Division of Student Affairs
2008-09 Annual Report
Department: Career Development Center
Person Completing Report: Leslye Erickson
Date: 9/14/09
1. Major Accomplishments (accomplishments from your department associated
with the Strategic Plans. These should also be accomplishments we can use to
promote your department and Student Affairs.
General Statement: Starting this review period, with just one semester completed since
opening the new Career Development Center in January 2008, the primary focus is on
reaching out to students, employers and our college partners to begin the process of
growing the idea and implementation of the new liaison model of service delivery. As
you will see from this report, we have increased the number and kinds of services we
offer and begun to benchmark the number of students and employers utilizing those
services. In addition, we have focused on building relationships with each of our
schools/colleges and fine tuning/tailoring our services to meet their specific career
development needs.
Major Accomplishments:
(Tied to Department/Strategic Plan)

In keeping with the new look and feel for the University Webpage, the CDC has
re-designed it's webpage with the same look and feel as the new University page
and new updated content for students, alumni, faculty and employers.

The CDC Staff have provided 192 presentations for students classes, groups,
clubs, etc…

The CDC Staff have provided individual career coaching for 1404 student/alumni.

The CDC Staff have assisted 2989 students create new accounts and learn how to
use Symplicity.

The CDC Staff have assisted employers in posting 2801 new jobs in Symplicity for
our student/alumni use in their respective job searches.

The CDC Staff have assisted 1267 employers create new accounts in Symplicity.

The CDC Staff have administered and interpreted 1,584 MBTI and/or Strong
Interest Assessments to UofL students/alumni.

Hosted and/or assisted with the planning of seven career fairs this review
period: The Majors Fair, The Engineering Career Fair (Fall and Spring), The
University Wide Career Fair (Fall and Spring), The Public Health Career Fair, The
The Graduate School Fair, The Part-time Jobs Fair and the Big East Career
Consortium. These fairs resulted in bringing 269 employer participants to our
campus and 2,200 student participants.

Four staff in the Career Development Center submitted and were chosen to
make professional presentations at SACSA, ACPA, NCDA, NASPA, and NACE.

CDC Staff submiteed and were selected based on the merits of their proposal to
receive an Idea to Action Grant to conduct research on Critical Thinking and
Choice of Academic Major.
2. Staffing summary: (Changes, Updates, Challenges, Issues related to staffing in
your department )
General Statement: With the bulk of the new hiring complete at the start of the Spring
2008 semester, there were a few new hires yet to make as we moved into the
2008/2009 review period.
Specific Changes and Issues:

New Hire: Stacey Sholar, Student Staff

New Hire: Renee Geiger, Student Staff

New Hire: KaBrenda Warfield, Student Staff

New Hire: Corey Brown, Student Staff

New Hire: Amtoni Norris, JLD Specialist

New Hire: Matt Real, Employer Relations Coordinator
3. Activities and initiatives that support Academic Units (Collaborative efforts
with academic units or programs and services that support students classroom
experience)
General Statement: With space and staff in place and the summer of 2008 to plan for
our first fall opening, Career Coaches focused on the delivery of programs and services
to students in their assigned school or college with an expanded menu of services. In
each college that means establishing and maintaining in-college office hours, hosting a
variety of career development workshops and meeting with and building on established
working relationships with the school/college staff and faculty. In addition, working with
each college has also meant developing and catering to a number of specific high need
areas of focus.
Specific Activities, Programs or Initiatives:

In Arts and Sciences our focus has been to assist students with career decision
making, offering 100's of MBTI and Strong Interest Inventories to date to
individual student referrals from academic advisors and faculty, to cardinal
covenant students, to porter scholars, to GEN 101 freshman, to Comm 250
enrolled students, to SMEP summer participants, to prospective students and
alumni just to name a few; the delivery of a career development workshop series
in the Arts and Science physical space was provided to allow us to cover the
basics with these students from how to choose a major to how to write a
resume; in addition a new panel presentation was developed to help students
learn more about how to put their major to work that involves hosting alumni
presenters in a panel presentation format to talk about their career paths and
give students ideas on how to make their major work for them - to date we have
hosted presentations in Mathematics, Sociology, and fine arts.

