Michael J. Stebleton:
So these are, you know, sophomores, juniors and seniors that are, are planning ahead. They’re, they’re doing the internships, some of the experiential opportunities that Michael just mentioned, and they’re redefining, I think what work and career might mean to them, right? They’ve seen parents and maybe grandparents lose jobs sometimes very unexpectedly and they don’t necessarily see themselves, certainly not tied to one organization, but maybe not even one line of work.

Michael J. Stebleton:
Right? So, whereas some of us might see work as our primary identity and define our success and our sort of wellbeing around our work identity. a lot of students, I’m not saying all of ’em, but a lot of ’em are saying, that’s not gonna work for me. Right. Work’s gonna be one aspect of my life. And there are these other identities that I wanna cultivate.

Keith Edwards:
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW. I’m your host, Keith Edwards today. We’re talking about the new book mapping, the future of undergraduate career education, equitable career learning development, and preparation in the new world work. I’m joined by four contributors. Who’ve thought about written about and put this into practice. And I’m so excited to learn from each of you. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast, an online learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find details about this episode or browser archives at studentaffairsnow.com. This episode is brought to you by Stylus, visit styluspub.com and use their promo code SANow for 30% off and free shipping. And today’s episode is also sponsored by Simplicity. A true partner, Simplicity supports all aspects of student life with technology platforms that empower institutions to make data driven decisions.

Keith Edwards:
As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he him, his. I’m a speaker consultant and coach. And you can find out more about me at keithedwards.com. I’m broadcasting for Minneapolis, Minnesota at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of the Dakota and the Ojibwe peoples. Let’s get to the conversation. I’m so grateful to have all of you here with us today. Tell us a little bit about you and how your experience with career education as we get started here. And Melanie you’re joining me here from the twin cities as well. Go ahead and introduce yourself to us.

Melanie Buford:
Sure. Thanks Keith. Thanks for having us. So my name is Melanie Buford pronoun. She hers. I have had an interesting journey with career education. , it’s been perhaps more diverse than most in the sense that I actually started in workforce development in the nonprofit world in 2010. And so I did AmeriCorps and I worked with an organization called year up that does kind of career support for folks who have for various reasons struggled to complete the traditional four year college timeline. And so started doing that and then moved into higher education. I am now working at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities as a teaching specialist in a leadership program for undergraduates. And in the meantime, in those intervening years, I worked for one small private liberal arts college Wesley University and for University of Cincinnati.

Keith Edwards:
Awesome. Well, we’re so glad that you’re here and Michael Sharp, tell us a little bit about you.

Michael Sharp:
Thanks Keith. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’ve been excited about doing this for a couple of weeks now. I’m a faculty member at the University of Cincinnati, which is how I know Melanie and I know Heather I’ve been doing that since about 2013. I’m also the director of our service learning program have been doing that since about 2008 and service earnings, part of a larger umbrella organization at UC called the division of experience based learning and career education. And that’s the unit we have about 90 people that supports our, our charge is to support the entire university’s efforts with experiential learning and career ads. So we have things in addition to service learning the cooperative education program. We have a program called UC forward, undergraduate research, international experiential learning. It’s a lot of fun. We’re going through a lot of changes at UC. And thanks again for having me.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah, really glad that you’re here. And Melanie is the lead editor and Michael and Mike. You’re another editor. So Mike, go ahead and tell us a little bit about you.

Michael J. Stebleton:
Okay. Thank you, Keith. It’s a pleasure to be here. I am Michael J. Stebleton he, him his pronouns. I am professor and coordinator of higher education here at the University of Minnesota, where we have graduate programs and masters and, and PhD. My background similar to Melanie, I think it wasn’t exactly a straight one. And, and that’s sometimes we oftentimes talk about that in, in higher ed and, and career education is I got my start in academic advising through counseling psychology and worked in student affairs for a number of years both in academic advising and career services before coming back to, to get my PhD and then join the faculty. And so I’ve been at the University of Minnesota since 2008 and much of my teaching and research is really looking at factors that contribute to college student success and career and career education is part of that success journey.

Michael J. Stebleton:
My, my teaching and my research interests really focus on issues related to future work. The changing workplace and then looking at career is story and, and narrative. And we’ll perhaps talk about that a little bit later. And so when Melanie approached me to join the team it feels like a long time ago, but it’s probably about a year and a half, two years ago. It was, it was just a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with, with both Melanie and, and Michael on, on this project. So thank you again for inviting us

Keith Edwards:
Well. Awesome. And we’ve got the, the three editors who also contributed different chapters and we have another author contributing a chapter, Heather Nester, joining us who wrote the chapter infusing career into the curriculum and the problem of indecision. It’s great title for a chapter. Heather, tell us a little bit more about you.

Heather Nester:
Hi, all I’m Heather She Her and I’m currently an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati working in the division of experience based learning career education, which is always a mouthful to say out loud. My journey kind of started more in undergraduate admissions. So I spent a lot of time dealing with recruitment, working with student organizations and tour guides. Before I transitioned to a role within career education, working a lot of more on the employer side to begin with. I did a lot with post-graduation data, helping with career fairs and events, and slowly transitioned into career coaching, different majors within the college of arts and sciences, managing our peer career coach program that we had, which was flourished and grown since it really got started until I transitioned to the current role that I have, which is teaching career education courses primarily to students within the college of arts and sciences. A lot of times I’m working with exploratory students, pre-health students biology and psychology students make up, I would say the majority of my time.

Keith Edwards:
Awesome. Well, really glad for those introductions, getting to know all of you Melanie you’re the, the lead editor and sounds like you’ve wrangled folks together here. So tell us about the beginning the changing nature of careers and career education. What’s ahead for us.

Melanie Buford:
It’s a really big question. I will

Keith Edwards:
You wrote a book about it? So,

Melanie Buford:
I mean, we did, we did in broad strokes, I would say that around the world, we’re just seeing that, that the nature of work is shifting. And I think the, one of the big themes that we see and, and in particular, perhaps in the us, although certainly in everywhere really is just increasing precarity. And, and the shifting access to stable work that meets people’s needs. And, and when we say needs, I mean, you know, material needs survival needs. And then also, you know, some of those higher, higher, higher needs on Maslow’s hierarchy, right? So, you know, satisfaction, fulfillment connection. We just see a certain diminishing return on investment in terms of hard work and how, how that gets your, your needs and your survival net. And so I think we see, you know, different kind of brackets, economic brackets of society reacting differently to that.

