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).
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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).
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Maureen profiles different employers each month in Goucher’s employer spotlight.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.