What If Students Listened - College of Wooster · What If Students Listened By Scott C. Brown, Joanna Adler, Cori Ashworth, and Georgiana S. Chevry How one career center designed

28/JOURNAL DECEMBER 2007

What If Students Listened By Scott C. BrBy Scott C. BrBy Scott C. BrBy Scott C. BrBy Scott C. Brown, Joanna Adlerown, Joanna Adlerown, Joanna Adlerown, Joanna Adlerown, Joanna Adler, Cori Ashwor, Cori Ashwor, Cori Ashwor, Cori Ashwor, Cori Ashworth, and Georth, and Georth, and Georth, and Georth, and Georgiana S. Chevrgiana S. Chevrgiana S. Chevrgiana S. Chevrgiana S. Chevryyyyy

How one career center designed and implemented acomprehensive, structured four-year career curriculum.

All career centers have high aspirations to help students, but students do not always take the best advantage of thecareer services office. Though we can serve students from matriculation to graduation, they are often not required

to use our offices, and when they do, it is often cosmetic in nature.1 This lack of engagement triggers many concerns.Students’ difficulty in understanding their backgrounds, skills, values, and goals can result in limited self-awareness abouttheir competencies and values; avoidance of setting educational goals and/or assessing progress toward them; not takingadvantage of opportunities that exist while earning their degree; difficulty translating their college educations to the worldoutside the classroom and post-college opportunities; not performing to their potential in application processes; anddifficulty moving on to post-graduation opportunities.

This situation is frustrating for many career offices. First, we have many of the things that students need, but don’tuse. Second, career offices experience increased institutional performance expectations and are often vulnerable to thepotentially unrealistic expectations of a variety of partially informed stakeholders. Lastly, we often exist in an institutionalcontext where there are multiple and competing priorities for scarce resources. What to do?

YourPlanTo address these issues, the Career Development Center (CDC) at Mount Holyoke College (MDC) created

YourPlan, a four-year, developmental career “curriculum” to help students better maximize their career-relatedefforts. We asked, “Why don’t students use our programs and services more?” We then asked, “What ifstudents listened to everything we said? What should students know and be able to do if they took fulladvantage of our offerings?”

What If Students Listened


DECEMBER 2007 JOURNAL/29

to Everything We Said? to Everything We Said?


Copyright Notice: This article originally appeared in the December 2007 issue of theNACE Journal. NACE members have the permission of the National Association of Collegesand Employers, copyright holder, to download and photocopy this article for internalpurposes only. Photocopies must include this copyright notice. Those who do not holdmembership, or who wish to use the article for other purposes, should contact ClaudiaAllen, [email protected], 800/544-5272, ext. 129. Electronic reproduction of this articleis prohibited.


Scott C. Brown is director of the Ca-reer Development Center and adjunct lec-turer in the department of psychology andeducation at Mount Holyoke College. Hereceived a doctorate from the Universityof Maryland, a master’s degree from Indi-ana University, and a bachelor’s degreefrom the University of California, Irvine.

Joanna Adler is director of employmentand experiential learning at MountHolyoke College. She holds a master’sdegree in student affairs administrationfrom Indiana University. Her focus ison developing meaningful reflection pro-gramming around experiential learningand student development.

YourPlan is a new framework to helpstudents make connections between theiracademic program and opportunitiesbeyond the college by accessing all theguidance and resources of our officemore purposefully. YourPlan outlines ex-pected goals for each class year, withaligned policies, programs, and practicesto facilitate these goals. YourPlan en-ables the CDC to take the initiative tocomplement and enhance each student’sacademic program; help students addresspost-graduate concerns more assertively;help students more intentionally reflecton their academic and co-curricular expe-riences; and, better prepare students forpurposeful engagement in the world.

YourPlan PilotOverviewOver the course of the spring 2006

semester, the counselors explored sixquestions:

• What career-related goals shouldstudents attain by the end of eachclass year?

• What tools are currently in placeto help achieve them?

• What new programs, policies, andproducts may be developed tosupport these goals?

• What is the impact of any changeson our priorities and resources?

• How can this program be marketedeffectively?

