Beyond Completion Challenge: Scaling Work+ for Post-Graduate Success Phase II

Beyond Completion Challenge: Scaling Work+ for Post-Graduate Success Phase II Beyond Completion Challenge: Scaling Work+ for Post-Graduate Success Phase II Arizona State University (ASU) and our Work+ program are fundamentally redesigning student employment into a personalized experience that integrates working and learning. The programs design is novel; we leverage thousands of existing student employment jobs largely filled by students facing the most barriers to postsecondary and career success and integrate career readiness support throughout the paid work experience. This enables students to simultaneously gain professional work experience, while also learning how to articulate their transferable skills and competencies to employers across the nonprofit, corporate and government sectors. Time, financial and family constraints often prevent historically marginalized students from seeking the types of career development opportunities offered by Work+. Driven by the ASU charter, which mandates that ASUs success is measured not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed, Work+ is transforming student employment into an authentic learning experience by developing working learners1 career readiness competencies, coaching them to articulate their professional story, and training supervisors to serve as mentors. (See video overview of Work+s evolution). Having successfully piloted Work+ over the past two years, we now propose to dramatically increase the programs reach and impact by scaling to all 12,000+ students employed annually at ASU, and launching three tiers of collaborative engagement resulting in Work+s expansion to 60+ two- and four-year institutions across the country. With funding from Stradas Beyond Completion Challenge Phase II grant, we will establish the Work+ Institute, a multi-day, user-centered design process for partners to customize the Work+ model to their respective campus contexts, annual convenings to develop networks and communities of practice focused on improving the links between student employment and career readiness, virtual events to share learnings, and a digital resource hub providing open access to the full suite of Work+ tools to any college or university.