Melanie Buford:
But, you know, obviously some of those trends have looked like what we, what, what people are calling the great resignation. And so folks moving out of their roles and seeking work that perhaps is more fulfilling on some level of those needs, either survival or otherwise. And then certainly, you know, rising cost of living is contributing to that. We, we all know that in the us. And I think in career education, really, we’re just trying to adapt and respond to to that and the speed in the last two years has been really staggering for a lot of us. And even as we are trying to prepare students for these changes, that even we cannot anticipate and know exactly how they will shake out, right. We’ve seen a ton of turnover in, within student affairs itself. And, and I, you know, in my experience, I think career has seen especially high turnover in the area of career education perhaps because, you know, we do best for a living right. Finding new work. And so it’s, it’s been a pretty tumultuous time. I think we all know.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah, well, we’re talking about the pandemic we’re talking about then that led to virtual and we’re all joining from all over via zoom and then the technologies and work from home. And now we have this period of inflation and workers having a lot of optioning, which could lead to a period of recession where employers have a lot of optioning . So there’s just so much so much upheaval and change and instability to navigate Michael Sharp. What would you add to what you see ahead for us?

Michael Sharp:
Yeah, Keith, I, I like what you just said, and I like what Melanie said too, and what I’ve noticed, I think particularly over the last two years, because of the COVID 19 global pandemic, is that there’s an accelerated sort of hybridization of different types of experiential learning and even some cross pollination between for profit, not for profit thinking and doing so. My, my role at UC primarily is to connect faculty members that are teaching courses to the nonprofit sector. And for years and years, not just at UC, but everywhere, sort of the nonprofit sector and the for profit sector have been two separate islands. And what I’ve noticed, maybe it’s because I’m part of this larger division of experience based learning and career ed, where there’s people that work with for profits exclusively there’s people that work with not profits exclusively, but I’ve seen this, this move toward intentionally blurring those silos, some where sort of the co-op people, the people that work with Proctor and gambles and GEs, et cetera, they’re learning from the service earning folks, just as the service earning folks are learning from the, for for profit folks.

Michael Sharp:
So that’s, that’s sort of been an exciting change that I’ve seen in career ed, which could reflect what’s happening in the job market. Hopefully we’re in some ways leading what’s happening in the job market too.

Keith Edwards:
Great. That’s really interesting seeing those islands merged together Mike Stebleton, what do you see ahead for us? What are you seeing now and what are you seeing ahead?

Michael J. Stebleton:
thank you. And I, I’m appreciative of both Michael and, and Melanie’s comments I’m going to build on Melanie’s comments about the precarious nature of, of work. And I think many of us work with undergraduate students and I’ve had the opportunity to, to talk with a lot of my students in my career planning courses. And I ask them in, you know, through discussions and writing assignments to reflect on how they might see their work lives changing. So these are, you know, sophomores, juniors and seniors that are, are planning ahead. They’re, they’re doing the internships, some of the experiential opportunities that Michael just mentioned, and they’re redefining, I think what work and career might mean to them, right? They’ve seen parents and maybe grandparents lose jobs sometimes very unexpectedly and they don’t necessarily see themselves, certainly not tied to one organization, but maybe not even one line of work.

Michael J. Stebleton:
Right? So, whereas some of us might see work as our primary identity and define our success and our sort of wellbeing around our work identity. a lot of students, I’m not saying all of ’em, but a lot of ’em are saying, that’s not going to work for me. Right. Work’s going to be one aspect of my life. And there are these other identities that I want to cultivate. And so I think that’s a, a shift or, and I’ll be interesting to see if that continues to shift sort of post pandemic. And I, I think a lot of the factors and trends that we’re all describing were maybe said in motion pre pandemic, but the pandemic has accelerated them. Right? So, whereas students, maybe in the past said, I want flexibility. I want autonomy. I want to be able to come and go sort of when I, you know, when I want to.

Michael J. Stebleton:
Right. And certainly that’s a privilege, not, not all workers have that opportunity, but they’re saying that whereas they were saying that before now they’re really saying it right. They’re saying I want to be a hybrid. I want to work from home. And so it’ll be interesting. There’s other scholars and journals that are writing about this work from home movement and whether not, it would be maintained or not, but I think many workers, younger workers are graduates are going to continue to push for this around flexibility and autonomy. So that’s, that’s one major trend that I see continuing into the future.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. And I, you’re talking about the role of work and identity and how it’s different for different folks. And I think there’s some generational aspects to that there’s class aspects to that. One of the things I’m hearing from people is they don’t, they don’t want to be treated at work like workers or employees. They want to be treated like people. Who have passions and other lives. And they, they want that to not be the separation, but they wanted to bring that in. And I think, you know, Melanie mentioned that, you know, student affairs itself is having this change. And what I’m hearing right now is employers and student affairs panicking. Like I can’t people have left, I can’t fill these positions. People are turning me down left and right. They want something different. And I think in, in the short term, that’s really difficult. I hope in the long term, it, it balances out and brings up up a new something that needs to be created here. Heather, what would you add to this?

Heather Nester:
I mean, I feel like it’s kind of a theme over what some of you have said, Keith, really talking about this idea of breaking down barriers, taking down silos like Michael talked about and this idea I see it as we think about even what you said, you know, I want to be treated like a person at work. I want to be treated like a person in all aspects of my life. Ideally,

Keith Edwards:
You wouldn’t think that would be a revolutionary app,

Heather Nester:
Right? I mean, it’s strange though. We haven’t fall up for that, but I just see this idea of wanting more independence and say in their career path versus what we might have seen traditionally from previous generations where they might have been told, go get your college degree and then go get your job. And that’s just what you did, but now there’s more creativity. They want more voice in what that degree looks like. . So I’ve seen an increase in interdisciplinary studies and liberal arts degrees where they are combining, you know, three different majors or two majors in a minor, and honestly crafting their own pathway and their own degree to make their career actually what they wanted. It . Which I think is one of those things where you really have to work with those students on how they’re telling their story.