Cori Ashworth is director of alumnaecareer services and employer outreach atMount Holyoke College. She holds amaster’s degree in education from theCollege of William and Mary and a cer-tificate in advanced graduate study incounseling from the University of Massa-chusetts.

Georgiana S. Chevry is assistant di-rector for alumni career services atBrandeis University’s Hiatt Career Cen-ter. She received a master’s degree inhigher education administration fromSuffolk University and a bachelor’s de-gree in sociology from Trinity Collegein Connecticut.

• What other campus constituenciesshould be brought into the devel-opment and execution of this plan?

As YourPlan was being developed,feedback was sought from a wide vari-ety of campus colleagues and constitu-encies, and several professional col-leagues at peer institutions. All feed-back helped the CDC refine the detailsof the pilot. The pilot was adminis-tered during the 2006-2007 year, withYourPlan available to all students inthe 2007-2008 academic year. The keyintended outcomes are to help students:

• Identify their career-related skills,values, and interests;

• Define and establish career-relatedgoals;

• Develop and implement plans toconnect themselves to key re-sources, people, and opportunitiestoward attaining their goals;

• Develop mastery of career-relatedskills;

• Articulate why any targeted organi-zation or course of action (e.g., in-ternships, jobs, fellowships, gradu-ate school) is interesting, important,and/or exciting to them, and alignedwith their values and interests;

• Create a range of effective career-related materials; and

• Articulate specifically how theirknowledge, skills, and qualitiesmatch the organization’s selectioncriteria.

Pilot ParticipantsAn invitation to a group of students

was drawn from a random sample of240 students, from each class year anda variety of majors and ethnicities,with a goal of targeting 100 to 145students overall in the pilot (30 to 40from each class year). Of the 140 stu-dents who agreed to be in the pilot (a60 percent response rate), 39 were first-year students, 33 were sophomores,29 were juniors, and 39 were seniors.

Career Curriculum

The CDC staff developed a curricu-lum with several guidelines: it had tobe developmental, cumulative, compre-hensive, understandable, scalable, andabove all else, valuable to MHC stu-dents. The planning was informed bythe authors’ collective professional ex-periences, various other career-relatedresources, and by some of Brown’swork, including students’ post-collegedecision-making processes,2 the waysstudents identify themselves and theeffect on the career process,3 and acomprehensive career developmentframework that can help students inte-grate all of their aggregate college ex-periences, and apply them to their lives.4

The ChecklistsThe YourPlan pilot was distilled into

four class-specific checklists, comprised


of the goals plus the primary and sec-ondary tasks necessary to achievethose goals. The checklists were de-signed to be “one-stop shopping” forstudents. This represents the CDC’sprograms and services distilled to theirmost elegant, basic design, in order toguard against the “tyranny of choice”that can overwhelm students embark-ing on this process.

• StrandsEach checklist has seven strands for

each year—self-assessment, resume,cover letter, networking, research, inter-viewing/personal presentation, and job/internship searching. Juniors and se-niors had added strands for fellowships/scholarships and graduate school.

• Year-Specific GoalsThe target goals were developmen-

tal over time. Each successive year builton the previous year’s goals, accom-modating the fact that students willprobably opt in and out of this processat different points.

• Primary/Secondary TasksThe goals are achieved by students

completing one required primary task,and a choice of two secondary tasks(three tasks per goal total). Primary tasksare the ones most effective in helpingachieve the goals. For the secondarytasks, the students were instructed topick two out of a menu of choices. Thechoices represent multiple modalities thatmight support the achievement of thegoal: web, print, workshop, or in person.This accommodates different preferencesand allows students off-campus to workthrough their checklists.

EvaluationThe YourPlan pilot was evaluated

with an online pre- and post-programassessment. Each student in the pilotwas surveyed on the same general out-comes and on class-specific outcomesthat mirrored their class-specific goals.

Students provided qualitative feed-back in the November 2006 and May2007 meetings. On the post-survey,students were also asked open-endedquestions. Results of the pilot surveyswere used to make modifications toYourPlan as it is made available to all

students in the 2007-2008 academicyear.

