PennACE Roundtables Review

Thank you to everyone who was able to join us for our PennACE Roundtables. Thank you again to Kutztown and IUP for hosting these events! We had five topics covered at each event. They were diversity and special population programming, working with faculty/other campus offices, trends in the field, online and technology uses, and student engagement and marketing. Some of the key takeaways for each of these topics are listed below.

If you have a topic that you are passionate about and would like to present, or if you are hoping to learn more about a topic, please let me know so we can start planning our next professional development experience! Email me your suggestions at hbalas@mercyhurst.edu.

Key Takeaways

Student Engagement & Marketing

• Incentivizing student groups through giveaways/cash (great use of employer sponsorships)

• Connect with alumni and employers on Facebook and tweet about upcoming events, motivational Monday series, general tips, memes, etc. Use Instagram to post in the moment. All of these can be scheduled with Hootsuite

• Use social media and trained students; capturing employers and alumni; leveraging students’ personal accounts to gain followers

• Employer sponsorships for events with a presentation followed by networking and food

• Get out of the office – take events to busy areas and promote your services

• Communicate events via campus communications and get the campus social media accounts to promote your events

• Creative programming like free treats for students on their birthdays, mouse pads, feel good Friday events

• Advertise prizes for attending multiple events

• Make workshops student friendly by scheduling them in conjunction with class schedule, 30 minute quick tips instead of an hour session, evening networking events that are major specific

• Use digital badging and work with faculty to get them listed as a course requirement

Working With Faculty/Collaborating with Other Campus Offices

• Need to physically place ourselves in halls for programming (coffee, bagels, etc in residence halls/academic buildings/library)

• Attend meetings with faculty and deans each semester. Find a faculty champion for each program

• Host programs for faculty and deans – campus advisory board)

• Be a “consultant” for faculty’s greatest problems – don’t create new work for them

• Be patient and work with cooperative people first

• Help faculty understand how you can retain and attract students to their majors

• “Part of strategic plan” initiatives/top-down help to force collaboration

• Finding ways to onboard/train new faculty is important since senior faculty aren’t always relaying information

• Collaborating with other offices has to be planned and intentional

Trends in the Field

• Technology – virtual interviewing, vendor overload (constant vendors reaching out)

• Serving students where and when they want to be served – more individualized and specific programs/events/services

• Career Services is changing – students are changing – continue to do focus groups, what are students looking for?

• 50/50 – meeting students’ needs and also educating students on employers perspectives/industry culture

• Address core skills – major doesn’t equal a specific job/career – job market is always changing

• Badges to incentivize

• Virtual career fairs – attendance declining?

• uConnect as a platform for student engagement

• Brain-based career development – giving students tasks to complete

• Design thinking “Designing your life” (Carlow has 3 courses for credit. Could be ways to apply within Career Development)

• Integrating Career Development into curriculum career readiness – many integrate in Freshmen classes

• Industry cluster model for organizing career advising – Ken has 9 career clusters to work with students and employers

• Serving online learning – delivering services virtually using zoom/go to meeting, live stream, online presentations

• Outreach and deliver services in other campus locations – pop up events, outreach, schedule office hours, drop in resume critiques

Diversity & Special Populations

• Do regular departmental trainings with offices on campus

• Partner with offices to provide programming for special populations

• Asking and getting students to ask “why is that?” to address out dated or wrong information from faculty, family, etc

• Work with offices on campus to build personal relationships so that referrals to career offices are personalized

• Students need trainings on how/when and how much to disclose

• Add on event prior to larger event, such as a session before a career fair for students with disabilities; could include topics on the tables to prompt conversations

• Student lead initiatives or gauge interest in types of events through student groups

• Need to address observed problematic behaviors delicately but forcefully

• Create fun programming like games and coloring and bring to the physical space where population is

• Sticker or buttons for office for things like First Gen or Safe Zone, language for professional documents recommending first initial of legal name then preferred name in the middle or in parenthesis