Heather Nester:
Right? because when an employer goes to look at that, that resume that says bachelor or interdisciplinary studies and they’re listing like three or four different programs, they have to be able to tell that story. And I think there’s this independence and wanting to be able to then go off and do experiences by themselves. They don’t always want to have, you know, a university, a kind of advisor guiding them, maybe they want to do digital upskilling. Maybe they found a really cool online resource where they’ve taught themselves how to do these different tasks and skills that they’re bringing to the table. And then it comes on some of the career education professionals be like, okay, the skills are there. We just have to teach you how to talk about them and remind them that these skills are valuable and not just something that they did one off and they’re adding it’s, it can all lead into something. But that independence that need for voice. That’s definitely something I see becoming more prominent

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. the autonomy and the really and they’re really being important. Well, Mike, the book subtitle is equitable career learning development and preparation in the new world of work. Tell us a little bit about how equity calls, goals and aspirations are shaping the future of career education.

Michael J. Stebleton:
Great. You asked big questions, Keith. I feel like each question could have been a podcast by itself, Melanie and I were prepping like, wow, he really, he nails it, but yeah. Ask him global questions. That’s good. Lots of flexibility there. But yeah, this is a critical component of our book and his Melanie and others put this together. We really wanted to the, the social justice, the equity, the inclusion to be a, a central theme of the, of the text. And certainly when we contracted with our authors, we really encourage them to, to talk about how diversity equity inclusion might be integrated into the respective chapter. So I think first of all, it’s about access right career services. You think about a college campus or another nonprofit organization should be accessible to, to all individuals, all students in this case who, who want to, to reach it and you think, yeah, of course that, that that’s happening.

Michael J. Stebleton:
Right. And it’s not always the case. I think historically there’s a fair amount of social capital or cultural capital that’s sort of wrapped up in career services. So if you had a mother and her father who attended college, they might have said, you know, come your junior year. You, you know, you should really check out that career services office. Or if you had a mentor who worked in a related discipline, they might encourage you. And so I think there are certain groups of students that just aren’t aware of career services and don’t always access them. And so I think it, it goes back to this idea of social mobility and, and having accessible services to all. And so some institutions are, are taking sort of the traditional career services out of the office. So trying to reach students where they could be in the residence halls.

Michael J. Stebleton:
I’ve heard of certain career development centers doing sort of pop up career services. this is of course when we’re back on campus, but they might be, you know, at the mall here at the, the student union at the university of Minnesota. So going to where students might be at and really trying to share the message with them. I think, you know, some of us got the message late, or maybe that was just me. I, I don’t know, but I think it was my senior year. Someone said, oh, you should really, you know, put together your, your resume or you should start thinking about what might be next. And so, you know, I, I hiked up to the third floor here at of Frazier Hall on campus and, and, you know, access career services. But I think, you know, the, the centers and institutions that are doing it well are having these conversations much earlier with, with students and prospective students and their families.

Michael J. Stebleton:
And so we write about in the book, some of those examples. So again, kind of social mobility is a big one. I think another one too is also this idea of social justice and this is an entirely new, and this is something we talked about as an editorial team with our authors is that if you look at the history of career counseling and career development, it’s, it’s grounded in some of these social justice route. And of course a lot has happened in the a hundred plus years. And it’s not, exactly the same in terms of the principles, but I think returning to some of those early ideas are really important, this idea of supporting others whether it’s recent immigrant students or low income students or new refugees to our community. part of it is reaching out and embracing these social justice principles and directly integrating it into the work. And I think this goes beyond just the performative or signaling. I think we’ve seen a lot of that in, in different companies and organizations, but really doing, doing the work. So I’ll, I’ll pause there and I’ll have my my other participants add,

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. Michael Sharp. What would you add,

Michael Sharp:
Mike? You, you always articulate things. So, so well, and I love what you said about the, the centrality of equity in higher ed. And I would agree with you that we’ve, we’ve talked about that, not us on this call, but higher. Ed’s talked about that a lot over those yes. Hundred plus plus years, but I don’t know if we’ve ever done a very good job at that and right. I mean, I’ll just speak for UC here. So we’ve been doing co-op for a hundred years, but if you look at the colleges at UC that get the co-op experience, the traditional co-op experience, it’s engineers, designers, and students in the college of business. And so that leaves out 75% of our students, for example, liberal arts students that often don’t come from the same kinds of backgrounds that would create a student that’s interested in engineering or design work.

Michael Sharp:
And so what ex what excited me about this book when melody, Melanie approached me about it was this idea of how, how can higher education back up the rhetoric? How can we be leaders in the world? We talk about social justice, we talk about equity, but are we preparing students to actually do that? And I don’t know that we’ve done a very good job what’s been interacting and it sort of gets back to the first question Keith is that it’s almost like we’ve responded to students requesting that. So students don’t want a four year degree to go get a job. They want to become a more full human. And so they’re saying even the engineers, no offense to any engineers out there, even the designers, they’re saying, I want a life that matters that helps others. And, and so I think in some ways higher ed are responding to the world. And I hope that we transition in into a place where we’re sort of leading again, where, where the globe and our communities can look at higher ed and say, Hey guys, what are you doing about climate change? What are you doing about poverty? What are you doing about, you know, communities existing in isolation and hopefully higher ed, all the smart people in the room. That’s why we, what we’d like to say about ourselves, catch up conversation.

Keith Edwards:
I’m so glad to hear this perspective, because I think one of the things that’s really been disheartening in my career in higher education is that there’s this, it is higher ed for a job or is it for a fulfilling life? And I feel like we’ve had so many economic factors as the price goes up and debt goes up, we’ve sort of centered the job and not just not career like the first job after that summer. Right. That first job. And I think for so many years we’ve matched what we thought people wanted to hear and made the case for higher education around that first job. We’ve seeded the value of learning, how to learn and how to be in community and civility and equity and living this rich life. So I’m so glad to hear the students are going to swing that back a little bit, because I think that’s so desperately needed. Melanie, what would you add here about the equity in career education? With and for our students?

