Classroom To Career (C2C)

Charge

The Classroom to Career Task Force will develop an integrated campus-wide framework to identify, connect, and align existing experiential learning programs and identify partnerships that could lead to new or expanded programs, with an outcome of deepening student learning experiences and career success. The framework will include goals, metrics, accountability and self-assessment.

View the Initiative Brief View Task Force Members 

Benefits

• Experiential learning facilitates a fuller understanding of the real-world applications of students’ classroom learning and has been shown to increase student engagement, which can in turn improve student retention.
• Experiential learning can generate marketable skills that enhance a student’s self-efficacy and improve career success.
• Through providing interns, UTSA will benefit businesses, non-profits, and government organizations throughout the San Antonio community and beyond.
• UTSA will engage more students, particularly at the undergraduate level, in research-related engaged scholarship.
• A campus-wide experiential learning framework will further encourage cross-disciplinary and cross-cutting collaborations across university units. 

The multi-phased Classroom to Career (C2C) initiative creates an integrated campus-wide framework that expands and enhances career-focused learning by doing opportunities for all UTSA students, providing an advantage for their future success.

In February of 2019, the Classroom to Career Task Force chaired by Senior Vice Provost of Academic Affairs Heather Shipley completed its Phase I Final Report.

Following the Task Force recommendations, UTSA established the Career Engaged Learning unit to bring together and establish specific programs and resources across the campus, as well as strengthened practices, systems and policies in support of the C2C initiative. Led by Ginnifer Cié Gee, Associate Provost for Career Engaged Learning, programs include the Najim Center, the University Career Center, Community and Civic Learning, Undergraduate Research, the Institute for Law, Public Affairs and Health Professions Office, and resources in UTSA’s eight colleges.

UTSA’s Bold Careers Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), established in 2020 as a part of its decennial review by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), is designed to incorporate the Classroom to Career Initiative into UTSA’s strategic plan and operational foundation.

Enhanced C2C programming like the Najim Strategist program, Digital Inclusion Ambassador program, Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship program, Undergraduate Adobe Institute and Grow with Google HSI Career Readiness Program, have provided students with skills development, career path exploration, workshops and engagement with industry professionals.

Improved engagement with area employers has led to C2C internships, externships, service-learning projects, mentoring and scholarship for our students. Employers have also benefitted through C2C partnerships with UTSA through early access to talented students, connection to a trusted institution of higher education, advance business competitiveness and community success support.

As of fall 2022, a group is actively working to develop a centralized data and resource repository to improve UTSA’s reporting capacity regarding student participation in C2C activities, such as experience transcripts; campus-wide curricular redesign to expand both credit and non-credit courses; implementation of a major mapping tool for advising; and increased engagement with external stakeholders to increase engagement in the C2C initiative.

Visit the Career Engaged Learning Website

This Initiative Supports Strategic Destinations 

Destination One: Model for Student Success 

Destination Two: Great Public Research University 

Destination Three: Exemplar for Strategic Growth and Innovative Excellence