The CHANGE Collective cultivates holistic achievement, nourished growth and empowerment. This program weaves together museum work experience with personal + professional development to empower diverse undergraduates to pursue life and career pathways that foster equitable and sustainable well-being within themselves, communities and the natural world. To earn the micro-credential, students must actively participate in their museum jobs (5 hrs/week), at least 12 out of 15 personal/professional workshops over the course of the academic year and the following unpaid activities: self-reflection, peer support, critiquing and sharing inspirational resources, interviewing professionals, completing program- and self-assessments, and presenting in a public end-of-year showcase.
Eligibility
CU Boulder Students (degree seeking only)
Delivery Mode
Credit Status
Noncredit
Academic Level
Undergraduate
Time to Completion
Two Semesters
Fee
No
Requirements
Apply and Interview for Job: Students must submit a compelling application and participate in an interview with 1-3 museum staff to be considered for and accepted to this program.
Participation in Job and Personal/Professional Development Program: Students must actively participate in their museum jobs for ~5 hrs/week throughout the academic year, as well as at least 12 of the 15 total personal + professional development sessions.
Reflection activities: In between bi-weekly development sessions, students will respond to reflection prompts to: make connections between their museum jobs, academics, their own lives and society/environment at large; increase their awareness of self and others; and identify strategies and tools to help them meet their goals.
- Frequency: Regularly, in between each bi-weekly session.
- Formats could include written reflections, audio recordings or video recordings. The program coordinator will review these reflections and students will be asked to discuss their reflections with each other.
- Students will catalog their reflections digitally and consolidate and log them in an organized way (ex: on Google Drive) so that the program coordinator, micro-credential manager and they themselves can reference these reflections and utilize them for other purposes.
- At least once a semester, students will create a summary of their reflections that will be used as a digital artifact in their publicly accessible portfolio.
Assessment activities: Students will participate in a couple assessments each semester to gain insights on students’ skills, interests and tendencies, and how these might change over the course of the program. These data may be used to understand the impacts of this program, make modifications to this program later on and to help students better understand themselves and their own growth.
- Frequency: 1-2 times per semester.
- Students will complete a pre-program and post-program assessment at the beginning and end of the program. They may also complete a few additional assessments commonly used by HR departments and career services to help students learn more about their personal strengths, emotional intelligence and work style.
Interview professionals: Students will interview their supervisors and other inspiring professionals about the work they do, how they came to do this work, successes and challenges, and other interesting aspects of their career and life that students would like to learn from.
- Frequency: Once per semester.
- Students will follow an interview protocol and use provided interview questions as well as ones they create themselves. They will create notes and reflections from conducting these interviews and include them in their personal digital catalog of materials.
- Students will also create a brief summary of their biggest takeaways from interacting with professionals. This document will be included in their publicly accessible portfolio.
Peer support: Students will attend/participate/review work that student employee peer colleagues are presenting/doing as part of their museum jobs to be able to offer constructive feedback and learn from each other.
- Frequency: 1-2 times per semester.
- Students will be paired up with another member of their cohort and will spend an hour with their peer observing their work, helping them with a task, attending an event their peer is working or some other type of support and observation. Likewise, while on the job, students will welcome a peer to join them and will talk through their tasks, including any challenges their peer might be able to help them work through.
- Students will create notes and reflections from supporting/observing their peer and include them in their personal digital catalog of materials.
Review, find and share inspiring resources: Students will review some recommended inspiring resources/media, as well as seeking out people, tools, resources and media that they find to be inspiring in supporting their success, well-being and pursuit of purposeful work. They will then share these resources and their reflections on them with the group.
- Students will contribute to a digital log maintained by the whole cohort to catalog inspiring tools, people, resources and media, and will annotate the log with brief statements critiquing these resources and what they find to be inspiring about these resources. This co-curated Inspiration Resource Library will be included in the publicly accessible portfolios.
- Each month, students will share feedback on a couple pieces of inspirational resources/media (either suggested to them or pieces they have found themselves) including feedback on why they would recommend this resource to their peers.
Community camaraderie: Participate in activities to provide thoughtful collegial support to each other (ex: co-create playlists, leave each other supportive notes).
- Frequency: 2-3 times per semester.
- A couple times a semester, students will do something to support their peers, either individually or as a whole team. These activities could include co-creating playlists that help students feel empowered, focused, inspired or calm; writing kind notes to each other; creating a small gift for a peer; or some other gesture of gratitude and camaraderie.
- Students will take images of these products to add to their digital catalog of materials.
Present in Public Showcase: At the end of the year, students will collectively present a public showcase to share aspects of this program with others and present a “toolkit for success” for other CU students. Students will have multiple conversations during team sessions to prepare for this showcase, but students will be responsible for preparing their portion of it during unpaid time. They may utilize their individual digital catalogs of reflections and activities as well the collective library of resources as they create their portion of the showcase.
- Frequency: Once (end of the year).
- Students will create something to present at this showcase that speaks to the tools, resources and experiences they have found to be most helpful in supporting their sense of success. The primary audience will be other CU students, though employers wishing to support student employees’ holistic success will also be invited. Students will include their presentation materials in their publicly accessible digital portfolios.
- The showcase will be videotaped and videos of students’ presentations will be added to their publicly accessible digital portfolios.
Criteria
Learning outcomes and measurements of such competencies will be fulfilled through successful completion of the courses according to the course syllabi.
MUSC 4978: Current Event Briefing, Grant Writing, Arts Industry and Market Analysis, Organizational Evaluation
MUSC 5938: Examination of Concepts and Approaches for leaders of small, medium, and large arts organizations (both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors), Human Resource Management, Problem Solving, Effective Communication and Ethics, Practice and Refine Written Communication Skills, Leader-Member Exchange Theory, Servant, Transformational, Authentic, Adaptive and Team Leadership
Skills
- Adaptability
- Audience engagement
- Career awareness
- Change making
- Collaboration
- Communication
- Community building
- Constructive feedback
- Creativity
- Critical reflection
- Design thinking
- Emotional intelligence
- Empathy
- Facilitation
- Goal setting
- Growth mindset
- Inclusion
- Inclusive leadership
- Innovation
- Introspection
- Leadership
- Listening
- Personal growth
- Problem solving
- Public speaking
- Reflection
- Relationship building
- Science communication
- Teamwork
- Verbal communication
- Well-being
- Written communication