Classroom To Career

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 Visit Career-Engaged Learning Website

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 Classroom to Career Task Force, chaired by Heather Shipley, Senior Vice Provost of Academic Affairs, completed its Phase I Final Report in February 2019. The plan provides an integrated campus-wide framework to expand and enhance experiential learning for all UTSA students.  

Following the Task Force’s recommendations, UTSA has increased staffing, improved online resources, strengthened policies and systems, enhanced training and resources across campus, and improved outreach with area employers. Ginnifer Cié Gee, Associate Provost for Career Engaged Learning, currently leads the cross-campus, distributed effort that resides in Academic Affairs, leveraging the services of the Najim Center, the University Career Center, Community and Civic Engagement, Undergraduate Research, the Institute for Law, Public Affairs and Health Professions Office, and resources embedded within UTSA’s eight colleges. 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 experiential learning. 

In 2020, to further develop undergraduates’ marketable skills and career readiness, UTSA launched the Bold Careers Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) during its decennial review with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). The five-year initiative will expand opportunities for students, develop a culture of professional development and support for faculty, and provide support to help undergraduates understand and articulate the value of participation in internships, undergraduate research, and community-engaged learning.  

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