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USF looks to boost student employment rates

 
USF faculty research associate Jeff Du Vernay speaks to Brent Houston, a social science education undergrad, at a recent career fair.
USF faculty research associate Jeff Du Vernay speaks to Brent Houston, a social science education undergrad, at a recent career fair.
Published April 30, 2015

With University of South Florida seniors preparing for commencement ceremonies this weekend, and then a journey into the real-world demands of finding a job, the parents of the aspiring graduates may be wondering how many took advantage of the school's career resource center.

"That's the biggest challenge career services faces nationally, not just here at USF: Getting the student to understand, as early as possible, that achievement of the degree itself is not enough to secure employment upon graduation," said Russ Coughenour, assistant vice president for career services.

USF began restructuring the department and adding more career consultants after hiring Coughenour in July. The state university system's performance-based funding is a driving factor.

With student employment rates among the key performance areas, the university has spent more than $22 million in state funding outfitting its career services departments with new personnel and more resources.

A new coordinator for marketing and social media will be hired in the coming months and aim to help the Career Center on the Tampa campus bring in students early and keep them involved.

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Job placement is part of the high stakes for all schools in the state university system. Every year the Board of Governors measures student employment rates and other key performance indicators such as alumni employment, number of bachelor's degrees awarded and eight others.

How state universities perform on these specific measurements determines their share of the performance funding pool that started out with a $20 million allocation in 2013.

Last year, the state added another $100 million to the performance funding pool and this year State University System Chancellor Marshall Criser III said Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature have indicated they will add at least another $100 million.

A 5 percent increase in USF's post-graduation employment rate this past year is what university administrators and state representatives point to as evidence these initiatives and investments work.

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Though the recent funding increases may indicate that the state thinks this performance funding model is working, the system is not without its critics.

David Tandberg, an assistant professor of higher education at Florida State University, has conducted research on performance funding models nationally and finds that there are many areas where performance funding has little to no effect on actual outcomes. He said performance funding also lacks concrete data to prove it works.

"It is reliant on descriptive statistics and other such things that really can't identify any sort of causal link between performance funding and any outcomes," Tandberg said. "At this point there is little to no empirical, quantitative evidence to support performance-based funding."

While USF's post-graduation employment rate jumped 5 percent last year during high investment, Florida also led the nation in job growth and the state's unemployment rate dipped below the national average in April.

Using alumni employment rates solely as a measurement doesn't encapsulate the affect of the economy or whether or not students who are employed full time are underemployed or have careers in their area of study.

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Criser agrees that factors outside the universities' control can influence alumni employment numbers, but said he thinks the practical purpose of metrics is both accountability and the message it sends.

"Rather than using the excuse that says, 'There is not much I can do,' what we have found is when we say it's important, people find things they can do to improve," Criser said.

These improvements include the revamping of career resources across USF's campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota.

The USF Sarasota-Manatee campus had its career services department moved to a more visible location, four times the size of the old office.

USF Tampa will soon have staff dedicated solely to finding internships for students and making connections between the university and local businesses.

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Molly Smith, a private career counselor who owns College2Career in Tampa, said these increased resources are a sign Tampa Bay's largest university is moving in the right direction, but questions whether it will be enough.

Smith works with students who graduate from USF and the University of Tampa, as well as other universities across the state. She said creating a structure for students and their families and holding students accountable in one-on-one meetings are key techniques large university career centers usually can't address.

"They have that beautiful career center building, but I think they need to break it apart and put those career coaches in to the colleges themselves," Smith said.

Models like intrusive or enhanced advising, where college counselors speak with parents and make plans for students to ensure their success, have only been adopted mostly at community colleges.

Being demanding and structured with her students to get them the skills and experience they need to find work after graduation is something Smith does with all her clients.

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Coughenour said once USF Tampa has hired individual career consultants to work with USF's individual schools and colleges, he hopes they can work out a way to get students into one-on-one advising meetings and focus earlier on a career.

The plan is to increase students' career readiness and employability at the time of graduation.

"The old theory of career services, getting students in their senior year and telling them everything they should have already done, just doesn't work anymore," he said.

Contact Roberto Roldan at hillsnews@tampabay.com.