Selective Liberal Arts Colleges (SLAC)
Minutes for October 23, 2007 Meeting
St. Johns College, Annapolis, MD
Present: Natalie Kauffman, Maureen Marshall, Shahrzad Arasteh,
Kathleen Cady, Mark Heidrich, Rebecca Emery, Meghan Saia,
Jim Allison, Vicky Sawyer
New SLAC members Maureen Marshall (Goucher), Mark Heidrich (St. Mary’s), Jim
Allison (Washington), and Meghan Saia (Salisbury) were introduced
Minutes of August 1, 2006 meeting were reviewed and approved.
Treasurer’s Report
Vicky Sawyer reported an account balance of $1,546.12. The SLAC account also
includes a $5000.00 certificate of deposit that matured on 7/20/2008 with
$152.73 interest earned over the year. The CD was extended at an interest
rate of 3.460 %. Discussion about using the funds for programming reinforced
the intention of using the money when needed even if an early withdrawal
penalty is imposed. The original rationale for having a CD was to earn a
little interest on the funds.
Leadership Plan
A quick review of the leadership plan and roles resulted in a consensus to
eliminate the role of president and continue with a meeting coordinator,
meeting host site, web master and treasurer. The role of meeting coordinator
will rotate annually to SLAC member colleges.
Meeting Coordinator: Gary Johnson
Establish meeting calendar
Remind members of meetings
Prepare agenda for meetings
Facilitate meeting discussion
Request or assign recorder for minutes
Meeting Site Host: - Shahrzad Arasteh & rotational site hosts
Arrange meeting room, parking and lunch
Send directions and parking pass to members
Treasurer: Vicky Sawyer
Maintain bank account, pay bills and report balance to group
Web Master: Charlie Endicott
Maintain and update SLAC website on Salisbury server
Presentation
Meghan Saia, Salisbury Career Center Intern, gave a power point presentation
with the results of her survey of Career Planning Assessments used by
colleges. This excellent presentation is available. Contact her at: ms16484@salisbury.edu
Ongoing Business
Planning for January Employer Site Visits is immediate. Each member
institution is asked to arrange at least one employer site visit. “Many
hands make for light work.” Please get the information to Charlie by Friday,
November 16, 2007.
Continuing Education Ideas
Federal Jobs Application Karol Taylor & Janet Ruck
CSO Career Management System Eric Mulloy
Invite a speaker from Call to Serve
Please share ideas you have for speakers or programs.
Sharing
Congratulations were extended to Salisbury for recognition of their freshmen
orientation as a Best Practice in NACE Spotlight.
Selective Liberal Arts Colleges
Meeting minutes
August 6, 2008
In attendance were: Kathleen Cady (St. John’s College), Becky Emery
(Salisbury University), Charlie Endicott (Salisbury University), Amanda
Kellaher Walker (St. Mary’s College of Maryland), Diane MacKenzie (College
of Notre Dame), Maureen Marshall (Goucher College), Vicky Sawyer (Washington
College), Crystal Sehlke (University of Mary Washington), Laura Szadvari
(University of Mary Washington), Dana Van Abbema (St. Mary’s College of
Maryland), Shahrzad Arasteh (St. John’s College).
New members were welcomed and a general discussion developed. Some of the
issues and observations members mentioned included parents’ extensive
involvement in the career development and pursuits of their sons and
daughters (while in college and after graduation). Employers, as well as
career development professionals have experienced this growing trend. Some
employers are reinforcing this behavior in parents by courting them, meeting
their various demands and hoping to recruit graduating students through
communicating with their parents. Apparently this is due to their desire to
fill open positions at any cost.
Some of the strategies our members use to deal with parental
over-involvement include a web page or other tool created for parents with
specific suggestions on ways parents can be a helpful resource (to attempt
to manage the extent, direction and level of their involvement), and asking
the student/alum to enter the counselor’s office while inviting the
accompanying parent to wait in the resource/waiting area until the
individual appointment has concluded.
Vicky and others reported noting an increase in the number of
students/alumni with diagnosed and undiagnosed learning differences and
other concerns, and the difficulties the client experiences in obtaining
their first professional job (getting past the interview/screening process
and successfully starting the position). Referring the client to private
career counselors who specialize in working with individuals in similar
situations (job seeker who has ADD, for example) may be one effective
solution. Others include utilizing on-campus resources such as academic
advising, support services and mental health counseling (if the appropriate
resource exists on campus).
