By Stanley E. Henderson, Senior Consultant, AACRAO Consulting
Dear AACRAO Consultants,
Looking to the future, what is an ideal space to concentrate on in SEM planning if we want our SEM plan to reflect learner goals for success?
Signed,
AACRAO Member
Dear AACRAO Member,
Career Services. A Student Voice survey in 2024 showed that 94% of learners wanted faculty involved in their career development; 98% also wanted their academic advisors involved.
Career Services centers are responding with innovative programming:
Virginia Commonwealth University developed a certification sticker for faculty and staff who complete a program on the basics of career development.
Beloit College is embedding career development into its traditional liberal arts curriculum.
Overall, career centers have seen a 26.4% increase in their budgets since 2019-2020.
Wake Forest University was one of the first to put a career development officer on the president’s cabinet.
Great gains, but SEM is not always involved, which might diminish the enterprise-wide impact of growth in career services. AACRAO’s 2023 survey of senior enrollment management officers showed that, of those responding, 39% had virtually no interaction with career services offices; only 12% actually supervised those offices.
Universities such as Wichita State and George Washington, where career services is part of the enrollment management division, have seen great success in putting what learners tell us is their number one goal—getting a job—front and center in the holistic learner journey.
This is not to argue that the career services director should report to the senior enrollment manager, but they should at least be best friends. And the SEM planning process should be corralling all of the great things happening in career development into goals, strategies, and tactics in the SEM plan. What happens in one career services office or, as is often the case with career development, in individual academic units, might not have a strategic, enterprise-wide impact if it’s not part of an SEM plan. Attaching career development to the SEM plan helps to broaden the campus acceptance of learners’ expectations of college as a bridge to a career and furthers enrollment health and learner success.
Signed,
Stan, AACRAO Consultant
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