A college experience is widely recognized as a time to realize independence, explore your interests, goals, and values, and earn a degree. For Rebels, it’s also a time to take advantage of a community of campus support services to help them prepare for and design the life they want to live.
Part of UNLV's mission is to stimulate economic diversification and workforce development, and an important Top Tier 2.0 goal is to promote and improve student success. This means improved retention, successful degree progression, and timely degree completion, as a smooth launch of a successful post-graduate career.
UNLV students have benefited from central Career Services for many years, as well as specialized career service centers in hospitality, business, and engineering. However, providing all students with intentional, effective, curricular, and co-curricular professional and career development support requires a network of trained experts all around campus who are available to guide UNLV students to career and life design resources.
Now in its second year, the Rebel Career Champions Network (RCCN) is helping the university achieve this mission by helping students design their lives and prepare to transition successfully into post-graduate careers.
The RCCN is lead by tri-chairs Maggie Hausbeck from Hospitality, Jenna Heath from Liberal Arts, and Kass Moore from Career Services, as well as a RCCN Steering Committee. Along with our campus RCCN liaisons, the network provides student support in scaled career and professional development opportunities, soft skills training, and access to both non-credit and credit-bearing microcredentials. This campus network of faculty experts help students enrich their social, cultural, and professional capital, success, and mobility.
The RCCN liaisons are trained in career readiness and life design, so that they have the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively guide students through this critical college phase. By building partnerships across disciplines and campus offices, the RCCN is helping to create a campus environment that promotes and encourages career preparation and professional development for all Rebels.
“When we talk about success at UNLV, we mean students' academic accomplishments, their timely degree completion, and career readiness. That's a whole package,” said Kate Korgan, senior vice provost for Academic Affairs. “Earning a degree is a tremendous accomplishment and it's what all our students are striving to do, but it’s an incomplete achievement if our graduates are not career-ready. Our students work hard and make sacrifices to earn academic credentials, so it’s vitally important that we help students design the life that they want to live, both while they're students and throughout their lives. I’m so grateful for this tremendous Rebel Career Champions Network of colleagues who generously give their time, talent, and expertise to guide, advise, and uplift our students as they prepare for post-graduate careers.”
This vision of career and life-readiness for all students is bolstered by RCCN liaisons, who meet students where they are at each stage of their student life. The Network already has more than 100 RCCN liaisons who recognize that Rebels are not just earning degrees – they are launching their post-graduate lives. To empower students’ success in their academic and career journeys, the RCCN has clear objectives, including:
- Infusing career conversations and professional development into the UNLV curriculum;
- Providing consistent and accessible career readiness services to all students in an inclusive and equitable manner;
- Giving staff, faculty, and student leaders the necessary resources to support students' career exploration and preparation;
- Developing a common language for discussing career-related topics and workforce-aligned academic experience by using the Life Design approach.
By graduating career-ready students, they are more likely to secure good jobs, be able to work in their desired fields, and help meet critical workforce needs. The RCCN is a key part of UNLV’s commitment to uplift students, promote social mobility, improve lives, and change family trees.
“College is a time of exploration, but it's also a launchpad for a student’s future career. The RCCN empowers our entire Rebel community – faculty, staff, students, and leaders – to have meaningful career conversations that guide students toward their passions and prepare them for success. With RCCN, career development isn't an afterthought, it's everywhere you are at UNLV,” said Jenna Heath, a chair and director of student and community engagement in the College of Liberal Arts and one of the RCCN tri-chairs.
If you or someone you know is interested in joining RCCN, or exploring the career resources that the Network provides, please reach out to rccn@unlv.edu. Everyone is welcome on this career-readiness and life design journey to provide ever-better career and professional development opportunities for UNLV students.