Thanks to Charlie our website has been updated to reflect changes made
within the last year. The site is used by members to connect with each
other, send group emails and announcements, etc. Students and others are
also directed to it at times (Site Visits, for example). Please check your
information within the next three weeks and contact Charlie with any needed
additions and revisions. Please also take a moment to review the other
portions of the site and offer any feedback you may have. The link is:
http://www.salisbury.edu/careerservices/slac/MembersListing.htm
We are moving toward using the site as a resource center and a place to
share information such as templates, handouts, best practices, booklets,
workshop presentations and event announcements (e.g., job fairs). The group
decided to select parents as the topic for the first “call for resources”.
Please forward a copy of any item you have that would fall in this category
to Charlie by September 30th. Examples may include a workshop/meeting you
hold for parents, information and articles targeted at parents, marketing
materials, web page link, etc. These will be posted on the SLAC site and
accessible to all members.
The next topic we’ll gather resources on will be marketing in general and
how we market our career centers (and samples of marketing materials).
Washington College recently attended a meeting with their student activities
office and learned they advertise to students using six different methods of
marketing. We’ll look forward to learning more about this and other tips and
techniques during the next phase of developing our website resource center.
A proposed future topic (for our meeting or resource center or both?) is
looking at each career center and whether or not we use a particular career
development model. If we do, what is it and how does it inform our approach
and day to day work?
Vicky reported we have $5494.00 in a CD and $1497.27 in our checking
account. The members discussed the possibility of using a portion of the
funds for future professional development activities.
During the 2008 site visits Washington College arranged a visit to Clark
Construction and introduced students to an industry and jobs that may not
traditionally be considered by liberal arts students (e.g., construction
field positions in accounting, business, project planning).
Goucher arranged a site visit to the Baltimore Aquarium which focused on
internship and volunteer opportunities. Maureen shared sometimes students
attend a visit with the specific goal and expectation of acquiring a
position with the site host (shortly after the visit) and may ignore our
clearly stated message that this is a visit to learn about the employer,
industry, position types, etc. and that while employers may choose to
discuss upcoming opportunities and invite students to apply at a later time,
the focus of most visits is career exploration, not direct and immediate
employment with the host. We will continue to emphasize the purpose of the
site visit, but recognize there will occasionally be students who may choose
to hear the description differently.
To prepare students for site visits, Charlie sends a link to Salisbury
students who have registered for the visits to outline guidelines for
attending (dress, tips, etc.).
The upcoming year’s site visits will take place January 5-16th and each
member is requested to arrange at least one site visit with an employer.
Please forward your site visit date and location to Charlie by October 1st.
Individual members identified potential sites they may contact for 2009 site
visits, including: DC United, UnderArmour, Ripkin Stadium, T. Rowe Price,
National Aquarium, Du Pont, and Aerotek.
Most area institutions host job fairs. Some of the larger institutions (not
necessarily SLAC members) host targeted fairs, such as George Washington’s
non-profit job fair. Johns Hopkins also has a large job fair. These and
other area fairs at larger institutions may be open to our students.
To manage job fairs and employer relationships our members use eRecruiting
(Salisbury and UMW) and CSO (Washington College).
Some institutions find it is not practical to attempt to host job fairs or
on-campus recruitment (due to small student numbers and inability to deliver
a significant number of candidates, for example) and will instead focus on
customized services for individual employers. Teacher recruitment events and
visits from service agencies (e.g., Peace Corps) are two of the areas almost
all colleges sponsor.
The Washington College Career Fair will take place on Wednesday, March 18,
2009.
If you have a job fair or other event coming up (but especially if you have
a job fair) and would like to open it to students of our member institutions
please send a link and date/details to Charlie and he will post it/share it
with the group.
In response to a request from a new member, the history, unique qualities
and purpose of SLAC were reviewed. SLAC was created as an informal network
of friends and colleagues who shared the role of career service
professionals in similar institutions (selective liberal arts colleges
located in portions of Maryland and Virginia). The original members had
identified a need for such a collegial group as their smaller higher
education institutions with a liberal arts focus seemed to be (as a group)
underserved by employers who focus on larger colleges and schools with a
more clearly defined career focus. Also, they may not have the same
professional development and collaboration opportunities larger career
service offices might have (access to several colleagues in the same office,
for example). This consortium provides a wonderful, supportive environment
to learn from each other, share best practices and brainstorm solutions for
challenges, network with enthusiastic and knowledgeable peers, and further
develop ourselves and our career counseling resources in an environment that
values mutual respect and collegiality.
