Faculty to Faculty: A Peer Approach to Career Guidance

Advice & News| by Amy R. Frederick and Lauren Ashley Lane

Faculty are among the first people students turn to for career advice. Unfortunately, faculty may not always be prepared with the tools and language needed to connect classroom learning to classroom readiness. The Faculty Career Champions program at Centre College is designed to bridge that gap by providing faculty with a stronger understanding of career readiness and offering practical methods of incorporating it into their teaching and advising.

In the following Q&A, Lauren Lane speaks with Amy Reed Frederick, associate professor of art history and director of the AEGON Gallery at Centre College, about the Faculty Career Champions program, how faculty are trained in the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE)career readiness competencies, and advice for institutions considering a similar model.

Lane, HigherEdJobs: Students often look to faculty for guidance about their academic paths, but faculty aren't always equipped to help students connect what they're learning to careers. What led your institution to create Faculty Career Champions, and what does the program aim to accomplish?

Frederick associate professor of art history and director of theAEGON Gallery, Centre College: In 2022, Joy Asher, associate dean for career readiness and executive director of the Center for Career & Professional Development, presented the results of the most recent National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) of the class of 2022 at a faculty meeting. Joy highlighted that 78% of Centre students reported seeking career advice from faculty, 36% higher than the national average. Because students were turning to faculty for career guidance at such a high rate, Joy knew faculty needed to be significantly involved in the work of career readiness, especially at a place like Centre College. She contacted faculty members from across disciplines who were newly attentive to understanding our role in career development, asking those with firsthand experience how best to involve faculty in this work.

The "champions" model rests on the idea that faculty hear best from other faculty, and that career readiness knowledge is shared among faculty most effectively when faculty collaborate with the career center. The program's goals include an education component: many faculty have not been exposed to the field of career and professional development, which, like all fields, has its own vocabulary, measures of success, and professional standards. Faculty Career Champions provides faculty with an introduction to that field through training in the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE)career readiness competencies.

The program also helps faculty feel more confident discussing career readiness in their classrooms and advising conversations. Many already do this work without calling it career readiness. By helping faculty recognize it and build it into their routines, we hope students will see more clearly how their education prepares them for what comes next.

Lane: How does a faculty member get selected for a cohort, and what does the fall training in the NACE competencies actually cover?

Frederick: Faculty members answer a very short survey, which asks them to share why they are interested in joining the Faculty Career Champions cohort, and how this work can affect their classes and/or program. We hope to recruit faculty from across campus. For example, we want to have representatives from all three of our academic divisions: arts and humanities, social sciences, and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The fall trainings are led by me and Joy Asher. They cover the three primary topics outlined below, and are designed to increasing faculty familiarity with the NACE competencies underlines each of them.

Our first meeting asks the cohort to contemplate why the connection between faculty and career is important. We begin by asking the faculty members to share parts of their own professional journeys, and we learn the diverse paths that our colleagues took to find themselves in this room. They share examples of important people they encountered, career advice they themselves received, and youthful expectations for their own careers. This initial conversation allows us to center the different perspectives we bring to these workshops

We then cover national statistics about the significance of collaboration between faculty and career development offices, and we turn to the NACE competencies. The length of this part of the workshop depends upon how familiar a particular cohort of faculty already is with the competencies. Using the NACE competencies across campus allows us to build a common vocabulary around career readiness in the classroom. The competencies are broad enough that every academic discipline can find themselves multiple times, and in fact, can prompt faculty to clearly recognize what they already do that is in fact career readiness guidance. The NACE competencies are not technical skills; they are skills reinforced by each discipline in its own way, and are applicable to all career fields.

This fall, we also shared with the cohort a document prepared by our general education committee, which maps the NACE competencies with our general education. While this document is still a work in progress, it is another tool that helps the cohort recognize how often their own classes and disciplines already include the NACE competencies, and provides a blueprint for how they might communicate that more explicitly to students.

Lane: Once a faculty member finishes the fall training, what's the process for building that into a spring course? Is it a required deliverable, or more open-ended?

Frederick: Because we have faculty members at different points of comfort incorporating career readiness in the classroom, it is an open-ended assignment for one course. For our third workshop of the fall semester, faculty are asked to bring in a syllabus for a spring course. They then share the content and goals of the course with one or two other members of the cohort, and together they brainstorm ideas that incorporate career readiness into that class. As a faculty, we don't often have opportunities to share so thoroughly with our colleagues, so this collaborative process is appreciated.

