Career Mentors Second-Year Career Course (Inter-L&S 210)

L&S Career Initiative

Career Mentors – Second-Year Career Course (Inter-L&S 210) Networking and Professional Development Opportunity

In the Spring 2015 semester, there will be twenty openings for volunteer Career Mentor positions for the new 420- student course, INTER-L&S 210 L&S Second-Year Career Course: Taking Initiative. This course is part of the L&S Career Initiative to introduce career development to students early in their undergraduate career.

This 1-credit course for second-year students meets once/week, alternating between 7 lectures and 8 lab sections. Career Mentors, designated by their supervisors in their home units to be liaisons to this course, will be part of an instructional team that includes a faculty director and graduate student teaching assistants. One Career Mentor is assigned to each lab section to provide career development expertise and employer perspectives, to assist students in connecting to career resources in L&S, and to support teaching assistants monitoring student progress during in-class activities. Career Mentors act in a support role only, extending their unit's services to students in the course, and enhancing both their own professional development and that of the other course personnel. The faculty director and TAs are solely responsible for instruction, responding to student requests, and evaluating student work.

Career Mentors are expected to devote approximately 3 hours/week during each of eight lab weeks to course activities. Duties during these weeks include attending one 75-minute lab section of 20 students; coordinating three Skype visits by one alumnus including scheduling, training, and debriefing; and attending regular meetings with the instructional team. Attendance at lecture is optional.

Benefits to a Career Mentor's unit include: input into the development of a campus-wide careers course; direct interaction with a wide variety of students interested in career assistance; best-practice knowledge-sharing between faculty, staff, and graduate student course participants; strengthening of alumni connections with career services; and direct professional development for the Career Mentor.

We encourage career services supervisors around UW to consider assigning a career services professional to be a Career Mentor in Spring 2015. Ideally, Career Mentors will possess:  Bachelors’ degree in a liberal arts field  Career advising experience as demonstrated by professional role or training  Experience in group facilitation  Employee status at the UW-Madison

To nominate a candidate as a Career Mentor, please send the candidate's resume/CV and a supervisor's letter of support to [email protected] by Friday, November 7, 2014.

Questions may be directed to Greg Downey, faculty director, L&S Second-Year Career Course ([email protected]), Rebekah Paré, director, L&S Career Initiative ([email protected]), or Jon Cleveland, assistant director, L&S Career Initiative ([email protected]).