Uniting academia and industry to bridge the skills gap: Incorporating industry advisory councils in Curriculum-to-Careers Programmatic Mapping in undergraduate environmental science programs

Abstract

Industry has coped with a consistent pace of employee attrition for over a decade with employee loss and labor turnover increasing with the global pandemic of 2020. As all sectors experience workforce attrition termed the “Great Resignation”, industry is pressed to fill these gaps and seek career-ready students as new hires. One institution of higher education worked closely with an Industry Advisory Council (IAC) to address the academia-to-industry skills gaps using Curriculum-to-Careers (C–to-C) programmatic mapping that synthesized both foundational curricular content knowledge and employer-sought skills. Mapping involved development of program student learning outcomes (PSLOs) and course student learning outcomes (CSLOs) that were aligned with career skills. Preliminary implementation of the C-to-C programmatic mapping yielded components that allowed the deconstruction of every course in the program. Traditional knowledge in the scholarly community was integrated with practitioner knowledge in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce and deployed in the revised classroom instructional practices. Using the industry perspective and guided by the developed philosophical instructional framework, the curriculum was deconstructed at both the course and program levels to synthesize a programmatic map the informed program development to close the skills gap by uniting academia and industry.