Melanie Buford:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I so much has been said already that I think really nails it. I have just a few comments. I would say, you know, this is such a, such a tough issue in the sense that I really think that kind of building on what’s already been said, there’s the issue of access, right? So, you know, how do we, how do we make sure that all students can access the career programming that we have and right. That’s, that’s one part of this equation around equity. And I think what I’ve seen is that people really define equity differently. You know, some people are really saying equality and access and not necessarily equity and social justice. And I think that those two things, four things really get conflated quite often. And so part of what I think is challenging is that, you know, we know how to say, okay, how do we give all students access to what we know are high impact programs?

Melanie Buford:
Like co-op like fully holistic service learning programs like required courses, you know, career preparation courses, that’s a technical problem, right? , and I think we know how to solve technical problems. What I think is often more of a is what, what is beyond access? Like, like have we really thought about what it look like to actually close some of those stubborn gaps in education? You know, we know that this is the whole field K through 12 has been dealing with education equity gaps for a very long time. And you know, when you’ve got a, an institution that’s built around essentially kind of reproducing class , you know, based on things like free time, you know, income, standardized testing, who has the connections to be able to find an internship, if it’s not something that’s built in, right. We know that these things just reproduce the very capital to use that word that students come in with.

Melanie Buford:
And so I just, I think that it, it it’s a stubborn problem. And I think what, what we’re what’s beyond access is really more of an adaptive problem. How do we think about how to shift this institutional structure to begin to close those gaps for students of color, for BIPOC students, for students from low income backgrounds working class students, like how do you know students with disabilities? How do we begin to really think about what it would look like? You know, for instance, many co-op programs have a dedicated professional whose entire job is to get you a position while you’re in school so that you can make money and go to school and come out financially stable and with great experience. And if we had that available to all students and we were held accountable to a 90% employment metric, right. , that would look like one thing. But the resources that that would take would, would require a massive redesign of of higher education. Right. And we know those models are happening and we’re, we’re trying to provide access. But I just think that it’s a, it’s really a bigger challenge than talking about the importance of equity, talking about the importance of access. Yeah. It’s going to prove resistant because it’s really not designed for that. You know, we know that social mobility in the us is just not that, not that great.

Keith Edwards:
Not that Mobile.

Melanie Buford:
Right. We’re not at mobile and that’s by design in park. Right. So,

Keith Edwards:
But I think

Melanie Buford:
In higher stubborn question,

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. In higher ed in general, we talk about access, right? And we bring in more diverse students. But if the, then their experience is not equitable, then they don’t stay, they don’t last, they don’t graduate. Or, and I also you’re reminding me that, you know, a more equitable resources, services opportunities for all of these students. Not only benefits them, but all of us as they go on to them, invent things that are so crucial or find solutions that other people wouldn’t have found. I mean, that’s, that really is a benefit for, for everyone. Heather, what would you add here around equitable career learning development and preparation going forward? You’ve had some great seeding here. What do you want to build on?

Heather Nester:
I would agree with Mike and the idea that I think that a lot of these questions could stand alone and we could have very long indepth conversations. I think, I think this one sticks with me a little bit because the academy academia is not, it was not built on diversity. It was not built on equitable access. And when we acknowledge that as just something that’s true, I mean, it bleeds into everything we do. whether you see yourself in a certain career, whether you see yourself within the academy or wherever you’re going. And it can be really frustrating when we talk about access, I fully acknowledge that I was probably somebody that was not meant to make it to college, let alone be working in higher education. I was low income. I was a first generation college student. I’ve had my identity erased multiple times being told that I don’t count as Asian Americans.

Heather Nester:
They don’t look Asian enough. I’ve had that. I’ve had HR boxes changed on me. Without my consent, it’s been a wild ride. and I, the thing that makes me want to believe that we are hopefully moving forward in a positive direction is in the past few years, I think we’ve seen more of a call for actual change. Not these highlights of, Hey, I said the right words, or I included the right things in my presentation. I know UC has been pushing a coalition against anti-racism that has been doing a lot of really active work involving academic affairs, student affairs across campus. I think what we’re seeing is that it’s no longer becoming something that we are just adding to the curriculum, or we are just adding to the program or list of things that students can take advantage of it is being intentionally integrated.

Heather Nester:
And in some places we are very behind and we’re trying to play catch up, but the fact that we’re actually trying to catch up gives me at least some kind of hope. I see in classes, are we actively including conversations about generational differences, race access, do you see yourself in your career and what identities are missing? Are you bringing in Title IX? Do you have public health training when you’re working with your pre-health students, so they know what is going on in society and how sociology impacts that so maybe that’s a tie in with the idea of more interdisciplinary programs, is that we’re seeing that idea come back that as a society, we need to be focusing on that and then changing, how are we impacting careers as we move forward? So to me, I’m I want to be cautiously hopeful.

Keith Edwards:
all right. Yeah. Well, let, let’s stick with you then Heather and you’re cautiously hopeful. You talked about one of the, some of the change that you’re seeing in, instead of getting equity on the margins and fixing where it’s not working, but really integrating it in and centering it. What are some of the other paradigm shifts that are needed in career education going forward?

Heather Nester:
So I think it kind of, to me, it kind of talks about what has already come up a little bit, you know, why do we go to college? Why are we here? Is it to get a degree? Is it to find a job? How does that play into socioeconomic status and where you want to be and where you came from? And I think if we’re really thinking from that access of making things more accessible, we need to do it with more integrated programs in your curriculum, whether you are putting career education touchpoints directly at your first mid collegiate and senior level, like the University of Cincinnati does, or you are looking at other ways to get students in an actual setting where they’re thinking about career education. I think when we think about career ed, until you are taught to reflect about it, or until you are told what questions you should be asking yourself, why would, you know, at 18 years old, what questions you should be asking yourself about career education? Like there’s no reason you should know, and until somebody’s there to help you. And I think the more it’s integrated and it’s really intentional, we take luck out of it. you are no longer hoping that that student walks into the career center. You are like, I remember being in college, I’m like, oh, we have a career center. And I like stumbled down there in my third year. Like, what is this place? It’s

Keith Edwards:
This you’re you’re ahead of Mike.

