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<< back to Dialogues Meeting on Public Interest Career Development
held at Wesleyan University, December, 2003> meeting overview Mike Sciola, Director of the Wesleyan Career Resource Center, co-hosted this meeting with members of the new Center for Community Partnerships. The meeting served as a forum for individuals from career service offices to think about how students view our offices, how we can better help students interested in socially responsible careers and help foster dialogue about the rewards and challenges in living a socially responsible life. The discussion yielded eight projects for consortial work as well as several suggestions for each campus to consider. notes/excerpts from the meeting > goals for the meeting
- Provide feedback to Wesleyan's efforts to address careers for the common good.- Highlight key issues that we face collectively. - Discuss new ways that we might work together as a consortium to address issues of common concern around public interest work. > introduction, discussion of objectives and hopes for the meeting
Over the course of our meetings, the discussion should include talking about:- Language - Planning and being strategic, it is not about how can we do more - Are we having a positive effect? - We do plenty, but we are unsure of outcomes. - What does the full picture look like? - Becoming better at public interest careers requires us to also become better at our jobs in general, and that would help all students. - This is not about doing corporate work or doing good work, it's about helping students find their place in the world, regardless of job. - How can the consortium help us in concrete ways? More intentionally weigh power on our campus? - Venture schools are leaders in this discussion. What is our role in the larger dialogue of Colleges and Public Interest Careers? How does that fit in with Idealist's work? - Notion of a socially responsible life (beyond work). > comment on what's happening on our campuses and beyond
- Related info from Idealist.org's workIdealist has surveyed 300 non-profit HR employers, most learned HR on the Job, have one or fewer people who do full time HR in their organization, few recruit on college campuses or find posting jobs with career services effective. - What are we hearing from students? > They want: an answer, a pathway, funding for their idea, the expert in their thing > They don't want: another website, the run around (they feel like they are sent all over) > Don't think CRC has what I'm looking for: the image, not going to make money in public interest careers, too many loans, parents, no easy access for non-profits > Job search is too hard. > They have no time/so busy being engaged. > You don't do it. > Thinking about my career is selfish. > They are getting it somewhere else. > This can all be summarized as: Therefore you don't care. > to better serve students interested in living socially responsible lives, career offices should.
- Tell stories - video of students/alums using these services- Make a visual map > Overlap in services > Existing programs - Acknowledge/share that you know students are different - Redefine how we talk about this > Composing a life. > Non-profit students have perhaps more entry points to our offices - this might lead to scattered feelings - Integrated missions and planning across offices - Be experts in knowing what the other offices do - Address counselor neutrality - the institution's mission/outcomes aren't neutral - Show them/create a structure - Avoid separating "the goal" by sector, although the search process might be different by sector - Engage "business" students too - Rethink the boundaries among our offices - Space and language matter - has it had an impact on other places? - Educate all constituencies about the complexity of this - Make it clear that we know that this is hard and that this is an on-going process > You need to be entrepreneurial - Involve study abroad and faith-based offices in this - "Four-year plan" for a public interest student - Offer loan forgiveness to students doing this (through non-profits) - More resources into first and second year students - Change advising to talk not just about course selection > Key questions that can be asked during advising > Methodology - Structure group reflection throughout their time at college - Value of scaled up informal conversation - Identify the needs of these students and see what the differences are > Not anecdotally, real inquiry - ID what employers really want - When students have good conversations in college and then leave college, it can be traumatic > Ongoing dialogue about this - More on sophomores - How's it going dinners > Sophomores/Seniors > I'd begin with.
- Mission and planning comparison- Is there a shared vision? - One year calendar, Four year calendar, and beyond. - Outreach to all constituencies - Change conversation in outreach from "Hey, here are our programs" to "Here's something we can work on together." - Describe the kinds of conversations we do have.identify our points of entree with students - Outcome survey to graduates about how community work has shaped their lives after graduation - Senior interviews like those at Swarthmore > priorities for campus-level work
- Comprehensive calendar (Programs, priorities, can we collaborate)- Broad-mapping - pathways (beyond office boundaries) - consider student perspective & four year plan - Identify the players. Bring all the stakeholders (or perspective stakeholders) to the table - Market collaboratively - Sponsor programs as partners, Identify what each piece does, Have materials at all offices, Link websites, Branding - Determine breadth of programs - Shared Enterprise. Who is responsible for what? - Expand the dialogue. Include students, Talk to alumni office - what message is the university sending in terms of careers valued? - Identify an early win. Invite students who attended Idealist.org's talk to talk about their interest/needs, Enlist their help - Define a common language - Professional Development (Across departments) (back to top) |
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