Some faculty have embedded NACE competency language directly into their syllabi, to varying degrees. For example, one faculty member changed, quite literally, one word in a syllabus, which has allowed them to discuss professionalism more readily with their students. Others have added several paragraphs that explicitly tie the course objectives to skills students will acquire and use after graduation.

A third example is a faculty member who has embedded several of the competencies into the PowerPoints for her lectures. Students become accustomed over the course of the semester to seeing color-coded squares representing certain competencies for particular classroom activities or assignments. Other faculty members choose to bring recent alumni into their classroom, either virtually or in person, to discuss topics ranging from careers in their discipline or how their major has informed their career (connections that are often not immediately obvious to our undergraduates). Finally, other faculty choose to assign readings or incorporate career-mapping activities (often in senior seminars) that allow students to envision their next steps.

Lane: The program builds in feedback at the end of each spring to strengthen future cohorts. What's changed about the program since it started based on that feedback?

Frederick: We are only in our second year of the cohort model, and we were so pleased with the results of the feedback last spring from both faculty and students. 100% of the faculty reported feeling more confident in their understanding of the NACE competencies, in their ability to discuss careers during academic advising meetings with students, and in integrating career readiness and/or NACE competencies in their classes. Every student in their classes reported understanding how their course provided the skills and competencies needed for their future careers.

We are still working through the qualitative data to help us answer questions about the effectiveness of certain kinds of assignments and class discussions. For faculty, more interaction and feedback in the spring semester was a significant request. This year, I have built in "check-ins" with each member of our cohort in the spring semester. Those meetings will occur when it is most helpful for the faculty member, based on what activity or assignment they have added to their class. For example, if they have added syllabus language, the check-in will be early in the semester, to discuss how that adjusted course introduction went. If they have scheduled an alumni conversation or invited a guest speaker or added a classroom activity, I will ask them what they need before the scheduled event, and then will reflect with them after.

Strengthening our interaction with the cohort after the fall workshops is a priority this academic year. In the future, we hope to bring together all participants from the cohorts periodically for lectures or discussions to continue the conversation.

Lane: Faculty Career Champions also extends beyond the classroom into academic advising. What does that part of the program involve, and how has it changed the way faculty approach career conversations with students?

Frederick: The topic of our second workshop in the fall is career readiness and advising. At Centre, all academic advising is done by faculty. The goal of this workshop is to inspire confidence in the faculty cohort, many of whom may have spent most of their adult professional life in academe.

We ask a career coach from the career center to speak to faculty for part of the meeting, with a particular focus on talking to the undecided major about careers. This presentation is incredibly helpful for our faculty, because the coach provides a template for what questions to ask, what answers to look for, and to what additional campus resources faculty can then direct students. While this information may be available in other places, the in-person dialogue that results is meaningful for faculty.

Joy and I have also been members of the ad hoc Advising Committee recently, which allows us to share with the cohort recent changes to faculty advising, and the goals of that committee. During this workshop, faculty are able to address their fears about career advising, share examples of challenges and successes when discussing careers with students, and be reminded of the other resources available to them and to students on campus. The survey at the end of last year indicated that all of the members of last year's cohort felt an increase in confidence when advising students on careers.

Lane: For an institution considering something similar without a dedicated career center staffer to run it, what would/could their version of this program look like, and is there a key essential to make it work?

Frederick: At Centre, this program is not technically part of anyone's job description. Joy and I have both found a passion for this work, and therefore view it, in some ways, as part of our service to the college. We believe that change is incremental, and that engagement with career readiness is most effective among faculty peers. . So, it is okay to start small. We have found that it is most effective to start with key faculty, those who are well-respected and have the ears of their peers.

It is also important to talk with faculty across campus before starting a program like this. Find out what motivates them and listen to their concerns. From a faculty perspective, the greatest challenge to participation in the cohort, and also to the growth of the program, is time. A key essential for a faculty leader would be providing for that time, whether through a course release or summer pay, for example. For a career center professional, finding the time is also a significant challenge, but it is one of the greatest ways to scale career services across campus. Faculty, especially at liberal arts institutions, are uniquely influential in students' lives, so getting them to incorporate career readiness into the classroom has an enormous impact on students' career success.

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