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Goal: Become a Leader in Career Preparation

A degree from the University of Oregon should be a launchpad

We have a responsibility to our students and families to ensure that our students’ time at the University of Oregon prepares them for the opportunities and challenges of a complex globally connected world. We will meet this responsibility by increasing connections and experiences for students in ways that more directly prepare them for successful pursuits after graduation.

Large and small businesses, start-ups, nonprofit organizations, and state and federal government all seek graduates who have developed the skills that prepare them to contribute, innovate, and lead in the modern workplace and in our broader society. Graduates are best served by cultivating such skills through both a rigorous education and opportunities to apply that education in real-world settings.

Key Performance Indicator

  • Percent of recent degree-completers who have positive outcomes within six months of graduation 
 

Strategies

To be a leader among the nation’s public research universities in career preparation, we will:

  • Define career readiness and experiential learning to establish a common understanding and language across the university.
  • Engage and support academic units, faculty, and staff to embed career-focused transferable skills into curriculum.
  • Establish “career communities” to provide industry-informed career guidance for students.
  • Leverage our alumni network to provide students opportunities for experiential learning, internships, and jobs.
  • Adopt a campus-wide student and alumni engagement platform to facilitate student and alumni engagement.
 

Career Preparation Academic Year 2024- 2025 Milestones:

Define career readiness:

  1. Establish a career readiness action team to oversee strategies 1 and 2.
  2. Require faculty representation in the action team.
  3. Identify shared values and operationalize. (Career Readiness Action Team)
  4. Create a university-wide definition of career readiness and experiential learning. (Career Readiness Consortium)
  5. Define and operationalize career related program and/or course learning outcomes to track and evaluate career preparation of our students over time. (Career Readiness Consortium)
  6. Develop a tracking mechanism to evaluate student outcomes re: careers post-graduate over time. (Data Team)

Embed career into curriculum:

  1. Establish a career readiness consortium to oversee strategies 1 and 2. (President/Provost)
  2. Build a coalition of willing faculty to embedding career-focused transferable skills into curriculum. (Career Readiness Consortium)
  3. Allocate administrative FTE to develop a structure and a process to integrate career readiness into core ed. (Core ed council)
  4. Identify career outcomes for each degree program as part of program learning outcomes. (Schools/colleges)
  5. Identify/map available and needed supports to provide to faculty for this work (Career Readiness Consortium).
  6. Create easy to access resources for faculty to use in AY 25-26. (OtP-TEP)
  7. Make this a focus of faculty facing professional development in AY 25-26. (OtP - TEP)
  8. Develop a structure and a process to integrate and track career readiness (NACE core competencies) into existing engagement and experiential learning opportunities in Student Life. (Student Life)

Establish career communities:

  1. Determine appropriate career communities. (Career Center with all required partners)
  2. Create a design and recommendation for implementing the career community network.
  3. Establish a plan for industry & alumni input and interaction. (Career Center; OVPRI; GCR; UOAA; PDX; ATH)
  4. Work with academic partners to create a recruitment plan for enrollment into career communities. (Career Center; schools/colleges; ATH; SSEM)
  5. Finalize structure within Student Life and Office of the Provost to support career readiness work in curricular and co-curricular programs. (Owners)

Leverage our alumni network:

  1. Build on career communities and alumni engagement platform work to create a plan for alumni engagement in AY 25-26. (Alumni Association)

Student and alumni engagement platform:

  1. Determine best platform. (UOAA; Career Center; VPFA-IS; Schools/Colleges)
  2. Determine resources required to purchase and support platform. (Alumni Association; VPFA)
  3. Create a project plan including who will own, implement and roll-out the system; consider school/college advisory groups. (Alumni Association; VPFA; schools/colleges)
  4. Complete contracting process and purchase platform. (Alumni Association; VPFA-IS)
 

Goal Owners

  • Christopher P. Long, Provost and Senior Vice President
  • Angela Chong, Vice President for Student Life

Goal Owners will work with appointed chairs to establish collaborative workgroups, representing diverse areas of the university, that will drive completion of the milestones assigned to each of the goals' multiple strategies for this academic year and beyond.

 

Workgroups

Dedicated teams are actively working together to help the UO become a leader in career preparation.

  • Career Readiness Action Team
  • Career Communities Workgroup
  • Leveraging Our Alumni Network (LOAN) Workgroup
  • Enterprise Engagement Platform Selection Team
  • Strategy Development Team (Winter 2024)

Explore Workgroups

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