An Introduction to the Project

To give you an introduction to this project, here is brief look at WHY we’re doing this, WHAT we want to create, and WHO is involved.

Why:

There is probably not a need to say a lot about the “why” of the project. Evaluation has become one of the most discussed topics amongst career centre leaders. Interestingly, according to NACE, the National Association of Colleges and Employers representing career centres at post-secondary institutions in the US and Canada, “if one were to point to just one critical issue for career services, accountability would likely be it” (NACE Journal, 2005, p. 28). A survey of their members revealed that two of the top three issues of the future for career services professionals are “measuring the effectiveness of your office’s programs and services” and “demonstrating and validating the value of the career services function at your institution” (NACE Journal, 2005, p. 28).

While there is a lot of interest and some activity in regards to evaluation happening, what we regularly hear from career centre leaders and practitioners (and feel ourselves) is that we require more tools and strategies to guide our evaluation efforts.

What:

The purpose of this project is to create an easy-to-use, comprehensive set of content and tools for career office leaders and staff to use as they strive to improve and expand their evaluation activities in order to better monitor and enhance the quality of career support for clients.

In order to make the Guide easily accessible and affordable, it will be produced as an online site with open access.

Who:

Working Group (The University Career Centre Metrics Working Group):

The group of career centre leaders who have conceptualized this project and will be seeing it through are:

Karen Benzinger, Director, Centre for Career Education, University of Windsor
Kristi Kerford, Director, Career Centre, Trent University
Leslie Lumsden, Director, The Student Success Centre, The University of Western Ontario
Kerry Mahoney, Director, Career Services, University of Waterloo
Yvonne Rodney, Director, Career Centre, University of Toronto

This group has been meeting over the last 5 years to discuss and share approaches to evaluation. While discussions and evaluation activities within the group have been broad-ranging, as a first project to create for sharing with the larger community, the group developed a tool for setting and evaluating learning outcomes. This tool was shared with colleagues, including through a presentation at the CACEE National Conference in 2007. The group is now excited to share other aspects of their work on evaluation, and create new tools, for the Guide.

Project Coordinator:
The Project Coordinator is Cathy Keates, Director of Career Considerations, who has been a member of the Working Group since its inception, formerly within her role as Associate Director of the Career Centre at York University.

Funding:
The project is happening because of funding from The Canadian Education and Research Institute for Counselling, (CERIC), (thank you CERIC!) and contributions from the working group members.