Since the initial Strategic Doing for Student Success retreat in September 2024, a work team has been collaborating to enhance students' career readiness. Their project: create a single, campuswide definition of "career readiness."
The core of it all
The multi-department team consists of 15 individuals whose work supports career readiness. Co-chaired by Brian Benedict and Estela Ene, the team recognized the varied perspectives of “career readiness” as an opportunity to build a cohesive campus understanding.
“If you ask lots of different people, they have slightly different definitions of it or what they think it is,” Benedict, director of employer relations, said. “So, we’re trying to come together as a group to put forth an idea of what we think is a good definition that hopefully the campus can embrace and that we can rally around as we try and prepare students.”
The team has convened every 60 days, focusing on reviewing current progress and any imperative steps needed to effectively advance to their final goals.
Ene, chair of the English Department and director of the English for Academic Purposes Program, highlighted the team’s proactive commitment to thinking big, brainstorming, and using existing resources for strategic application.
“We’re all coming together with this aspirational but also very realistic approach toward our goals and trying to improve how we address career readiness on our campus,” Ene said.
The team is working with career services to gain feedback from students and administrators for potential edits to the career readiness definition. Stakeholder feedback remains a priority, with plans to also extend feedback to employers in the Indianapolis area.
Campus impact
Ultimately, the team’s definition will be used to guide adjustments to career services, curriculum, and other related areas.
The team has made significant progress within a short period of time, and Ene anticipates that the team’s efforts will build a fruitful impact of success for current and future students.
“The hope is that we can do something meaningful for campus, [something] that can improve processes in the short term as well as in the long term,” Ene said.
As the team moves forward in finalizing its draft in the upcoming months, Benedict and Ene are confident in the members’ expertise and their commitment to students.
“The reason that we’re in this group is that we feel this is important, and it will hopefully provide benefits for the student experience when they come to our campus,” Benedict said. “It’s something that most of us, being professionals in career services on our campus, want to rally around. We want to make sure that every student graduates prepared no matter what school or program they’re in across campus.”
For more information, contact the Division of Undergraduate Education Office of Communications at duecomm@iu.edu.