Heather Nester:
Exactly you’re doing great. You’re advanced, just figure things out, hoping. But if we actually integrate it into the curriculum, we, we take that luck out of it. And then the more integrated it is, and the more you, your students become accustomed to that, the more you can personalize the material. And I say that as, instead of a, you know, really broad career education course, can you teach a course specifically to biological sciences students? And that’s something that I think UC does a really strong job at, and we are branching outside of the traditional co-op program. So I teach a class specifically for mid collegiate biology students. I teach a mid collegiate class specific psychology students, and we have a few different programs that do that. And that’s what I thinks really helpful when we’re thinking about accessibility as well, especially as we made it through COVID I think just diverse formats and it, it goes back to this kind of conversation that we heard in higher ed about when everything started to go online and we saw accessibility challenges, some of them were healed through that.

Heather Nester:
Yeah, you didn’t have to worry about travel. There was more close captioning, there was more recording, there was more access. And I think that can kind of translate into the classroom and how students can access services. If you have a distance learning student and they really want to take advantage of career services, but you only have in person on campus locations, then you’re leaving out an entire population of students. But if you have online virtual walk-in hours or online meetings, then all of a sudden you can engage with that population in a better way. So that can be services in general, but also just coursework, you know, are you offering a synchronous content? Are there hybrid courses because some students are working and maybe one day a week in person and one day online material is something that is easier to let them accept who they are as a whole person and still engage in education. So I think kind of trying to acknowledge these different approaches and intentional integration is going to help move us forward.

Keith Edwards:
And a lot of both, and I mean, I just look back knowing what I know now, how many career services professionals I made give resume workshops and residence halls at 9:00 PM, dozens of times. And I just go, why didn’t we record that and send it out to everybody for one time but then they can watch it and they can watch it again and they can share with their parents and they can watch it in six weeks when they have an internship like, oh, and that would’ve been better for the students that would’ve been better for everybody. So we’re, we’re learning slowly, but we are learning.

Heather Nester:
Yeah. I think if you, I was just like, I think it helps if we think about scaling, when we’re thinking about whether your team is small or large, if you’re recording things and you have three people that can’t go to every single student organization meeting, then you can start to scale in that way.

Keith Edwards:
Yes, yes. Melanie, what other paradigm shifts are going to be needed to go forward?

Melanie Buford:
Yeah. Yeah. I was just going to shout out the work of Farra Day and Christine who’ve talked, Andy Chan some extent too. Who’ve talked about the role of technology and scaling and are really trying to find ways to you know, reduce the redundancy and the effort that we are trying to put in, in career education and try to like reform that way. And I know that equity and accessibility are really goals of theirs. You know, I just want to pause us for a second because I do think that, you know, as we, as we wrote this book and as we think about paradigm shifts, and as we think about the field, we are doing a lot of critiquing of what is going on, both in career development theory and the research world and in practice. And I just want to note for a moment and acknowledge that we have a lot of very passionate professionals in this field who are doing their absolute best to address this problem.

Melanie Buford:
And I want to acknowledge that, you know, it is a big ask for professionals in this area to, to be responsible for the social mobility of our entire country. just, and really internationally. We got, we got students from all the world, right? That’s a big ask, especially as the price tag of, of colleges and universities is what it is to, you know, ask this field to both, make sure that students get a return on investment as they have no power over the economy. And then also prepare students for what is really a lifetime of uncertainty and increasing precarity. I just think is a, is a big ask. And so I just want to acknowledge that. I think folks are doing excellent work in trying to innovate and adapt here, but it’s, it’s really tough. And, and I think one of the things that makes it tough and this perhaps relates to this idea of paradigm shifts is the fact that students, and, and I don’t speak for all students, but some students to Heather’s earlier point at the age of, let’s say, 18, 19 for a traditional age student, right?

Melanie Buford:
Some students may want a simple answer. You know, they, they may not want to hear, oh, you know, you’re going to have 40 years of precarity and ambiguity and, and chaos as you Scrabble your way toward a career that not only satisfies you and your family’s material needs, but also your needs for fulfillment and, you know, and finding your destiny and contributing to the world and changing the world. You know, I think that’s, that’s a little tough and a lot of students, I think, you know, we’ve all seen this students will come and say, can you just give me a job title? I’m tired. I bar I’m barely making it through college at this point. You know, I really, I don’t know that I want to hear that there is no right answer and I could do anything that, you know, that’s a, is a paradox of choice that comes up there.

Melanie Buford:
That’s really a big challenge. And so I think one of the tough pieces that we’re grappling with in this field in higher ed is trying to both supply students with simple, actionable steps that they can take while also giving them the truth, which is the, the wider context of an economic system that is just crushing a lot of right now. And that it’s, it’s very, very difficult even to, if you are in the middle class to maintain middle class status at this point, you know, we have a retirement crisis, you know, I just think it’s a, it’s a big ask. And I think that is one of the paradigm shifts that we need, which is to begin to look at the bigger picture as career educators, and really move beyond the simple one to one matching approach of, you know, Hey, here’s your personality, here’s a job.

Melanie Buford:
Oh, you’re artistic be an artist without supplying students with the broad, contextual factors, historical inequities, systemic issues, access issues, the role of technology, the evolving relationship with work from home. I mean, you know, I think we, we struggle to not overwhelm students, but there is an increasing need. And, and at least I personally feel a certain responsibility, right? Yeah. To give them the whole picture. And I think that it’s really hard to receive that as you might be a student, especially if you have a marginalized background or struggling with financial insecurity to receive that message, as you’re halfway through college , which you thought would really help , you know what I mean, and may really help, but I just think that, that there’s a little bit of discouragement that can happen there and demoralizing. And so I think our job is as much of an emotional one as it is material at this point. And that, in my opinion is one of the paradigm shifts that we need to grapple with, right. Is how to do that work responsibly.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. And how do we know all of that and have that context, but then also recognize where is this student at and what right. What of that is relevant or too much too soon and meeting them where they’re at. Yes, exactly. Michael Sharp. What would you add? What needs to shift in our paradigms here?

Michael Sharp:
So this is going to sound hypercritical of higher ed, which I, I think I’ve done a few times in this.