The effectiveness of the YourPlaninitiative will always be based on howdeeply the students are engagedwith it. Even though pilot partici-pants were required to attend themeetings, less than half participated.However, in general, we found thatstudents liked the program. One se-nior said, “It gave me a sense ofaccomplishment and of what typesof things I should be doing.” A jun-ior appreciated “having a compre-hensive list in which I need to exertsome effort; the pilot made the CDCmore accessible and now I feel verycomfortable there, and am fully awarewhat the CDC offers.”

One issue that arose in the pilot, wasthat the checklist was on paper and didnot reside within an integrated CDCexperience. While the checklists were ahelpful guide, they did not explicitlyhook students into the larger picture orcontinually reinforce the program con-tent. Student comments helped the CDCto think about ways to deepen engage-ment. We are refining and recalibratingour programs and services based onthis feedback.

In the pilot meetings, we also askedparticipants to talk about how we couldhave designed interventions thatwould have kept them on track. Theidea is to make the YourPlan programmore “sticky,” increase time on task,ensure it is designed in ways that ac-count for the real lives and pressuresof students, and tap into their motiva-tional fears and aspirations. Follow-ing are some of the lessons learnedthrough the pilot, which we will use toadjust the program as possible.

Lessons Learned

YourPlan = CDC; CDC =YourPlan• Connect all YourPlan tasks to re-

sources.We are trying to create a world in which

there is no program or service that is notwithin YourPlan, and vice versa. Every

task on the electronic checklist links di-rectly to the specific online and printresources, workshops, or in-person meet-ings. Our staff has made our learninggoals explicit in the YourPlan frame-work, which allows us to reconsiderthe goals of our programs and servicesmore intentionally.5 The programs weoffer will be tagged so that every ca-reer resource corresponds to YourPlan.

• Create intrinsic incentives to gothrough the program.

We will communicate a number ofproposed benefits to students. Stu-dents will identify key themes andpatterns in their lives, and use les-sons learned in the past to make moreinformed decisions congruent withtheir values and priorities. Studentswill develop more focus, which willdiminish extraneous searching. Thisprocess will help students understandwhy they are interested in a particularopportunity and how to market them-selves in a clear and compelling man-ner, and come out of the program withthe concrete tools they need to com-pete effectively.

• Create extrinsic incentives to gothrough the program.

We know that we have to keep stu-dents’ attention. Extrinsically, we are of-fering rewards and reinforcements for ac-tivation of their YourPlans, and comple-tion of their checklists. For example, ourAlumnae Association offered to help usdesign “extraordinary experiences” withalumnae as a special reward. In order todrive students to the workshops (sav-ing us counselor time), we have createdpunch cards—attend five workshopsand become eligible for a drawing for$100 on their campus “One Card.” Whenpossible, we will link rewards to modifystudent behavior.

• Showcase the most valued careerresources.

We need to think about our libraryand web pages as “retail spaces” andmerchandise the most valued items inplaces where students will find them.6

Our peer career advisers identified theresources that get the most use and willhighlight them when advising students.

continued


Our content management system cantrack the most often viewed web pagesand allow us to see how people are ac-cessing these pages.

Web Interface• Integrate YourPlan with other

electronic media.Students already access and store

information in many areas, so the moreintegrated the YourPlan, the better.YourPlan is now linked from the centrallog-in page for a suite of campus elec-tronic services. In the future, YourPlanmight interface with students’ electroniccalendars, and allow them to subscribeto the CDC calendar.

• Allow YourPlan to be personalized.Students are used to controlling

content and want to have the ability topersonalize their YourPlan, put their fa-vorite links within their YourPlan pages,and provide space to record reflections/scrapbooks of their experiences.

• Enhance students’ ability to man-age their projects.

We need to create searching capabili-ties and places where students can storeversions of their career materials. Stu-dents are motivated by deadlines, so wewill put in place CDC-suggested priori-ties/deadlines to nudge students alongtheir checklists.

• Get feedback.We have provided a “Suggestions?

Stuck?” button for students to pro-vide feedback. We might create “help”features on each page that link to anFAQ page, or direct them to a CDC“warmline” and an IM option to a peercareer adviser. This will help studentsget “unstuck” when they need moti-vation.

