The goal of The W’s Quality Enhancement Plan for 2024 is to support student success by promoting professional development and career readiness through curricular and co-curricular programming and by helping students develop and demonstrate career-readiness competencies appropriate to their field.
The goal of Mississippi University for Women’s Quality Enhancement Plan is “to support student success by promoting professional development and career readiness through curricular and co-curricular programming and by helping students develop and demonstrate career-readiness competencies appropriate to their field.” The QEP Goal will focus on three outcomes: 1) Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of career readiness competencies appropriate to their academic disciplines and to their career goals; 2) Students will have the opportunity to engage in high impact experiences, such as internships, experiential learning, research experiences, applied learning, and service learning, that promote their professional goals and develop their career-readiness competencies; 3) Students will be able to effectively communicate their discipline-specific career-readiness competencies.
The QEP topic was identified through the university’s ongoing planning and evaluation process and addresses specific goals that were developed in the university’s comprehensive strategic planning process:
A QEP Team was formed with representatives from across the campus to oversee a broad-based proposal and selection process. After the topic was selected, a QEP Committee was formed to refine the topic and to develop an implementation plan that would provide the best means of achieving and assessing the goals and meeting the needs of the diverse student population that the university serves. The QEP Committee completed the QEP document after collecting broad-based feedback from in-person and Zoom listening sessions, from surveys of students and academic programs, and from a comprehensive review of relevant career-readiness literature.
The QEP will be implemented through university-wide cooperative efforts involving the areas of Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, and Career Services. The implementation plan includes establishing new initiatives, as well as expanding and strengthening current programs and operations, to achieve the goals. The university has committed adequate personnel, facilities, and financial resources to ensure that the goals of the QEP are achieved and that the successful elements of the QEP are sustainable beyond the QEP’s end date. The QEP includes a timeline for implementation of initiatives, and an assessment plan that provides qualitative and quantitative, incremental and final, assessment measures.
Association of American Colleges and Universities [AAC&U]. (2018). “Fulfilling the American dream: Liberal education and the future of work. Selected findings from online surveys of business executives and hiring managers.” https://dgmg81phhvh63.cloudfront.net/content/userphotos/Research/PDFs/2018EmployerResearchReport.pdf
Binder, J. F., Baguley, T., Crook, C., & Miller, F. (2015). “The academic value of internships: Benefits across disciplines and student backgrounds.” Contemporary Educational Psychology, 41, 73–82.
Carpenter, L., Nguyen, B., Davis, L., & Rowland, S. (2022). “The undergraduate research experience as a vehicle for employability development—The student participants speak.” Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 50(1), 65-74.
Charity Hudley, A. H., Dickter, C. L., & Franz, H. A. (2017). “The indispensable guide to undergraduate research: success in and beyond college.” Teachers College Press.
Fishman, R. (2015). Deciding to go to college, 2015 college decisions survey, part I. New America. https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/policy-papers/deciding-to-go-to-college/
Harrison, A. (2017), Skills, Competencies and Credentials, Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, available at www.heqco.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/Formatted_ Skills%20Competencies%20and %20Credentials.pdf
Hua, D. M., Davison, C. B., & Gondi, V. K. (2022). “Enhancing Student Career Readiness through Skills Infusion.” Information Education Journal, 20(5), 27–33.
Jackson, D. (2013), “Student perceptions of the importance of employability skill provision in business undergraduate programs,” Journal of Education for Business, Vol. 88 No. 5, pp. 271-279.
Jackson, D., Bridgstock, R. “What actually works to enhance graduate employability? The relative value of curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular learning and paid work.” High Educ 81, 723–739 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-020-00570-x
Jackson, D., & Dean, B. A. (2022). The contribution of different types of work-integrated learning to graduate employability. Higher Education Research & Development, 1-18.
Joy, R., Shea, R. and Youden-Walsh, K. (2013), “Advancing career integrated learning at Memorial,” paper presented at Cannexus, Ottawa, January 28-30. Presentation accessed 19 May 2023.
