Summary of Standards for Career Services
HISTORY OF USC-CACE: The University System Committee on Career Services and Cooperative Education (USC-CACE) is a committee representing career services and cooperative education offices at academic institutions throughout University System of Georgia. This committee was founded in the 1980s at the direction of the Chancellor of the University System of Georgia because of an unfavorable article that appeared in the Atlanta Constitution on July 23, 1984. The article was a result of an audit of college and university placement offices by the General Assembly of Georgia. The audit revealed inconsistency from program to program within the University System. Consequently, USC CACE was organized to provide a forum for offices of system institutions to share information and work for the improvement of career services at state institutions. The group has produced many collaborative projects over the years, including the creation of a Peer Review Team, the GeorgiaHire.com project, records retention and reciprocity services.
CREATING STANDARDS: In 2002, the USC-CACE organization sought to establish centralized standards for career services within the University System, based on the type of institution. Representatives from each of the sectors (Research Universities, State Colleges & Universities, Two-Year Colleges, Cooperative Education programs at any System institution) created a document for each area in an effort to provide a resource for showcasing commonalities and ways to benchmark programs and services in preparation for an expected state career services audit in 2004. Performance Audits by the state are typically done every ten years to assess programs and services across the state within the University System. By working collaboratively to create standards for each sector through USC-CACE, auditors can have a framework with which to determine exactly what a career center does and is expected to do. "Must" statements in the documents reflect expected services, and "should" statements in the document reflect additional desired results or services, that are not necessarily required.
SECTORS APPROVAL PROCESS: On August 9, 2002, State Colleges & Universities, as well as the Research Universities voted on their representative standards documentation at the annual meeting of USC-CACE. There was a quorum of representatives present for both of these sectors, and the documents were approved.
The two-year colleges formulated a committee at the August 9 meeting to develop their standards. This committee routed their draft of standards to all colleges in their sector for an electronic ballot vote that was approved by the two-year colleges on October 31, 2002 with a quorum approval.
Experiential learning, which encompasses co-op, internship, service learning and other academic related learning entities outside of the classroom created a separate document to outline the expectations for how these services should be established, documented and developed. This document was routed to all USC-CACE members for a vote and met a quorum of approval on November 15, 2002.
RACSA APPROVAL PROCESS: RACSA (Regents Academic Committee on Student Affairs), the parent "reporting" organization to USC-CACE, approved the standards at their annual meeting on February 27, 2003. This concluded the final step necessary in bringing the documents to fruition.
Submitted by Julie Goley
Director of the Career Center, Augusta State University
2002-2003 Chair of USC-CACE, April 15, 2003