Professional Skill Development for Collegiate Recreation Student Employee

Practitioners in the field of collegiate recreation have begun to place greater emphasis on the co-curricular learning experiences of undergraduate students who are employed in collegiate recreation departments. Institutions have implemented learning outcomes and career readiness assessments to measure student knowledge acquisition through on-campus employment. Astin (1993) suggested that on-campus, part-time employment positively impacted student development, specifically in terms of timely degree completion and more frequent self-reporting of cognitive and affective growth, while Pascarella and Terenzini (2005) reported that undergraduate employment is also linked to the attainment of higher levels of professional responsibility. The Dissertation in Practice (DiP) will examine the professional skills that student employees identified as learned through their employment experience in a collegiate recreation department, and what professional skills students believe they will need for future employment. The topic of student employment as a high-impact practice in higher education will also be discussed, along with recommendations for enhancing professional skill development of student employees in collegiate recreation.