Strategic Plan Implementation Teams

Our new strategic plan, Solution Seekers, outlines the steps we will take in the coming years to elevate vocation, expand innovation, and sustain our community. As the work gets underway, four implementation teams are charged with turning those steps into reality. Each week for the next few weeks, we will use this space in This Week to highlight one of the implementation teams and provide an update on their work.

This week: the Credentials Program Implementation Team. This team is led by Piper Center for Vocation and Career Director Kirsten Cahoon ’98 and Entrepreneur in Residence and Director of Business and Management Studies Sian Christie. Provost and Dean of the College Marci Sortor is the PLT sponsor. Team members include:

• College Registrar Ericka Peterson
• Piper Center Associate Director Meghan Anderson
• Professor of Chemistry and Department Chair Mary Walczak
• Professor of History Tim Howe

The team is charged with:

• Developing credentials programs that allow students to deepen, expand, and document skills and qualities that they have cultivated within and beyond their classroom experience.
  • Possible credentials: Public Leadership, Business and Entrepreneurship, Healthcare Innovation, Rural Health, Artificial Intelligence, and Google Analytics.
• Ensuring that the credentials align with the college’s Ole Core learning outcomes and the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) learning outcomes so that students can clearly demonstrate how a liberal arts education prepares them for a career.
• Enhancing the alignment of credentialing opportunities and academic programming, including collaborations with business and industry partners.
• Expanding credential opportunities for alumni to support the college’s commitment to lifelong learning.

In its first few months, the team has done an extensive amount of work to examine credential models and consult with stakeholders on campus. They developed a list of the current credential opportunities on campus, from curricular models to co-curricular models like the Ole Career Launcher. Their work was informed by the research conducted last fall by students in Associate Professor of Practice in Sociology/Anthropology Ryan Sheppard’s class, which examined factors that facilitate student vocational development at St. Olaf. The fall Academic Leadership Meeting focused on credentials, and faculty were surveyed to determine who is currently offering credentials or might be interested in offering them and to identify core reservations. The implementation team also put together FAQs to guide discussions about credentials programs. The Piper Center surveyed the college’s top 40 employer partners about their views on credentials, and began evaluating which offices on campus could pair student employment with credential opportunities.

The implementation team has also started evaluating potential technology platforms to develop customized credentials, as well as how the credential programs would be accredited. Find links to all of this research and information in the Credentials Program Implementation Team Charter. The team’s next steps will include continuing to consult with stakeholders to determine the best structures to support implementation of the credentials program.