(TNS) — Allegheny College has announced its microcredential program featuring a multidisciplinary slate of categories following a successful pilot phase. With the college’s focus on preparing graduates for strong outcomes with in-demand skills for meaningful careers of the future, these 28 microcredentials integrate liberal arts learning, emerging technologies and professional strengths to meet growing needs in workforce development.
Microcredentials are digital badges used to help match employers and graduate schools with candidates who have achieved a set of well-defined skills, competencies and strengths within a field of study. These badges, when included on application portals like Indeed and LinkedIn, help job and graduate school applicants rise through an algorithmically parsed applicant pool in ways that a degree alone might not.
Each microcredential consists of a small number of credit-bearing courses (typically three) specifically packaged together to highlight the skill or competency students will gain. In many cases, students may earn these badges through completing coursework that can also fulfill requirements of their academic major and minor programs.
“Allegheny College’s distinctive major-minor requirement assures that students develop expertise in more than one area,” said Jennifer Dearden, provost and dean of the faculty. “Microcredentials are an excellent way for students to be recognized for their multidisciplinary studies and the collective expertise they develop through deliberate combinations of courses.”
Allegheny faculty have implemented clusters of courses that, when completed, provide students with a particular skill and marketable credential.
“Our microcredential program leverages our distinctive curriculum for students to learn relevant skills in high-demand areas. Each microcredential is uniquely structured within our existing curriculum, so there are no additional layers for students to complete,” President Ron Cole explained. “These microcredentials meaningfully tie skills, competencies and strengths students have gained while studying at Allegheny College to specific needs organizations have told us are important for successful career paths while also preparing our graduates as lifelong learners.”
All Allegheny microcredentials are proposed, developed and voted on by faculty, and encompass a broad range of sectors and fields of study. Starting this fall, the range of microcredential offerings includes accounting, artificial intelligence engineering, game design, core skills for mental health professionals, cybersecurity risk analysis, editing and publishing, and investing. Since its inception in the pilot phase last year, the program has expanded with faculty innovation and strong student interest.
“The favorable reception to our skills-based microcredentials shows progress and confidence in a key goal of Allegheny College’s Strategic Pathway — to deliver educational content in new and innovative ways to reach a broader audience locally and globally,” Cole explained.
Unlike other institutions that concentrate on technological microcredentials, the Allegheny College microcredentials program is offered throughout all of its academic areas of study, building on the strength of over two centuries of excellence in liberal arts education.
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