"Minding the Gaps": Career Navigators as an Illustration for Supporting Student Growth and Learning

• In Event: 52.083 - Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: 52.083-14 - Career and Technical Education SIG Roundtable Session 2

Abstract

This study synthesizes lessons learned about the promising role of “career navigators” at community colleges to aid students in the transitions through disjunctures in their career pathways. Career navigators are student support personnel who follow students from recruitment through their studies or training programs to job placement. Using a mixed methods approach, findings come from a four-year evaluation of a 7-college consortium called “Credentials to Careers” funded by the USDOL to create programs to retrain displaced workers for STEM careers. We contextualize our study within the array of ways that educators from pre-k to 20 are “minding the gaps” in students’ educational pathways. Findings show increases in persistence in college, self-efficacy, and income for students who received career navigation.

Authors

• Paul John Sylvester, Westchester Univ. of Penn

• Steve P. Myran, Old Dominion University