Page 5 - CC Life 13 2015 Spring
P. 5
Developing Job Related Skills
through Practicums in the
Christian Liberal Arts College
Dr. Quentin Nantz
This issue of CC Life magazine focuses on the “We don’t produce these leaders (that is the
benefit of long term projects, practicums, internships work of the Holy Spirit), but we can encourage
and extra-curricular activities. These activities form this potential by reminding ourselves and each
an integral part of a Christian liberal arts education, other that all of our students, whether they
particularly in developing skills that employers value possess faith or not, are fashioned in God’s own
in our graduates. A recent Gallup-Purdue University image. As image-bearers of the Creator, each
study of college graduates revealed that the level of student is worthy of respect and is deserving
support students received and the experiences they had of the challenge to manifest his God-given
while in college had more effect on their engagement talents to the Creator’s glory. Each student is
at work and their well-being after graduation than any God’s gift to his school and to his teachers. The
other factor (Ray & Kafka, 2014). The study found that image-bearers of a creative God are themselves
the type of schools these college graduates attended -- creative by nature; so creative thinking needs
public or private, small or large, very selective or less to be encouraged, directed, and shaped, not
selective -- mattered little. What really mattered was stifled.”
having a professor who cared about them as a person,
made them excited about learning, and encouraged Jeffrey Selingo, the author of College
them to pursue their dreams. Also important were: Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and
having an internship, practicum, or job in college What It Means for Students says, “Employers
where they were able to apply what they were learning, want workers who have the ability to learn how
being active in extracurricular activities, and working to learn. In other words, the capability to find
on projects that took a semester or more to complete. the answers to the questions of tomorrow that
we cannot envision asking today.” One way to
One of the reasons that Christian Liberal Arts help students develop these skills is to give them
colleges, like Christ’s College, hire Christian faculty the opportunity to participate in internships,
and staff is to ensure that students are cared for as practicums, field work, and community-based
people who are created in God’s image. As Littlejohn projects. One example of such a program is
and Evans (2006) have stated, the College Unbound program at Southern
