Using NACE Skills and Attributes for Student Learning

from GLACUHO TRENDS-Spring 2022

by Great Lakes Association of College and University Housing Officers (GLACUHO)

Article References

Bradford Peace, Ball State University Katie Kromer, Miami University Student Learning Committee

Student staff members, who serve in roles like Resident Assistants (RAs), contribute greatly to the work of Residence Life departments, and we also know the RA role contributes greatly to the students’ professional development. However, how are we making sure the students fully understand and implement the skills they are developing from holding this leadership position in their careers after graduation? This is a prime opportunity for student learning within residence life departments and using a new tool from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) can help us achieve this goal.

NACE was established in 1956 and is a professional organization that connects college career services professionals and business professionals and is the “...leading source of information on the employment of the college educated, and forecasts hiring and trends in the job market; tracks starting salaries, recruiting and hiring practices, and student attitudes and outcomes; and identifies best practices and benchmarks” (National Association of Colleges and Employers, 2022). Every year, NACE completes a survey of its employer members regarding their hiring plans to project the market for recent college graduates and within this survey a list of 20 skills and attributes is established by the employers for what they are seeking in new candidates (NACE Job Outlook 2022, 2021).

From a quick glance, there is a lot of overlap from the skills and attributes employers are seeking and the skills students gain from holding the RA position. Using the NACE skills and attributes as a guide can provide RAs and residence life departments language for the skills that RAs are developing, present insight into the transferable skills employers are seeking, and help RAs understand how the RA position is benefiting them for their future career. All of which aid in their learning and development during their time with us as student staff members.

Using the information from NACE does not have to wait until your RA staff is hired, but it can be a great addition to your RA recruitment efforts. Using this information in recruitment is an easy way to demonstrate the skills students gain from the RA position and help the position stand out from other opportunities students can seek out. Let’s be real: the RA position is a great oncampus job, but it also comes with a significant level of responsibility that most other on-campus jobs do not have and that can deter students. There are years when application numbers drop and there is concern about having enough candidates to hire for the next academic year and last-minute recruitment efforts are implemented or staff restructuring has to happen. This is not ideal, so maybe changing recruitment efforts to also include the skills students gain that are valued by future employers could be compelling to students. Miami University started using NACE data to assess the RA role in Spring 2021 and found that this data was useful in updating RA recruitment efforts. Through the assessment, RAs were asked to rank the NACE skills by order of which ones they have learned by being a RA. This data can be used to demonstrate which skills RAs gain from the role and how they connect to skills employers are seeking. By using the NACE data, we can shine light on the skills that connect to the RA position and explain how these skills are enhanced through the RA position. We know that students are concerned with how they are spending their time and the benefits they are getting from the opportunities they are committing to, so let’s lay it out for students and show them all the benefits of joining our teams.

Being intentional with developing NACE Competencies for student staff can take a variety of forms. One of the most tangible approaches would be connecting NACE Competencies to the learning outcomes of student staff training. To embed NACE Competencies in training and student development, departments should reflect on what themes and skills they want students to develop. Clemson University and the University of Tampa co-hosted a symposium in 2017 to share how each institution developed a framework for student learning based on competencies. While the approaches were noticeably different, both identified the underlying “attributes” which they sought to develop and then matched their desired NACE Competencies to these attributes (Gray, 2017). NACE’s eight career readiness competencies are highly correlated with the activities of a traditional resident assistant. Staff engage in critical thinking, leadership, communication, and equity and inclusion consistently within a typical RA role. Within staff training, these competencies can directly translate into student staff training learning outcomes. For example, within the Critical Thinking competency, NACE states that an example behavior would be to “proactively anticipate needs and prioritize action steps” (NACE, n.d.). A learning outcome for this behavior could be that student staff will learn to effectively gather information and prioritize action steps to support residents in crisis.

