Like many college campuses, UConn has thousands of student employees fulfilling countless important roles at the University from student recreation, to dining services, to front-end department operations, and much, much more. And each student employee has a supervisor overseeing their work and providing critical feedback and mentorship for students’ post-graduation success. We focus a lot on the students, but what support is available to supervisors?
Work+ UConn is a framework that empowers students to leverage their work experiences to cultivate essential professional skills and align their endeavors with their career aspirations. It aims to create a community where every student, regardless of their role, thrives through mentorship, storytelling, and collaboration, embodying the values of lifelong learning and personal development. University staff and faculty are pivotal in ensuring that student employment becomes a transformative experience, fostering essential career skills that will benefit students beyond graduation. When supervisors have the resources they need to foster a positive experience for their working learners, the likelihood of students articulating what they’ve learned in their role to future career aspirations increases.
What can we do to help position supervisors for success? Enter the Work+ SUPERvisor Summit!
Held in partnership with The Hartford in May, the Work+ SUPERvisor Summit was a dynamic one-day conference designed to equip supervisors with the tools and strategies needed to mentor and lead student employees effectively. The summit kicked off with an inspiring keynote address from Allie Lavista Ferrara ’13 (CLAS), ’18 BUS: Senior Director and HR Business Partner at Danone. Allie discussed her time as an intern at the Career Center and how the skills she developed as in intern have helped guide her career progression.
Following Allie’s keynote, a series of breakout sessions focused on two key tracks: Supervisor Development and Career Development.
- During the Supervisor Development track, there were insightful and sometime frank conversations between presenters and attendees on topics including crucial conversations around student discipline, building a foundation of student support to help student workers be more self-reliant, and how to nurture and develop the unique needs of neurodivergent individuals so the feel recognized and valued.
- For attendees on the Career Development track, attendees were given strategies to develop their working learners’ leadership competency, a critical skill desired by employers, how to use design thinking and life design to develop a plan for career success, and how students can harness the power of networking to build up their sales pitch and advocate for themselves. This included an interesting discussion about the disconnect between students saying they want more networking opportunities and getting students to both attend and participate in events where networking plays a large factor.
Overall, the Work+ SUPERvisor Summit provided an invaluable opportunity for supervisors to enhance their leadership skills and better support the development of student employees. By focusing on both supervisor development and career development, the summit aimed to create a university-wide culture that prepares students for post-graduation success. The Work+ Team is already hard at work in their fortress of solitude crafting new and exciting professional development opportunities for the upcoming academic year! If you are interested in learning more about the Work+ UConn initiative at UConn, do not hesitate to check out our website or contact us directly at workplus@uconn.edu.
