Home to 23,000 students in Kentucky’s largest city, the University of Louisville is the first city-owned public college in the United States. To support all aspects of career readiness for its undergraduate business students, UL’s College of Business, utilizes CSM as the chosen platform for the enhanced experiential learning capabilities that support the college’s strong undergraduate co-op and internship program.
“For us, Symplicity is a one stop shop. We are able to do everything within it from run our events, mock interviews, and manage our career coaching. It’s a platform with career services in mind so that we are able to continue to have those personal relationships with our employers, our students, and our alumni. It complements the work we're doing, and it doesn't replace anything we're doing; it enhances it."
Paige Erhart,
Associate Director at the Ulmer Career Center at University of Louisville College of Business
Enhancing Student Decision-Making with Experiential Learning
At the College of Business CSM manages every aspect of undergraduate experiential learning within the CSM module, providing convenience for having all aspects of experiential learning centralized in one place, from completing forms to searching for jobs and receiving academic credit, employer evaluations, and more. The evaluations are then linked to a student’s profile providing invaluable insights from previous student’s experiences with employers, enabling students to make informed decisions based on peer feedback when researching potential employers.
Within the EL module, the reporting tools play a significant role to identify top employers for co-ops and internships. These reports aid in accreditation requirements and serve as a valuable resource for engaging with parents and students to showcase where students can gain first-hand career readiness experience. The data-driven decision-making facilitated by these reports helps the office understand the student population they serve better and tailor their outreach efforts effectively to ensure all students have access to experiential learning opportunities.
Data, Data, and Data
The reporting features in CSM have enabled Erhart to make data-driven decisions for her office. “We can see who is attending, or not attending, our events, coming in for coaching appointments, and participating in experiential learning. That information is important for us to know who we are not reaching and switch what we are offering to our students,” said Erhart. A key focus for Erhart and her team is looking at student data to figure out which populations are attending the events and seeing if there is a commonality in the data. “We are using it for future programming and planning to see what the future needs of our students will be and where there is a deficit in what we are giving our students,” said Erhart. With CSM, Erhart can identify not only the college’s top employers, but also break it down by major, year, demographic, etc.
True Partnership
“I tell people all the time, but the support is incredibly helpful and typically very quick,” said Erhart. Like all Symplicity CSM clients, the University of Louisville has a dedicated client manager, who comes from higher education, to help the institution troubleshoot anything in the system and help the institution enhance the system.
“Our client manager knows our system, knows our career center, and that’s what you look for in a technology partnership like we have with Symplicity. You’re going to get help if you need it, you’re going to be able to talk to a friendly person who can help you who has been where you are before and gives you that extra help and support. It helps our office operate efficiently.”
Conclusion
The College's partnership, along with the data and experiential learning tools have led to unprecedented levels of student participation and employer engagement, while contributing to a richer experiential learning journey for students in the college. Hear more from Erhart and our other CSM Clients' use of the EL module below! To learn more visit us at https://www.symplicity.com/higher-ed/solutions/csm.
