MSU’s Level UP program develops student career skills

Employers are not just looking for college graduates. They want to hire graduates who can make an immediate impact with classroom knowledge, hands-on experience, and professional skills.

Morehead State University is at the forefront of Kentucky universities, providing opportunities to gain valuable professional skills and high-impact experiences through its Level UP program.

Level UP is an initiative to ensure students can engage in experiences that prepare them for success, including undergraduate research, education abroad, service learning, and internships within the courses in their major. The courses further focus on building in-demand career skills like oral communication, written communication, professionalism, critical thinking, and teamwork.

This program further focuses on training students to convey evidence of these career skills that are highly desirable to employers across disciplines. More MSU faculty are taking advantage of the opportunity to provide a Level UP experience for their students.

This past spring break, 11 MSU students taking Associate Professor of History Dr. Adrian Mandzy's public history class spent a week in Savannah, Georgia. The focus of the trip was exploring, documenting, and excavating historical sites connected with the American Civil War.

This research program, conducted in cooperation with Georgia Southern University's public history program, focused on a Confederate earthwork and a Union camp. Arwen Sergent, a senior public history major from Mayking, said the program "allowed me to work alongside two of the founders of the field of battlefield archaeology, Lawrence Babits and Dan Sivilich."

"I read their works for class and having the opportunity to be in the field with Professor Babits gave me a completely new outlook," said Bryce Tackett, a junior public history major from Morehead.

The project also included Dr. Collin Parkman and Sean Norman of Gulf Archaeology, a cultural research management company based in northern Florida. MSU Assistant Professor of History Dr. Ben Fitzpatrick and Head of Special Collections Dieter Ullrich also actively participated in this groundbreaking research.

Emma Crouch, a senior public history major from West Liberty, reflects on her experience, "I found myself holding a bullet in my hand that was lost sometime in spring of 1863. I am the first person to hold it since it was dropped, and that is a very cool feeling."

As a Level UP class, the students focus on building their teamwork skills while working in a real-world archaeological excavation environment.

Mandzy and project co-director Dr. Kurt Knoerl of Georgia Southern University plan to continue their research and return to Savannah next spring with another group of students. He said that the Level UP program provides MSU students with unique opportunities to maximize their college experience, whether conducting innovative research or traveling abroad.

"Hands-on experiences like these, coupled with the focus on transferable career skills, really set our students up for career success regardless of whether the next steps are graduate school or a job in industry," said Megan Boone, director of the Center for Career Development and Experiential Education and co-director of Level UP.

Since its inception, more than 3,500 students have "leveled up" their college experience through the program.

According to Level UP Co-Director and Professor of Mathematics Dr. Tim O’Brien, Level UP has been used as a model for an exemplary Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) by the Southern Association of Colleges & Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), MSU's accreditor. In Kentucky, the Council on Postsecondary Education has shared MSU's Level UP as an example through conferences like Pedagogicon, which focuses on faculty teaching and scholarship, and it is identified as a model approach to the KY Graduate Profile's 10 Essential Skills.

Dr. Chris Schroeder, associate provost for undergraduate education and student success, said MSU's Level UP program is making an enormous difference in the lives of its students.

"In addition to being involved in experiential education, our students are learning transferable skills that make them instantly more competitive in the job market," Schroeder said. "This doesn't just positively impact our students, it also benefits our region, the Commonwealth, and beyond. We are proud of the success we have had so far in equipping our students to be the best they can be when they graduate from MSU and look forward to continuing this program for years to come."

For more information on the Level UP program, contact the Center for Career Development & Experiential Education at levelup@moreheadstate.edu or 606-783-2233.