Professional Development Changes

Some massive changes have been made to the professional development program that first year students are required to complete. An email notice was sent out by Associate Dean of Work Robert Weis on Jan. 20, which said, “In the past week, the Work Committee has reviewed allocation of work hours and staffing for all departments across campus. For a number of reasons, the Work Committee is reallocating eight hours (half) of the Professional Development work requirement for First Year Student Workers. These hours will be allocated into the respective departments where each worker has been hired…The remaining eight Professional Development hours may be fulfilled through scheduled programs offered through Career Services, Student Life, Technology Services and the Work Office.”

This plan is very different from the one originally pitched to returning freshmen. The original program required students to “job shadow” in campus services, Snack Bar or dining and hospitality departments for four hours. It also required freshmen do two hours of community service outside of Blackburn. When asked why so many changes had been implemented to the program, Weis said, “Well we learned a lot from our first year using the policy. Our desire for flexibility kind of created an unstructured environment…This coming spring we felt like we should refine the work load. We felt like the best way to rectify this was by moving some of the professional development hours over into work hours…This has allowed us to focus more intentionally on the hours themselves instead of how many hours students get.”

About students’ reactions to the professional development program Weis said, “Some of our casual feedback has been more blunt and others have offered more constructive criticism on the professional development program as a whole.” Students will undoubtedly be glad to move to a eight hour system, but even with these changes some people are dissatisfied with the program as a whole. Freshman elementary education major Sarah Boulch said, “I honestly think the 11th hour altogether is kind of a waste of time. I get doing it the first semester but not the second, too. I haven’t really gained anything from it. Just lost a lot of time I could be doing homework or my other job.” Education major Samantha Cranmer agreed and said, “I don’t like it because it feels like a waste of my time. It’s difficult enough to get 160 hours, let alone 176 last semester. I was still behind half an hour.”

Other students like freshman biology pre med major Jayden Foote were still confused on how the professional development hours even worked. “It is very inconvenient,” she said. “Especially because it seems like no one knows about it. I’ve asked managers, students who work in the Work Office, and many others what it was exactly and no one properly explained it to me. How I managed to get all 16 professional development hours and still fall behind 16 hours, while I never missed a shift… I couldn’t tell you,” said Foote. “I get the need for resume building, interview practices and Microsoft efficiency, but to make us do 16 hours worth is a little excessive since we all work on campus and a bunch of others participate in clubs, sports or have other jobs outside of campus. Eight hours sounds more reasonable.”