Bridging the Gap in Higher Education: A World of Work Experience for College Educators

Abstract

The World of Work Experience for college educators was developed in response to the staff development needs of a career education project based in a university setting (Helge, 1978). The basic aim of the program was to involve teacher educators and related support personnel in a process of curriculum change in the area of teaching their students how to implement career education. In attempting to recruit new faculty for the second year of the project, a cadre group of first year project faculty postulated several guidelines intended to generate positive involvement of others.These guidelines consisted of four main points to consider when attempting to involve university and college faculty in career education.First, involve educators outside the college of education in career education.Second, in order to create greater motivation for involvement in career education, a more realistic view of the career development needs of their own students should be provided. Third, when introducing prospective faculty to career education, it should be done in such a way that basic career education processes are used. And fourth, university faculty will best understand a career education approach when they understand the need for linkage between their world of education and the world of work. Hoyt (1976) has presented an idealistic model encouraging this kind of involvement for higher education faculty and has recently (&dquo;Schools Must Reach Out,&dquo; 1978) postulated this as one of the main tenets of career education programs.With a good history of being involved in career education at a K-12 level, the solutions to this problem of generating faculty