Newly Certified Career Advisors

Newly certified UCF Career Development Facilitators

Need help with developing your career? What about exploring work opportunities in your area of interest? Look no further than the friendly academic advisors in the College of Sciences Academic Services (COSAS)

As of Tuesday, Nov. 18, all six of the academic advisors in the COSAS are certified to give career development advising.

The National Career Development Facilitator Program and the Center for Credentialing & Education (CCE) partnered to create the Career Development Facilitator (CDF) certification program.  The partnership was formed in order to help professionals participate in a rigorous series of hands on activities to gain knowledge and skills to assist individuals in transitioning to a new career or finding work in their current area of study.

Lee Anne Kirkpatrick, Director of Undergraduate Services for the College of Sciences at UCF, is responsible for bringing this valuable program to campus. She wanted her staff to have a professional development opportunity to gain specific strategies to enable academic advisors to methodically integrate career and academic advising.

The certification program ran campus wide with the College of Health and Public Affairs, regional campuses and other locations completing the CDF certification program. There were a total of 31 participants across UCF.

Sharon Givens, master trainer who trained the group said in a press release “I applaud this group. They were exemplary in conceptualizing the core competencies and translating these competencies to improve their work.” She continued to say, “they recognize that it is all about the student. They now have a clear action plan of how they will use the Career Development Facilitator course to enhance the level of services to students.”

The academic advisors spent 120 hours completing the coursework, projects and service learning activities in 12 competencies. The course allowed participates to spend the last five months exploring topics such as the globalization of careers, comparative job advantage, a systematic approach to career development and developing career counseling and coaching strategies/skills.

We would like to congratulate the following newly certified participants from the College of Sciences:

Dena Ford, Lee Anne Kirkpatrick, Brooks Pingston, Chauntrice Riley-Stanford, Ryan Sexton and Tonya Walker.