Melody Head, director of Career Services at Newman University, is working on a plan to provide the best possible support to students during the fall semester as the community continues to navigate the COVID pandemic.
Career Services is a department of the Student Support Services, which includes the Runway Learning Center, and provides counseling, tutoring, study resources and more.
For students interested in gaining work experience within the community, the department can help connect them with off-campus job openings. Students have the option of traditional part-time jobs, as well as virtual and project-based opportunities.
Current conditions are changing the way many businesses are handling internships and cooperative education (COOP) and networking opportunities.
Head is planning several virtual events that will allow students to connect with businesses and ask questions about entering the job market.
“I’m hopeful there will be more on-campus opportunities for internships this year,” explained Head. “As departments let me know of their opportunities, I will be posting these to a centralized location on the career service website.”
Those opportunities could include on-campus positions or COOP partnerships that help the student earn college credit toward their major.
“Experiential learning can occur in many different ways — the key to an internship is that the students are applying what they are learning in their program of study to the task that is being asked of them.”
Head added that the Runway Learning Center will be open for in-person studying as well as academic and career advising. However, staff will also be available remotely via Zoom to connect with students who feel more comfortable with a virtual platform.
Tutoring will have a new look this year. Subject-specific tutors will be embedded in some classrooms and students will have 24/7 access to online tutoring via Tutorme.com. Head said the rollout for the new program will happen during the week of Aug 24, the first week of the fall semester.
Each student will access TutorMe.com through their individual courses in Canvas. If the link isn’t visible, students can request link access from the instructor.
To learn more about Student Support Services, contact Head at (316) 943-4291, ext. 2234 or [email protected].