Keith Edwards:
Go for It. Michael Melanie just balanced you out. So go for it. We’re

Melanie Buford:
Good.

Michael Sharp:
I think that higher ed needs to put their money where their mouth is. And I’m going to give you an example as a huge sports fan. If you look at where universities spend the resources, what are they spending their resources on? And so again, I’ll speak for Cincinnati and you see that’s the only school I’ve ever worked at only school I’ve ever been to, but the campus is beautiful and we’re surrounded by pockets of communities that have no resources at all. As a matter of fact, the road that I take or the path that I take to get from where I live to UC, I drive through one of the most, at least it was one of the most impoverished communities in the city. And so there are every day at, I don’t know, 11 o’clock, two o’clock. There are teenagers, 12 years old, 14 years old out there with nothing to do, right?

Michael Sharp:
And simultaneously, if you look at where universities and colleges are spending their money, look at football programs, look at how much coaches are making. And again, I’m not saying that I think athletics are important. I think the other things that universities spend their money on are important. You want to have a beautiful campus. You want to have a welcoming place where people want to be, but if you compare the money and resources that are allocated to things like that and compare to how much resources allocated to things like programs for access and equity, it’s a pretty imbalanced investment of money. So I think Keith, the short answer is that we have to get back to our roots, at least the public institutions that if we are for the common good, we should spend money in such a way that it reflects the common good .

Michael Sharp:
And I think it’s a dirty secret in higher ed that it’s even the public institutions. We are money makers. That’s what universities do is they make decisions to drive revenue. And at the end of the day, what are we doing for our communities that don’t have access to the university? Are we doing anything at all? And I don’t think you have to look very far, look at where the money is spent, look at where the energy is spent. And I think that’s the paradigm shift for, for me that I would like to see change

Keith Edwards:
all right. Mike, what would you add?

Michael J. Stebleton:
Wow, Mike, I don’t know how I follow up on that take down of higher ed I’ll I’ll try and be very brief and maybe a little more optimistic. I dunno. I think we need to teach from a paradigm perspective, how to encourage our students to be more agile as they think about their long career or careers that are ahead of ’em. There’s a recent report that came out that said on average, a recent graduate will have 17 different jobs over the course of their lifetime, across five or six different careers. Now, when I share that with my students in class, they think that’s an underestimate some say, oh, I’ve already had 15 jobs. They might be counting door dash and everything else. That idea is that they’re going to be doing a lot of different things and, and different work patterns throughout the course of their lives. And so I think in the past career services career education has put a lot of investment in preparing students for that first job, which is important, but not so much for that fifth and sixth job. Right. And so I think I’m, I’m kind of experimenting with this term called career navigators. And so we need to teach our students how to be career navigators, because they’re going to be moving in and out of different work formations for the rest of their lives. So that’s one shift that I would encourage us to, to consider.

Keith Edwards:
Awesome. thank you so much for this. The book has a big focus on experiential learning and Michael Sharp. That’s a big focus of your work in your role. What will need to shift in that landscape in, in terms of experiential learning and career and all the interconnections there.

Michael Sharp:
It’s a great question. And Mike, I hope that I save myself here, what my take down of higher ed, that the field of experiential ed and career prep, we are leading the charge with getting to those, those things that I was a little bit critical or a lot critical of . And so I’ll, that’s

Keith Edwards:
Where the room for opportunity is, right?

Michael Sharp:
Absolutely. And, you know I’ll just share a really brief example about how I got involved with experiential learning. And it was as an undergraduate student, it took me, I’m not proud of this, but I’m very honest with my students. It took me about 10 years to get a bachelor’s degree. And it’s because I came to UC as an 18 year old. There wasn’t any resources that sort of show me what I’m supposed to do. There was a lot of pressure to choose a major. So an 18 year old supposed to choose a major that dictates the rest of their life. And so I floundered, I tried a few things, dropped out academic probation, et cetera. And then I thought that I was going to go to law school. And so I went to the advisor’s office and I said, well, you have to pick a pre-law program.

Michael Sharp:
So she mentioned a couple psychology as one, and communication was one and I chose the latter and it was in that program as like a, I forget what, what my rank was, whether it’s junior or sophomore or something, but it was like my seventh year. I had my chance to participate in a class that was a service learning class. And I was able to go to a nonprofit organization and work with people. And then the light bulb, I promise you went off. And I thought, ah, I started it. Not that I figured it out then, but I started to see how education in particular experiential education could be a driving force to help other people. And so I’m really happy to be in the role that I’m at at UC. And I think I’m supposed to be a little critical given I’m a service learning sort of guy , but I, I think we have a lot of work to, to accomplish still.

Keith Edwards:
Well, I, your story of indecision is a great setup for Heather. Who’s written about the problem of indecision. How do you see the role of experiential learning? Being able to be a part of the solution to some of the things we’ve pointed to here?

Heather Nester:
I think about indecision. I just keep thinking about decision fatigue and how we become exhausted. Like there are too many options. I guess what I kind of similar to this storytelling idea, when I, whenever I think you ask me, you’re like, what do you want to be when you grow up? No child, you know, at three or four years old is like, I want to grow up and work in student affairs. Cause they have no idea what that is. Why would they know that that’s an absurd choice to make at that age? And I think that was very similar. Like when I was going through my undergrad, I didn’t even realize that was a career. And I was literally working at the university as a student worker. I’m like, that’s silly. And it wasn’t until I started shadowing and doing experiential learning, which I didn’t even know that’s what it was called then.

Heather Nester:
Right. Was me figuring out what on earth I wanted to do. And I think if we don’t provide those opportunities in different formats, then we’re completely missing students. And I think we need to move away from, well, not move away, but add an addition from the traditional co-op and internship structure. It just doesn’t work for some majors. You don’t have pre-health students go off and do these long internships. They’re focusing on volunteering and shadowing and different kinds of work. So if we already know the different majors and career paths need different kinds of experiential learning, we need to become more flexible and adaptable again to a student population that wants more independence and autonomy. And I think we can see that with credentialing and short term, good work and pro like those short term projects with nonprofits, Michael, I know you’re doing a lot of work with service learning co-ops and how can we start to really branch those different things out?