Another important characteristic to point out is our deliberate lack of a
highly formal organizational structure/official leadership. We have many
members who are committed to seeing SLAC thrive and work as well together as
they do individually, recognizing with minimal suggested direction what
needs to be accomplished and then achieving it.
Some schools would like to explore externships/shadowing opportunities, in
addition to helping students search for internship opportunities. Salisbury
uses alumni mentors for this and typically encourages scheduling it as an
“alternative spring break” or a winter break activity.
Such opportunities often serve as a tool for employer development (by the
college) as well as as a pipeline for internships (which may then lead to
future employment opportunities) for the student who is engaged in the
process.
Bucknell and Carlton have well defined alumni shadowing programs.
Members interested in starting or revising similar program (through
employers or alumni/friends of the college) might approach identified
employers and ask if they would be willing to participate in such a program
and whether the nature/environment of their work is such that they would be
able to accept a student for an externship/shadowing period.
Maureen profiles different employers each month in Goucher’s employer
spotlight.
Students can obtain information on federal jobs and internships at the OPM
website. Student Career Experience Program (SCEP) is an opportunity that
includes paid internships for juniors and seniors and may include a job
offer prior to graduation, upon the completion of 640 hours. Student
Temporary Experience Program (STEP) is another student-specific opportunity
to explore here.
Career service offices handle credential files in a variety of ways. Most
only have full credential file services for education majors/teachers who
need specific documentation for applications. A few keep one for alumni (up
to 1 year out; some for longer) or keep only recommendation letters (upon
student request). Some offices keep paper files and others strictly use an
online system.
The group agreed adding an additional meeting via a teleconference would be
fine as long as there is a specific agenda item to be worked on (or a topic
to be explored). For example, this year we may decide a meeting in October
to discuss the 2009 site visits would be helpful. In that case we will call
in and meet through a teleconference, allowing members who find it difficult
to come to in-person meetings to participate.
There are several professional development opportunities we can begin to
incorporate into our group activities. One might be a Law School Expo and/or
Graduate School Expo in the spring where program representatives could
highlight their programs for attending SLAC members. Another idea is to
learn about international job and internship searches from Jean-Marc Hachey,
author of The Big Guide Online. We would need to pay for this event, but
might be able to use funding from each of our institutions or through SLAC
funds (if it is a presentation just to SLAC members, not students). The cost
is not certain, but the recommendation is to schedule it when the author is
going to be in the area for another presentation to find an opportunity to
reduce the cost.
We could also invite strong speakers who are vendors of specific career
services products and software, employers who may be of particular interest
to our students, and representatives of programs that are interesting and
would be helpful for us to know about (and enable us to educate our students
about them). One such company is Community First Fund in Lancaster, PA.
Vicky visited them and learned they would be interested in hosting interns.
They are a loan association, with a micro-lending focus on economic
development through funding small businesses (and also have a focus on
minority-owned businesses).
It is helpful to review our membership periodically. At this time, we might
want to invite one or two new members whose institutions are in some ways
similar to our group’s profile, to ensure no one who could benefit from
membership is left out. Diane will begin a very exploratory conversation
with career services colleagues at Loyola and Johns Hopkins to gauge whether
SLAC might be a good fit for either. She will share her discussions with the
members so we may make a decision on extending an invitation to either or
both to join SLAC.
We rely on active participation of members to make SLAC a vibrant and
wonderful resource for all members. Member institutions which have not had
the opportunity to participate in at least a year (through attending
meetings, hosting site visits, etc.) will be invited to comment on whether
their schedule and other demands on their time/resources prevent them from
remaining a SLAC member at this time. If so, we will remove them from the
current membership list with an open invitation to rejoin in the future when
they are able to participate in the group.
We typically meet one to two times a year. In the future, our annual meeting
will take place on the second Wednesday in August. If we schedule a second
(or additional) meeting, we may occasionally consider rotating the host site
for the subsequent meeting. It was also suggested that we plan a stand-alone
meeting (perhaps around a specific program or activity creating a
professional development day) that would allow us to combine a visit to two
or more member institutions on the same day. Washington College and
Salisbury University were suggested as one combination for such an
opportunity.
The meeting was adjourned at approximately 2:30. The next annual meeting
will be on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. at St. John’s College.
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