Joy, R., Shea, R. and Youden-Walsh, K. (2015), “Meeting the challenge of work and life using a career integrated learning approach,” Proceedings of the Atlantic Universities’ Teaching Showcase, Vol. 19, pp. 76-79.
Kiper, M. (2022). “Taking Experiential Learning Out of the Classroom: The Benefits of Using Experiential Projects in University Organizations.” Society for Marketing Advances Proceedings, 489–495.
Kleckner, M. J., & Butz, N. (2021). “Addressing undergraduate skill gaps in higher education: Revisiting communication in the major course outcomes.” Journal of Education for Business, 96(7), 411–423. https://doi.org/10.1080/08832323.2020.1844119
Knouse, S. B., Tanner, J. R., & Harris, E. W. (1999). “The relation of college internships, college performance, and subsequent job opportunity.” Journal of Employment Counseling, 36(1), 35–43.
Kuh, G.D. (2008). High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.
Kusché, C. A., Mackey, A.-L., & Kusché, J. B. R. (2020). “Chapter 14 - Emotional and social competence (ESC) for adults: Keys for health, happiness, and success.” Social Skills Across the Life Span, 277–293. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-817752-5.00014-7
Mekolichick, Jeanne. “A Position Paper: Recognizing Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, & Creative Inquiry as a Career-Readiness Tool.” Council on Undergraduate Research. 2023.
Mississippi University for Women. (2019). MUW graduation survey:2018-2019. MUW Institutional Research. https://www.muw.edu/images//ir/surveys/surveyresults/graduation/20182019_Graduation_Survey_Results.pdf
Mississippi University for Women. (2020). MUW graduation survey:2019-2020. MUW Institutional Research. https://www.muw.edu/images//ir/surveys/surveyresults/graduation/ 2019 2020_Graduation_Survey_Results.pdf
Mississippi University for Women. (2021). MUW graduation survey:2020-2021. MUW Institutional Research. https://www.muw.edu/images//ir/surveys/surveyresults/graduation/20202021_Graduation_ Survey_Results.pdf
Newell, M. J., & Ulrich, P. N. (2022). Competent and Employed: STEM Alumni Perspectives on Undergraduate Research and NACE Career-Readiness Competencies. Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability, 13(1), 79–93.
Pew Research Center (2016). The state of american jobs. https://www.pewresearch.org/socialtrends/2016/10/06/the-state-of-american-jobs/
Savitz-Romer, M., & Rowan-Kenyon, H. T. (2020). “Noncognitive skills, college success, and career readiness: What matters and to whom?” About Campus, 25(1), 4-13.
Schlesinger, J., O’Shea, C., & Blesso, J. (2021). “Undergraduate Student Career Development and Career Center Services: Faculty Perspectives.” Career Development Quarterly, 9(2), 145–157. https://doi.org/10.1002/cdq.12255
Seal, C.R., Miguel, K., Alzamil, A., Naumann, S.E., & Drost, D. (2015). “Personal-interpersonal competence assessment: a self-report instrument for student development.” Research in Higher Education Journal, 27, 1-10.
Starahan, L. (2016), “Teaching employability skills through simulation games,” Journal of Pedagogic Development, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 8-17.
Stebleton, M. J., Kaler, L. S., Diamond, K. K., & Lee, C. (2020). “Examining Career Readiness in a Liberal Arts Undergraduate Career Planning Course.” Journal of Employment Counseling, 57(1), 14–26. https://doi.org/10.1002/joec.12135
Tomasson Goodwin, J., Goh, J., Verkoeyen, S., & Lithgow, K. (2019). “Can Students Be Taught to Articulate Employability Skills?” Education & Training, 61(4), 445–460
Zhou, R. Y. (2023). “Understanding Experiential Learning through Work-Based College Coursetaking: Evidence from Transcript Data Using a Text Mining Technique.” CCRC Working Paper No. 131. In Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University.