Heather Nester:
And I know that one change, and sometimes it feels slow is we used to have, or we still have internship courses that students can take to reflect on their experiences while they’re in them. But we were completely missing students that completed an experience over the summer or something like that, or maybe they completed the experience over the summer and they didn’t have the money to take, you know, a three credit hour class over the summer when FAFSA or whatever kind of federal funding wasn’t helping cover that. And now we have a course that they can take where they can reflect on a previous experience. So I think this idea of experiential learning can shift become more accessible to students by just making it more flexible and opportunities on how to access it, but also the kinds of opportunities that are available. So the larger range of students can actually engage in them.

Keith Edwards:
Well, and you’re pointing to these, these experiences are not just to help job placement. You’re both have pointed to how these experiences and sort of theory and Praxis of the doing and reflecting helps them find themselves. And maybe this isn’t what I want do, which is just as good as finding out it is what you want to do. Yeah. And sometimes for some of us, I can’t tell you how many people in my teacher ed program love teaching love teaching until they were in a classroom and they’re like, ah, this is not for me. And it was really unfortunate that happened so late in the game. And I think these opportunities provide that. Mike, what would you add here?

Michael J. Stebleton:
Yeah. I’m really happy that Heather mentioned flexibility around these programs because oftentimes we, this is higher ed, not just career services or career education, but oftentimes we structure programs for those, you know, 18 to 22 traditional aged students. And of course we know that they’re actually a minority, the non-traditional student population continues to grow. So looking at different modalities to offer these opportunities is really important including hybrid opportunities. I think that’s point 1. Point 2, I’m going to pick on faculty members a little bit here. I can do that. Faculty have to step up a little bit and really work, do a better job, infusing experiential education into their classrooms and helping students see the connection between, between the theories and the concepts, the content they’re learning, but how that might actually work in, in practice and there’s ways. I know Michael and Heather and others, and Melanie does this as well in terms of embedding experiential education practices directly into the curriculum. And I think that’s been done and continues to be done at some institutions, some programs, but I think it needs to become more widespread. I’ll I’ll stop there. Cause I know Melanie has more

Melanie Buford:
Yeah, I just to build on that, I just want to shout out the department that I’m in at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities is called the leadership minor. And one of the things that is really cool about what we do and what I get to do now as a teaching specialist for them is that our, our third core course core course in the program is called the field experience. And so students start learning with, you know, they start some of those self-awareness pieces in the first course, they then get to practice power sharing and community based leadership and engagement. And then my job as, as level lead for this field course is to connect them with social impact organizations in the community where they can begin to practice their, you know, their leadership skills in, the community. And so one of the things that I think is really cool about experiential learning and absolutely the practice piece that we’ve talked about is that it’s, it’s a way to expose students to some of these trickier messier ideas that, you know, we talked about uncertainty, for instance, inequity, the chaos of the workplace.

Melanie Buford:
You know, since I’ve been teaching this course, the last two years of the pandemic, when students go to work for a especially, you know, if they’re at a small startup that’s working on social impact, it is chaos, you know, like they walk in and the organization’s like, you just got a giant grant. Now the issue has changed suddenly there’s this political development. Oh my gosh. You know, and they, they walk in and it’s like going from the highly structured class experience where you have a rubric and a deadline right. You know, and you know exactly what to do. You’re going into this environment where suddenly nothing is as you expected and your job titles change three times, and the clients aren’t calling you back and watching students experience that in real time for those students who have not had that kind of work experience.

Melanie Buford:
Yeah. I mean, they are just like at a loss, right. And they begin to question themselves, they begin to question their identity and their confidence. They begin to have imposter syndrome and worry about failure and those things, while those are not fun experiences for them being able to do that in a classroom with the support of like a strong teaching team, is really impactful. And I, they will say over and over that that is far more impactful than like a pure curriculum where it’s lecture or knowledge content only. Right, right. Good point. And so I think that’s one of the big benefits or experiential learning, especially as we move through uncertainty in the workforce, being able to have them experiment and, and feel that early on in what can sometimes be a safe environment I think is really powerful. Yeah. And I think that’s what that’s why experiential learning can really contribute to.

Keith Edwards:
Right. And, and that, and that learning is not just knowing it’s knowing and doing, and being and all of that right. In interconnected. Well, we’re, we’re running out of time folks. This is fabulous and we’ve gotten radical and revolutionary and thoughtful and it’s, it’s terrific, but we are running out of time. So we just want to end very quickly with our final question. The podcast is called Student Affairs NOW we always like to ask each of our guests, what is it that you’re pondering or troubling or thinking about now, it might be something we’ve already talked about. It might be something completely unrelated. That’s really the getting the center of your attention. And if you want to share where folks can connect with you more that would be great as well. So, Melanie, what are you troubling now?

Melanie Buford:
Sure. You know, honestly, I, for the first time, this semester really made the topic of capitalism, a central concept in the course that I taught and students asked for it, I asked them what they wanted to talk about and they, they said we want to talk about capitalism. And I said, Ooh, okay. And unfortunately decided to end my course with that topic. and so they were a little, they were like a little, little uncomfortable during that final conversation. I think folks were hoping for like a nice warm wrap up with some hope. And unfortunately, I we talked about capitalism and the students shared a question that I think I’m still thinking about, which was they sort of, they were talking about capitalism. They were talking about burnout. They were sharing stories of people that they know who are struggling in their careers in various ways.

Melanie Buford:
And finally, one of them said, and we wrote this on the board is burnout inevitable, no matter what career you choose or not. Right. And I, I was sad to say that I could not give them a particularly hopeful answer or definitive answer to that question because I’m still sitting with it. Right. and so I, I think that is really what I’m thinking about is how many students are struggling with that and afraid, you know, for the future and trying to grapple with how should I make decisions perhaps given this inevitability of burnout and really wrestling against trying to, trying to get my needs met. So that’s one thing in terms of

Keith Edwards:
Speaking of things, that could be an entire episode. There you

Melanie Buford:
Go. Yeah. I mean, they said it, it wasn’t me. Yeah, it was, it was all that, but in terms of connection, I mean, I, I have Twitter. It’s Melanie Buford. I have email, I have LinkedIn, I have a website that has a contact form. Any of that is fine.

