For nearly 100 years, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) has awarded Winthrop University with accreditation to award its respective degrees.


What does accreditation mean? The accreditation means that Winthrop has an appropriate mission for higher education; has resources, programs and services to aid in that mission; and maintains and assesses defined educational objectives consistent with the mission and of- fered degrees.


What goes into that process? Part of the reaccreditation process involves developing and implementing a Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). The QEP reflects and affirms the commitment of SACSCOC to enhancing the quality of higher education in the southeast region and to focusing attention on student learning. As the SACSCOC On-Site Review Team returned to Winthrop this year for its regular reaccreditation process, members and the campus community were introduced to the university’s


new QEP: FLIGHT READY.


Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Meg Webber directed the QEP proposal process. “This is the third QEP I’ve directed,” she said. “In my experience, successful QEPs have support both from the grassroots and from leadership; to create this for Flight Ready, we utilized large, representative committees as well as survey and focus group methodologies.”


Through a two-year process that included 45 Winthrop faculty, staff, students and alumni in three separate working groups as well as more than 400 faculty, staff, students and alumni participating across three different questionnaires, multiple interviews, and a focus group, the Winthrop University community identified enhancing career readiness as both a priority and an opportunity. This objective aligns with the university’s substantial number of first-generation and Pell-eligible students who may have fewer numbers of friends and family available as informal mentors in the types of professions for which they’re preparing. While many areas of campus already discuss and offer a variety of career readiness opportunities, Flight Ready ensures that Winthrop students learn how to manage and develop their careers, with enhanced opportunities to begin doing so during their first semester at Winthrop.


How do we define “career readiness?” “A foundation from which to demonstrate requi- site core competencies that broadly prepare the college-educated for success in the workplace and lifelong career management,” per the Nation- al Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).


FLIGHT READYWINTHROP UNIVERSITY


FLIGHT READY WINTHROP UNIVERSITY


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NACE’s eight career readiness competencies be- gin with “Career and Self Development,” which is the core focus of Flight Ready. This competency includes “proactive development of oneself and one’s career through continual personal and pro- fessional learning, awareness of one’s strengths


and weaknesses, navigation of career opportuni- ties, and networking to build relationships within and without one’s organization.”


Simply, Winthrop graduates will understand both that they need to, and how to, manage their careers.


What does that mean? Students will be able to connect relevant courses and majors with identified personal strengths and interests and develop themselves through contin- ual learning and navigating career opportunities such as career fairs, internships and mentoring.


How will we accomplish this? Focusing on “Career and Self-Development,” Flight Ready will include several components: (1) Learning about all eight NACE Career Com- petencies in the First Year Experience course, with completion of the nationally recognized Strong Interest Inventory to better understand their own professional areas of interest. Win- throp’s Center for Career Development and Internships will administer the Strong Interest Inventory to all students in ACAD 101 courses. (2) Faculty training to provide faculty with strat- egies and tools to create career development linkages and opportunities more intentionally within the curricula. (3)


Creating and launching an alumni mentorship


network open to all interested Winthrop students, regardless of major.


“Of course, we are excited about how Flight Ready will prepare students to become increas- ingly career-ready alumni,” Webber continued. “What’s also important, however, is how imple- menting this initiative is a collaborative endeavor. It’s going to strengthen the connections that Winthrop has among its students, faculty, staff, alumni and employers and make more visible the interdependencies between college and work- place preparedness.”


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