With the School of Business Ulmer Career Management Center, we co-hosted a
joint staff luncheon designed to assist our staff in learning more about what each
center does and to begin the discussion of how we can best serve our students
without duplication of effort.

In Dentistry, we helped to convert dentistry staff to the use of Symplicity as the
database for their job posting system used widely in the school by both current
students and alumni.

In Education, we assisted with the Education Career Fair, hosting a number of
school districts participating in on-campus recruiting, regular office hours have
been maintained during and the delivery of a career development workshop
series in the School of Education space was provided.

In Engineering, our focus has been to continue to partner with the planning and
hosting of the Engineering career fair, delivery of mock interviews for all
students preparing to coop, providing regular office hours at Speed School, the
delivery of a career development workshop series in the School of Engineering
focused on full-time employment issues, was provided in support of their already
developed cooperative education program .

In Music, regular office hours have been maintained and changed a bit to
included staff being available over their lunch hour in an information booth type
format in the space where the students hang out, delivery of a career
development workshop series in the School of Music space was provided and
included several presenations during their regularly scheduled convocation on
Thursdays. In addition, we hosted a Careers Spolight in Music presentation,
being several music alumni back to campus to share their career path with our
soon to be grads.

In Nursing, we begun our first class of required career development
presentations and mock interviews for all students. We have also began working
with advisors to develop an early waring program for those students who are on
academic warning and probation.

In Public Health we have provided regular office hours, a comprehensive
workshop series on resume writing, cover letter writing, interviewing skills, and
job search strategies, as well as mock interviews, faculty presentations on our
services and a co-hosted Etiquette Dinner. A Public Health Career Fair was
attempted but cancelled due to poor employer response.

In Social Work, our focus has been to assist with job postings, getting info out to
prospective students about grad school options and the collection of graduate
follow up data. In addition, we assisted with the first ever Social Work Career
Fair in conjunction with the Social Work Student Council group. No school
specific office hours have been established to date.

For the first time in many years, the Career Development Center officially offers
Alumni Career Development Services effective January 2009. In addition to one
on one counseling, we co-hosted with the Alumni Office, a Career Development
Series of Workshops, updated our webpage with resources specifically for
alumni and invited our alumni to participate in all our career fairs.
4. Activities and services that support diversity
General Statement: In keeping with the University mission to be inclusive and
respresentative of all groups, the Career Development Center Staff demonstrate their
comittment to diversity through the wide range of groups we present to and comittees
we serve.
Specific Activities, Programs or Initiatives:

Porter Scholars Student Administration, Interpretation and Presentation on the
MBTI, Strong and Career Decision Making

Cultural CenterStudent Administration, Interpretation and Presentation on the
MBTI, Strong and Career Decision Making

LGBT Fan

James Brown and Valerie Browning serves as active members of CODRE

Leslye Erickson serves as an active member of COSW

Cardinal Covenant Student Administration, Interpretation and Presentation on
the MBTI, Strong and Career Decision Making
5. Activities and services that support community service and/or civic
engagement:
General Statement: As a newly developed office, this has not been a priority due to
the need to focus on building our own infrastructure.
Specific Activities, Programs or Initiatives:
6. Staff professional development activities and programs including: individual or
department recognition awards, conference presentations, publications and
involvement in university wide committees and /or professional activities
General Statement: As a means to increase University awareness of the Career
Development Center and to become actively engaged in the University community, all
staff are strongly encouraged where appropriate to give time through service in
University Committees and to our profession through participation in a variety of
professional associations.
Specific Activities, Programs, Initiatives or Professional Involvement:

Staff in the CDC actively served on the following University committees:
o Cardinal Covenant Advisory Committee
o Great Louisville Inc – HIRE Sub-Committee
o Interview Committee Member for Mr. & Ms. Cardinal
o Financial Festival Planning Committee
o Cardinal newspaper Advisory Board
o Department of Public Safety Advisory-Education subcommittee chair
o Commission on Diversity and Racial Equality
o Big East Career Fair Planning Committee
o Staff Senate
o Student Affairs Professional Development
o President’s Commission to Investigate Deasy Ph.D. & College of Education
o ACPA Mid-Managers Institute planning meeting
o Provost’s Sustainability Council and Administration
o Finance and Outreach Committee
o Career Development Center Representative, Student Affairs Newsletter
o Black Alumni Council
o Per Credit Hour Tuition Marketing Working Group
o President's Outstanding performance Award Committee for Faculty/Staff
o Enterprise Management Committee
o Graduate Follow-Up Committee

4 CDC Staff submitted program proposals and were selected to present at ACPA,
NASPA, SACSA, NACE and NCDA

All Career Coaches attended the MBTI administration and interpretation training
provided at the University of Kentucky
7. Assessment initiatives - (participant surveys, program reviews, student
learning outcomes, focus groups, feedback etc.)
General Statement: As a newly developing office, we are not yet very sophisticated at
our assessment initiatives. Currently we do some basic assessment, but plan to add
opportunities for our students, employers and faculty to provide us feedback.
Specific Activities, Programs, or Initiatives:

We survey students and employers at each career fair, compile that feedback
and use it to inform us on how to continuously improve these events.
8. Top Goals for the Department/Program – Include specific goals your
department will be working on during 2009-2010. Goals should be in response
to items in the University and Student Affairs Strategic planning documents.
General Statement: The Career Development Center must support the mission,
academic programs and advancement of the institution. Within this context, the
primary purpose of the Career Development Center is to assist students and alumni in
developing, evaluating, and/or implementing career, education and employment
decisions. With this mission in mind the Career Development Center will focus on
continuing to develop our liaison model of service delivery and to develop resources for
students in support career development in a tough economy.
Specific Goals for 2009-2010:
Increase employer awareness of our graduates’ capabilities and participation in oncampus recruiting, career fairs, job postings, advertising possibilities and information
presentations

Increase student awareness of and participation in the programs and services
offered by the Career Services Office

Increase faculty and staff awareness of and participation in the Career Services
Office

Increase faculty and staff awareness of and participation in the Career Services
Office

Improve job related knowledge and skills of all staff with special emphasis on
improving technology skills

Document all related policies and procedures relative to service model

Improve data collection on career program/services and outcomes

Increase technology (print, audio, video, computer and internet) resources
available for student, employer and staff utilization
9. Issues and Challenges for the Department During 2008-2009
General Statement: As a newly developing office there is still a lot of work to do to fully
flesh out the menu of services we need to be offering and the new service delivery
model.
Specific Issues and Challenges 2008-2009:
Continuing to develop relationships with staff, faculty and students in each college

Continuing the professional development of our staff on a limited budget

Continuing the development of the new office structure to include additional
services – on-campus recruiting, services for alumni, on-line portfolio services,
on-line career resources, better and consistently update webpage information.

Continuing to negotiate space in each college

Continuing to identify outside sources of funding, as the University support is
inadequate to continue to develop the Career Development Center.
10. Report on metrics for programs and services during the year (usage and/or
customer numbers, occupancy data, number of programs provided,
participant demographics, retention statistics, revenue numbers, budget
savings, new funding sources and amounts, benchmark comparisons,
professional development/involvement data, web hits, student employee
numbers, etc)
General Statement: Again, as a newly developing office we are not very sophisticated at
our metrics collections efforts. We have begun some basic data collection on commonly
identified points of service for Career Center Offices. Please see attached.
Specific Metrics from 2008-2009:
See attachments