Keith Edwards:
Awesome. Awesome. Michael Sharp. What’s troubling you now.

Michael Sharp:
Oh man. Keith,

Keith Edwards:
Besides the Bearcat.

Michael Sharp:
So

Michael Sharp:
I guess what I’ve been pondering and I’ve, I’ve touched on it a couple times today is how can we support students in a way that they leave empowered? Not only to have a very lucrative career so that selfishly they give back to the service learning program or the university, but also, so they’re empowered that they can make a difference in the world. And I think Mike, you said this earlier, that it seems like that those two pathways have been separated where some programs and experiential learning are geared toward placement career readiness, getting students ready to make money. And then other programs like service learning or something, we call UC forward are more geared toward critical thinking. Keith, you mentioned fairy earlier, more geared toward that. And I don’t think it has to be either, or I think that we can do a good job doing both, that we want students to graduate and become CEOs of Proctor and Gamble, but to have a mindset that it’s their responsibility to be good stewards of their communities and be leaders in their communities and make sure people aren’t left behind. So that’s like the big question that I’ve been thinking about for a long, long time. I don’t have an answer to it. The easiest way to reach me. I’ve I’ve tried Twitter guys several times and I think this is one of the, the, the signs that you get to in your life, where you’re old.

Michael J. Stebleton:
So

Michael Sharp:
The easiest way to reach me sl@sluc.edu, which is literally an email address. I do have a LinkedIn profile. It’s probably not very good. It’s not been update in a while, but SL stands for service earning@uc.edu. It’s the best way to reach me. That’s

Keith Edwards:
The shortest email address I’ve ever heard. That’s awesome. Mike, what’s troubling you now,

Michael J. Stebleton:
Michael. I thought you were going to give us your landline number. So , I’m glad you got the email. So yeah, I want to share just a brief story. I gave a presentation. It was about a year ago and a young, a woman’s student came down to introduce herself afterwards. She was about 20 years old. I think she was a junior at this institution and she said, she asked me a question that to this day continues to haunt me and I’ll share it with you. She said, how can we be so young yet feel like we are running out of time. And I was kind of composed myself. I’m sure I gave a very inadequate answer, but it made me realize how anxious students are about these decisions and these questions. And I think how should mental health? I know Keith you’ve covered numerous sessions in other episodes, so that’s been well addressed, but I’m also thinking about how can I reassure my students, that they have a long life ahead of them and they don’t need to make this one perfect decision at the age of 21 or 22 or 32, depending when they finish up.

Michael J. Stebleton:
And so I’ve been thinking a, a lot about that, but I’m going to stop because we want to hear from Heather.

Keith Edwards:
There you go. Heather, close us out final, say, what are you troubling now?

Heather Nester:
Yeah, I think I’m, I’m kind of sitting with a few things, especially that Melanie talked about earlier is this there’s so much being asked, right. And how are, and to use Michael’s words, are we putting our money where our mouth is? Like, how, how are we supporting these different initiatives and all these new asks that are coming down the turnpike? I mean, I feel like every year there’s a new initiative and whether you have more people or not is kind of irrelevant, there’s a new initiative. And it’s how to balance that. So I think there’s, there’s definitely one side of the house where I’m wondering, you know, how do we support financially these new programs in a really sustainable way? Not a, here’s a shiny thing that fizzles out in a year as well as how are we actually financially supporting the people, working in these roles?

Heather Nester:
How are we making sure that they are making enough of a living to stay in these roles? When we think about the mass Exodus, we’re seeing people leave higher ed. If we want our career education professionals to feel supported, to feel like they have time to reflect and maybe not be completely burnt out, then we need to be thinking about both sides of those coins when it comes to financial support. And, and that’s something I’m sitting with, because it ties into a lot of the topics we’ve brought up today about equity and access and just burnout, mental health, all of those things. And we need to be careful about burning the candle at both ends.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. The meme I saw this morning was Morpheus from the matrix with the, the red pill and the blue pill saying, would you like low wages or ridiculous hours? And then it was acade and morphs was saying, why’d you take both pills

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. So that’s where that really. And this has been terrific. Thanks. Thanks to all of you. Thanks for the great book. Thanks for your leadership and your work and your writing and your thinking. And thank you for sharing with all of us here today. Thanks also to our sponsors, Stylus and Simplicity. Stylus is proud to be a sponsor for the student affairs. Now podcast browse there, student affairs, diversity and professional development titles at styluspub.com. You can use promo code SANow for 30% off all of their books and free shipping. You can also find Stylus on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and Simplicity is the global leader in student services, technology platforms with state-of-the-art technology that empowers institutions to make data driven decisions specific to their goals. A true to partner to the institution. Simplicity supports all aspects of student life included, but not limited to career services and development student conduct and wellbeing, student success and accessibility services to learn more, visit simplicity.com or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as always a big shout out to Nat Ambrosey the production assistant for the podcast who does all the work behind the scenes to make all of us look and sound good.

Keith Edwards:
And if you’re listening today and not already receiving our weekly news, literally visit our website at studentaffairsnow.com scroll to the bottom of the homepage and add your email list to our MailChimp list while you’re there. Check out the archives. I’m Keith Edwards. Thanks again to all of our fabulous guests today and to everyone who’s watching and listening, make it a great week. Thanks all.

New Book: Mapping the Future of Undergraduate Career Education (Coming July 19th, 2022) https://www.routledge.com/Mapping-the-Future-of-Undergraduate-Career-Education-Equitable-Career-Learning/Buford-Sharp-Stebleton/p/book/9781032081144

Stebleton, M. J., & Kaler, L. S. (2020). Preparing college students for the end of work: The role of meaning. Journal of College and Character, 21(2), 132-139. https://doi.org/10.1080/2194587X.2020.1741396

McGowan, H. E., & Shipley, C. (2020). The adaptation advantage: Let go, learn fast, and thrive in the future of work. Wiley. 

Stebleton, M. J. (2021). Stories to craft: Applying narrative competencies to student affairs. Journal of College and Character, 22(2), 171-178. https://doi.org/10.1080/2194587X.2021.1898985