Program and InformationDelivery• Have a disciplined marketing and

communications strategy.We are blocking out the whole year

programmatically, looking for collabo-ration opportunities, and taking advan-tage of the optimal rhythms in the aca-demic year. A monthly digest will high-light where students should be in theirprogram and offer ways they can pick

up some YourPlan “points.” We arecreating a communications strategy todevelop a consistent look and feel forall YourPlan materials. By listening tostudents, we have found we shouldadvertise in laundry rooms and post onthe daily dining services electronicmenu.

• Target programming effortsmore effectively.

Students told us to pick times forprograms that are more in sync withstudents’ actual “migratory patterns.”We now offer more Friday programsbecause many students are more avail-able then. Students said they wantmore “boot camps,” so we developeda “Jumpstart Your Job Search” pro-gram for seniors who have no job pros-pects at graduation and need someintervention.

• Provide content in a variety ofmedia.

To provide more ways to delivercontent, we are exploring podcasts andaudio slide shows, and we are explor-ing whether or not to record our work-shops for the web.

• Get out more.The CDC is perceived to be “far away,”

so we plan to hold more programs in thedorms, the student center, and the li-brary. Our trained peer staff will serveas CDC dorm liaisons to provide a pres-ence where students live.

Key CollaborationsThis program will only thrive with

support from the members of the com-munity. We know that the groups withmuch influence on the post-collegedecision-making process include pro-fessors, parents, and peers, thereforewe must increase the recognition of theprogram so that all these stakeholdersknow about it.7

• Faculty.We have spent a great deal of time

thinking how to best engage our fac-ulty.8 We told them about YourPlan indifferent ways, including inserting amonthly flyer in the faculty readingpackets, during new faculty orientation,and getting on the coveted “all aca-demic advisers” meeting agenda at the

start of the academic year. We are alsolaunching a faculty liaison program, as-signing a point person counselor toseveral departments, and meeting de-partment assistants to find ways toshare print and online career informa-tion and programs.

• Other student service offices.It is clear that key players on cam-

pus need to be involved in supportingthis program.9 10 The more we talkedwith our campus colleagues about theprogram, the more it was clear that weall dealt with similar student issues.For example, we must compare our cal-endars so we don’t counter-program;and we should promote each other’sprograms, find ways to take advan-tage of speakers on-campus for infor-mal career programs, and serve as aresource and referral agent for oneanother. We will collaborate on pro-grams with groups like the alumnaeassociation, Weissman Center forLeadership, class boards, and aca-demic centers.

• Peers.We need to get those students with

formal and informal sway, such as ath-letes, student government leaders, ori-entation leaders, and residence staff tobecome YourPlan apostles.11 We wantto connect students with each othermore effectively. We are exploringonline chats as a way to do this. Weare also exploring the use of job-searchwork teams (peer-led groups that worktogether on a regular basis with a struc-tured search methodology).12

• Parents.Parents are heavily involved in their

traditional-aged students’ college ca-reers. As part of our roll-out, we willsend information to parents, participatein parent orientation, and have a pres-ence on MHC’s parent web gateway.

Policy, Operational, andOrganizational ChangesThe CDC does not have the hu-

man resources to implement theYourPlan without changes to howwe do things. We needed to thinkabout scalability, because what wemay have been willing to absorb in


the past, we can no longer sustain. Weneed to have the capacity to fulfill ourmission of serving all students. There-fore, changes to consider include:

• Redirect students to other re-sources to enhance counseling.

We have trained our receptionists todirect students to use CDC resourcesbefore appointments and will send elec-tronic messages to students beforescheduled appointments to update and/or review their YourPlan. During ap-pointments, counselors will review stu-dents’ progress within YourPlan.

• Create more studentaccountability.

If a student cannot attend a coun-seling appointment or recruiting inter-view, he or she must notify CDC re-ception as soon as possible. Failure tonotify the CDC may result in denyingthe student future access to CDC ser-vices and programs. Although in thepast, we accommodated students whodidn’t show up, students now mustRSVP and are held accountable for no-shows (e.g., charged for a spot orcharged for food served). We are not,at this time, making students gothrough YourPlan before allowingthem to participate in our recruitingprogram, but will reconsider this inFall 2008.

