How Private Universities are Operated – Part 4

Security of Employment

In the previous blog post, we asserted that students, parents and alumni expect their universities—whether public or private—to care deeply about every student’s employment aspirations and to help each student get a first good job after graduation as well as a great lifelong career after that.
In support of this assertion, we noted that security of employment was close to such basic human survival requirements as breathing, food, water, sleep, etc., on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  It follows that students aspiring to college and anticipating the need to become financially self-sufficient, will be concerned about their employment future, and expect their college or university to help them secure it.

Since this felt need would arise with students at both private and public universities, the great success which private universities have demonstrated, e.g. with alumni participation rates, suggests that the most successful private universities are satisfactorily meeting that powerful need of their students.

The Career Development Process

The 2012-13 Policy and Procedures Manual of the National Career Development Association defines the process of career development as follows:

“Career development is a continuous life process through which individuals explore activities, make decisions, and assume a variety of roles.  Careers are formulated by the continuous evaluation of personal goals and the perception, assessment, and decisions regarding opportunities to achieve those goals.  Career development occurs as educational and vocational pursuits interact with personal goals.  It continues over the life span.”
 
It is clear from this definition that, in pursuing security of employment after college, a great deal of exploration and decision-making is needed, both internally and externally, i.e., with respect to the employee on the one hand, and the universe of employment opportunities on the other.  In that sense, the career development process may be visualized as a matching process in which the aptitudes and goals—professional and personal—of the future employee get matched against the opportunities and goals that the job market provides at any given time. 
 
Note also from the definition, that the process is actually a three-way matching process involving an educational component, a vocational or employment component, and a critical personal goals component.

 The presence of the educational component brings the employee’s university into the discussion for at least two reasons.  First, the great deal of internal and external exploration and decision making required will take time, suggesting that students need to begin the career-development process from their first moments on campus. The best universities provide such four-year career development opportunities for their students.  Second, a student’s choice of major is a key factor in the matching process since that major will need to satisfy the goals of both the employee and a future employer.  Again, the best universities provide strong programs to help students choose the major, minor and extracurricular activities that optimize future employment opportunities.

Career professionals often speak of career success and career satisfaction as being two sides of the same coin.  Career success implies a situation where the employer believes the employee performs the job satisfactorily.  Career satisfaction, however is very different because individuals often possess the ability to do different jobs to the satisfaction of different employers and, in that way, remain gainfully employed.  However, not all jobs will provide the same level of fulfillment for the employee in question.  I have met lawyers, accountants and engineers who suddenly decide in middle age that they’ve always really wanted to be something else, for example, a teacher.   

The Quality of the Relationship

As a university president for 20 years, and a faculty member and university administrator for 22 years before that, I had countless opportunities to learn the expectations of students, parents and alumni at three different kinds of universities: state-related, private and state owned, and their expectations could all fit comfortably under one easy-to-remember label: they all wanted the very same opportunities for their student that you or I or any good parent would want for their own child in the same situation.

So once again, it gets back to the quality of the relationship which the university is able to establish with its students.  If that relationship is seen and felt by the students as a caring and trusting one—in which trusting is defined as “believing that people tell the truth and will keep their promises,” then those students, parents and alumni would trust that university as long as institutional promises were made and kept, and they would respond in kind when annual alumni appeal letters appear in their mailboxes years later.

Building and maintaining high-quality relationships with students require great integrity on the part of the university and its people over long periods of time.  But once promises are broken or very keen  expectations are not met, the damage to institutional credibility can be severe and long lasting.