Morehead State prioritizes equipping students with Skills That SOAR
Morehead State University continues to focus on career preparation through Level UP: Experience Your Future, an initiative that ensures students engage in valuable experiences that equip them for success.
Building on its longstanding commitment to career readiness, Morehead State has aligned its efforts with the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education's Kentucky Graduate Profile through Level UP: Skills That SOAR, helping every Eagle develop the skills employers value most.
Experience Your Future engages students in hands-on experiences through undergraduate research, education abroad, service learning, and internships while earning distinction in specific career skills through courses within a student's major. Skills That SOAR is a broader initiative that emphasizes learning one or more of 10 specific career skills in addition to the course-specific knowledge.
The 10 skills emphasized in Level UP: Skills That SOAR include:
- Communication
- Critical Thinking
- Quantitative Reasoning
- Interpersonal Relations
- Leadership
- Professionalism
- Civic Engagement
- Teamwork
- Career Development
- Decision Making
"Within their syllabus, faculty are required to identify one or more of the 10 skills intentionally addressed in each undergraduate course and align each identified skill with a course student learning outcome and a related assignment, activity, or assessment," said Megan Boone, director of MSU's Center for Career Development & Experiential Education. "This requirement creates greater transparency for students and helps ensure that the 10 skills are intentionally connected to course learning and assessment."
Dr. Chris Schroeder, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, said the full implementation of Skills That SOAR is being mapped out across general education requirements and collaboration with department chairs is ongoing to see how these skills can be incorporated into more specific programs. He sees both Level UP initiatives as complementary, ensuring a student gains even greater career readiness.
"While Experience Your Future and Skills That SOAR are independent Level UP programs, we are continuing to look at ways to merge them to better serve our students," he said.
"Students are encouraged to put their skills into action by participating in hands-on experiences such as internships, research, service-learning and education abroad," Boone added regarding the students' positive reception toward Level UP. "Students enjoy the hands-on experiences embedded within the classes as well as the fact that the career skill rubrics define the skills in a way that makes our students able to articulate that they have developed a skill."
Jaiden McKenzie (Class of 2025) said earning her Bachelor of Arts in Social Work at Morehead State involved plenty of coursework and practical experience that strengthened her decision-making skills.
"Throughout my experience at Morehead State, I've had lots of practice in decision-making, especially being in the social work major," she said. "I get to see ethical dilemmas in all types of situations on a daily basis, especially at my practicum...I definitely learned the best decision is not always the easiest decision, but working with these residents (at a nursing home) and making decisions in their best interest definitely gave me a lot of practice in that area."
Level UP: Experience Your Future is making an enormous difference in its students' lives. With the implementation of Level UP: Skills That SOAR, Schroeder sees better outcomes for MSU students and a positive effect on Kentucky's workforce.
"Both Experience Your Future and Skills That SOAR have the potential to make huge impacts on our service region, the Commonwealth, and beyond," he said. "By equipping our students with the skills to do their jobs and their careers more effectively, we are helping them to reach their true potential and to be a force for good, promoting well-being and prosperity wherever they land."
To learn more about Level UP: Experience Your Future and Level UP: Skills That SOAR, contact the Center for Career Development & Experiential Education at careerservices@moreheadstate.edu or 606-783-2233.