• Review and reorganize staffing.We took advantage of a staffing va-

cancy and combined our experientiallearning and recruiting areas. This cre-ated a better organizational infrastruc-ture to serve employers moreseamlessly and has made it easier toenhance opportunities for students.

Final Thoughts

• It takes a lot of time.It was necessary for our staff to agree

on a shared vision and shared languageof the program. The pilot’s main valuewas forcing us to make our CDC cur-riculum explicit and articulate exactlywhat we wanted the program to achieve.But because it required both intensivemacro and micro thinking, it took 18solid months to finally hammer it out.

• Build internal consensus, thenbuild in feedback.

The size and scope of the programrequired full staff buy-in. Unfortu-nately, in an effort to move the pro-gram along more quickly, we erred byusing feedback from others while wewere in the process of setting up theprogram. As a result, staff ownershipof the program was undermined, andthey needed to be reengaged.

• Broaden the circle.We needed to make YourPlan a cen-

tral part of our work so that any mem-ber of the college community can seewhat the program is. We reframed thisinitiative as a campus priority. Weworked with communications to de-velop YourPlan talking points, a pro-fessional logo, resonant tagline (“It’sall about you”), and leave-behind post-cards for all audiences; and commis-sioned an article for our campus newsand events web page as well as in ourAlumnae Quarterly.

• We have done a lot of things, butthat doesn’t mean they all work.

Going forward, we need to evaluateour offerings in light of how much they

Endnotes1 S. C. Brown, “Educator or entrepreneur? Marketing and other strategies to

increase career learning outcomes,” NACE Journal, Winter 2006, pp. 26-34.2 S. C. Brown, “Where this path may lead: Understanding post-college decision-

making,” Journal of College Student Development, Volume 45, Number 4, July/August2004, pp. 375-390.

3 Brown, S.C., “A model for wisdom development—and its place in career services.Journal of Career Planning & Employment, Summer 2002, pp. 29-36.

4 Brown, S.C., “Developing students’ multiple identities: How career servicespractitioners can put theory into practice. NACE Journal, Fall 2002, pp. 28-32.

5 Brown, S.C., “The birth of a learning community,” in F. Stage and M. Dannells(Eds.) Linking theory to practice: Case studies in student affairs (Second edition).Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis, 1999, pp. 88-91.

6 Underhill, P. Why we buy: The science of shopping. New York: Touchstone, 1999.7 Brown, “Where this path may lead: Understanding post-college decision-making,”

375-390.8 Brown, S. C. and Roseborough, J., “They’re just not that into you: Working with

disinterested faculty,” NACE Journal, Winter 2007, pp. 28-32.9 Brown, “Developing students’ multiple identities: How career services practitioners

can put theory into practice,” pp. 28-32.10 Brown, “Educator or entrepreneur? Marketing and other strategies to increase

career learning outcomes,” pp. 26-34.11 Brown, “Educator or entrepreneur? Marketing and other strategies to increase

career learning outcomes,” pp. 26-34.12 Pierson, O. The unwritten rules of the highly selective job search: The proven

program used by the world’s leading career services company. New York: McGraw Hill, 2006.

contribute to the specific goals of theprogram. This will mean tossing outsome of the less useful materials wehave around our office.

• YourPlan is a process and aproduct.

It is easy to speak about this pro-gram as an object, but it requires con-tinual, dynamic engagement with stu-dents.

***Career professionals struggle with

the challenge of fulfilling our missionswith a sustainable career servicesmodel. YourPlan represents a compre-hensive, intentional intervention tohelp realize our most cherished pur-pose in ways that all our stakeholdersvalue.

Note: Other career services officesexploring and implementing compre-hensive career approaches include theUniversity of Illinois (EPICS), GeorgeMason University (PACE), Connecti-cut College (e-Portfolio), and Hobartand William Smith (Pathways).

For more information on YourPlan, visit www.mtholyoke.edu/go/yourplan.

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What If Students Listened - College of Wooster · What If Students Listened By Scott C. Brown, Joanna Adler, Cori Ashworth, and Georgiana S. Chevry How one career center designed