At Ball State University, the Student Staff Training committee has been developing and distributing “Knowledge Nuggets” for staff meetings, each focusing on one NACE Competency. A typical knowledge nugget would utilize an activity and a series of reflection questions to discuss the activity, what students observed and thought, and ultimately what they could do to apply it to their current and future positions. Staff facilitate the activities monthly for approximately 30 minutes and over the course of the academic year will cover eight of the most important competencies. Once learning outcomes have been established, it is important to develop evaluations to understand how student staff are learning and growing in these competencies. Departments and institutions may want to develop a pre-test where students are asked to reflect on which of the attributes they want to most intentionally develop and then identify the activities which connect to this competency. At the end of the year, a post-test can ask the students to provide examples of how they have grown in the competency area which can help them see the value of their experience while reflecting and articulating how they have learned.

As institutions continue to evaluate how their student staff positions have changed and encourage students to apply for the positions, utilizing NACE Competencies in phases from recruitment to training to reflection on staff performance can help crystallize student learning and help them prepare for their future opportunities.

A Look Into the Future of the GLACUHO League Of Women

Mellie Derry, Chelsea Knarr, Alexis Straub, & Michelle Sujka

For more than 50 years, GLACUHO has created opportunities to cultivate amazing relationships across the region. As introduced at the 2021 GLACUHO Annual Conference, women-identifying housing professionals in the region can be involved with a new opportunity to foster connections to grow personally and professionally. A proposal was passed in support of the GLACUHO League of Women, otherwise known as GLOW, as the first affinity group in GLACUHO! GLACUHO League of Women’s earliest beginnings started out of ideas and passion for women’s empowerment. During the GLACUHO 2020 Annual Conference, Michelle Sujka from the University of Cincinnati and Chelsea Knarr from Kent State University presented “F*ck it to Fabulous: Creating a community of women who get it,” a presentation about imperfection, career expectations, and empowerment. The presentation provided the opportunity to create a Women’s Task Force within the region to gather more information about the need to support women identified professionals. The Women’s Task Force, led by Knarr and Sujka, worked from January, 2021 through June, 2021 to complete 50+ listening tours with women across the region or previously affiliated with the regional association to find the gaps in GLACUHO and higher education for women identified professionals. In addition to the listening tours, the Women’s Task Force was filled with tons of personal and professional development opportunities including several lunch connections, a women’s issues panel, and a secret sister exchange program to name a few. Through these listening tours and these events, it was discovered that there was a need for an affinity group to provide support, resources, connections, and professional development opportunities for women-identified professionals in the region. The Women’s Task Force created a proposal for GLOW, the GLACUHO League Of Women, with its founding principles of creating social connections for women-identified professionals in the region and providing women-identified focused personal and professional development opportunities for the region.

The proposal was passed and GLOW was introduced and presented at the 2021 conference with it’s first event being the Graband-GLOW Breakfast at the GLACUHO 2021 conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The hard work of the Women’s Task Force found a desire among many levels of professionals across the region to be connected both professionally and personally with other women in housing. With this in mind, the proposal highlighted that there be two committees within the group, a professional development and social planning committees to create multiple types of involvement throughout the whole year. Currently there are 11 women in the GLOW planning committee across all four states. Sujka and Knarr will continue to co-lead the group into its first year as a recognized affinity group through the 2022 annual conference, while also preparing the next co-leaders, Mellie Derry (Wittenberg University) and Alexis Straub (Michigan Technological University). The cochairs elect both served on the Women’s Task Force. Derryis currently chairing the Social Planning Sub-Committee while Straub is chairing the Personal and Professional Development Planning Sub-Committee on the current GLOW team! Derry and Straub, who met through GLOW and served on the Campus Safety and Crisis Management Committee last year, is a perfect example of the friendships that our committee hopes to continue to create and strengthen through GLOW! GLOW’s goal is for folxs to be able to attend the conferences, and other GLACUHO events, and see faces and friends that our group has helped establish. Through the work from both sub-committees, GLOW seeks to provide in-person and virtual opportunities such as webinars, roundtables, happy hours, and more! If you are a women-identifying housing professional in the GLACUHO region and are interested in joining the league of amazing women please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/ToXF1UQNkXjP4dLu9. If you are interested in joining the group as a planner, it is not meant to be a heavy involvement opportunity, rather a few hours a month to meet and execute the opportunities. If you are interested in attending the events only, the link is for you too, we will place you on our listserv to keep updated on our upcoming events!