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The University of Montana is working to make career development a key element of all undergraduate students’ experiences through general education reform and digital badging for student employees.
Don and Melinda Crawford/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Students say they want faculty members to play an active role in their career development, but identifying how can be a challenge for practitioners.
A May 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found over half of students believe their faculty members are at least partly responsible for preparing them for careers.
A new initiative at the University of Montana helps professors infuse or identify career competencies in their curriculum, promoting equity in career development for all learners at the institution.
ElevateU launched in the 2022–23 academic year and has scaled to offer three layers of engagement for faculty and staff members looking to engage students in career development work across their college experience.
Survey Says
The May Student Voice survey found 20 percent of students are very confident that their education and college experiences are preparing them for success after graduation, and an additional 58 percent are somewhat confident.
What’s the need: Research shows some students—including first-generation learners, those from low-income backgrounds and those from historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups—are less likely to engage in high-impact practices that generate career readiness, including internships, faculty-led research and extracurricular activities.
At the University of Montana, around three in 10 students are first-generation and another three in 10 students receive Pell Grants, says Brian Reed, associate vice president for student success. “Many students also come from rural backgrounds, where access to traditional internships is limited by transportation issues or family obligations.”
One way to ensure all students are included in professional development and career preparation experiences is to integrate these activities into the classroom and the curriculum.
ElevateU helps ensure all students, regardless of their background, graduate with skills that align with workforce demands, Reed says. The program addresses a growing focus on skills-based hiring for entry-level professionals by calling out career competencies students are gaining in their education.
How it works: The program is a campuswide collaboration, led by the Office of Experiential Learning and Career Success (ELCS) and supported by the Faculty Senate, career services and the Office of the Provost.
ElevateU has several different facets that allow faculty and staff members to get as involved as they want.
The greatest reach, and lowest commitment, is through the Career Champions Listserv, which provides regular updates to practitioners looking to stay up-to-date with campus happenings related to careers and the student experience.
For faculty wanting to dig deeper, ELCS staff offer workshops and professional development in a community of practice that assists in identifying career skills and incorporating them into syllabi and assignments. During the 2022–23 academic year, 235 faculty members participated in workshops and events through ElevateU.
“Through this approach, faculty help students make clear connections between their academic experiences and the skills they’ll need professionally,” Reed says. “This strategy also ensures that career preparation is embedded throughout all students’ educational journeys.”
All future general education courses will include one to three career skills, per a Faculty Senate resolution passed in spring 2023—an estimated 600 courses by 2029, as courses are renewed every five years.
Staff members can participate in this work as well, through the Grizz Career Skills program (GCS), a self-paced series of modules students can complete on the Canvas LMS. Supervisors of student workers on campus can commit to giving students paid time to complete modules and earn digital badges, helping improve their workforce readiness.
A significant number of UM students work for wages to pay for tuition, so ensuring students can both meet their financial needs and engage in skill building for future career opportunities is critical, Reed says. Since launching this spring, around 70 students have completed all modules in GCS.
The most involved group of faculty in this work are the Faculty Career Fellows, sponsored by the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation, which provides stipends for faculty members to help call out career learning in the classroom. The inaugural cohort included seven fellows.
Identifying competencies: The University of Montana identifies 10 career skills that loosely mirror the National Association for Colleges and Employers’ competencies: career and self-development, communication, critical thinking, equity and inclusion, leadership, workplace performance, teamwork, technology, community and global engagement, and creativity and innovation.
Unique to UM are community and global engagement and creativity and innovation. The university has a long-standing history in service and giving back to the local community, which campus leaders wanted to reflect in their career skills. Similarly, Montana is home to a large number of small businesses, so inspiring students’ entrepreneurship was important.
NACE uses the term “professionalism” as a career competency, but the University of Montana opts for “workplace performance” instead to move away from a white and Eurocentric ideal of what is professional, allowing the skill to be more context-bound and accessible. In Montana, dark jeans are considered professional in the workplace, so typical definitions of “professional dress” don’t always apply, for example.
Reed jokes that these are the campuses’ 10 career commandments. “We have them everywhere, in workshops and all programs we have them front and center,” he says, including in university marketing and social media.
What’s next: University of Montana leaders are committed to tracking participation and engagement across the various ElevateU initiatives and hope to enlist more faculty and extend this work through upper-division courses.
While embedding career development into the curriculum is a great way to ensure equal opportunities for students, the university recognizes that internships provide additional high-impact learning and leaders will continue to pursue opportunities to improve access to internships, Reed says.
The next frontier is creating richer engagement with alumni, not just six months after graduation but throughout their careers, tracking outcomes and ensuring alumni have access to university resources.
Do you have a career prep tip that might help others encourage student success? Tell us about it.
