienced professional in the field, Brink has overseen career services in a variety of institutions, including, most recently, the University of Delaware, and has been active in employer-focused activities.