General Education Career Readiness Curriculum Integration

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UM’s general education program cultivates the career readiness competencies valued by employers across a wide range of careers and professions. Articulating these competencies alongside our established learning outcomes will provide students with a more intentional and focused approach to developing career-readiness skills, enabling them to connect classroom experiences with future personal and professional growth. Read the motion in its entirety here. (Link to come) 

Whether your course is coming up for renewal or you’re in the process of creating a new course, ELCS has resources to support career readiness curricular integration efforts.  

General Education Faculty Resources

Basic Resources to Start Integrating Career Readiness Competencies.

Career readiness is a vital aspect that transcends disciplinary boundaries. While disciplinary knowledge remains crucial, equipping students with skills like effective communication, teamwork, and communication is essential for their future success. Each department plays a pivotal role in fostering career readiness. Let’s explore how your discipline contributes to this comprehensive approach to student preparation.  

  • STEM disciplines develop skills in scientific inquiry, analytical reasoning, data analysis, and experimental design, promoting critical thinking, technological understanding, teamwork, and communication.   
  • Humanities and Social Sciences foster perspective-taking, ethical decision-making, reasoning, and cultural competence, which help students deepen critical thinking, leadership, community & global engagement, and equity & inclusion skills.   
  • Business and Economics offer insights into organizational behavior, financial management, and strategic planning, contributing to competencies such as leadership, technology, critical thinking, and creativity & innovation.   
  • Arts and Media involve interdisciplinary collaboration, problem-solving, attention to detail, self-expression, and the cultivation of innovative solutions. When combined with those from other disciplines, these skills can lead to a more comprehensive and effective approach to career readiness. 

Incorporating career readiness into academic disciplines enhances the practical application of knowledge and empowers students to translate their educational experiences into successful careers across various industries. Faculty can create a cohesive approach to infusing career readiness into their courses, preparing students for success in an ever-evolving landscape. 

  • UM’s 10 career readiness competencies: Based on the eight competencies NACE identified as integral to post-graduation success, UM adopted an additional two competencies to meet the mission and values of our liberal arts education. 
  • Infusing Competencies into Curricular Activities:  See how each competency supports a set of curricular activities that help close the page between higher education and the world of work.  
  • Career Readiness Sample Behaviors: Learn more about how students can demonstrate each competency within learning activities and assignments.  
  • NACE: Learn more about what it means to be “career ready” and the research that supports this effort.  

Infusing simple and intentional language to integrate career readiness into course syllabi is an effective place to begin. While incorporating career readiness is already happening in many classrooms, there's always room for improvement to better support students along their path to successful post-graduation outcomes. Access the Syllabi Template Language for quick copy-paste career readiness language and explicitly connect it to course learning objectives, ensuring students are well-prepared for their future careers. 

Example: The University of Montana seeks to broadly prepare its graduates with UM’s Career Skills, which employers across industries have identified as critical to the career success of college students and recent graduates. In this course, students are developing the following Career Readiness Skill:  

  1. Leadership: Recognize and capitalize on personal and team strengths to achieve organizational goals. 

Expanded Resources to Start Integrating Career Readiness Competencies

After identifying the top 1-3 career competencies that align with course learning objectives, faculty can enhance student learning by forging direct connections between these essential career skills and course activities or assignments. By leveraging course learning objectives alongside the Career Readiness Sample Behaviors, instructors can provide targeted guidance and support to students, ensuring they acquire the practical skills needed for success in their future careers. 

 

For a writing course, an example of this may look like the following: 

Advance Writing: The University of Montana seeks to broadly prepare its graduates with UM’s Career Skills, which employers across industries have identified as critical to the career success of college students and recent graduates. In this course, students are developing the following Career Readiness Skill:  

  • Communication: Clearly and effectively exchange information, ideas, facts, and perspectives with persons inside and outside of an organization. 

Assignments & Activities Connections:

  • Papers & Essays 
  • Writing Project 
  • Presentation 
  • Group Discussions 
  • Career Documents (Resume) 

 Student Learning Objectives:

  1. Demonstrate written abilities.
  2. Employ active listening, persuasion, and influencing skills.
  3. Communicate in a clear and organized manner so that others can effectively understand.
  4. Frame communication with respect to diversity of learning styles, varied individual communication abilities, and cultural differences.
  5. Ask appropriate questions for specific information from supervisors, specialists, and others.
  6. Promptly inform relevant others when needing guidance with assigned tasks.

Here's an example for faculty who may want to make a career connection to a single activity or graded assignment.  

Democracy and Citizenship: The University of Montana seeks to broadly prepare its graduates with UM’s Career Skills, which employers across industries have identified as critical to the career success of college students and recent graduates. In this course, students are developing the following Career Readiness Skill:  

  • Equity and Inclusion:  Demonstrate the awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills required to equitably engage and include people from different local and global cultures. Engage in anti-racist practices that actively challenge the systems, structures, and policies of racism. 

Assignments & Activities Connection:

Graded discussions based on weekly assigned reading 

Sample Language for Activity:

Throughout our discussion prompts this semester, we are going to address concrete skills related to Equity and Inclusion. These skills include the infusion of multiple cultural perspectives to make inclusive and equity-minded decisions; making references to inclusive and equitable practices that influence individual and systemic change; making connections to cross-cultural interactions and experiences that enhance our understanding of people from different demographic groups and that lead to personal growth; keeping an open mind to diverse ideas and new ways of thinking; and identify resources and eliminate barriers resulting from individuals and systemic racism, inequities, and biases.    

Next, the course instructor would take a moment to connect the weekly discussion to one of the aforementioned skills each week and ask students to connect the skill to the assigned reading and incorporate into the discussion and activity reflection.  

Your Griz Guide to Career Readiness Curriculum Integration 

Whether you’re developing a new Gen Ed course or adapting an existing course, career readiness competencies can be easily integrated. ElevateU in the Curriculum serves as a comprehensive toolkit for faculty and staff, facilitating the integration of career readiness competencies and high-impact practices into course learning objectives and assignments. 

  • Step 1: Explore the Foundation of Career Readiness—Learn more about UM's signature career readiness framework, ElevateU. Explore resources on high-impact practices and career readiness competencies.   
  • Step 2: Expand Your Curriculum- Access sample language for the syllabi and incorporate other resources to expand the integration of career skills in the curriculum.   
  • Step 3: Embark on Career Excellence- Join other faculty in a career readiness community of practice, request a consultation, and learn more ways to embark on a career readiness path of excellence for students!   

Work with ELCS to explicitly connect course learning objectives to UM's career readiness competencies. These connections can often be linked to activities and assignments already in the course. In this workshop, representatives from the Experiential Learning and Career Success office will guide you through integrating career competencies into your course beginning at the syllabi level and extending into course activities and assignments. Bring a syllabus and work on transforming language to surface career skills connected to your learning objectives.    

For the 2024-25 school year, workshops will be offered the second week of September and the end of January. Email melissa.dadmun@mso.umt.edu to get on a notification list. Workshops will be offered through OOLD and open to all faculty and staff. 

ELCS provides individual consultations for syllabi review and course development to faculty, staff, and departments. Please contact our Curriculum Coach, Melissa Dadmun, at melissa.dadmun@mso.umt.edu. 

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