Running head: CAREER CENTER ACCESSIBILITY

Group Diversity Audit:

Career Center Accessibility
Darius Jackson, Rachel Stice, Sabine Keleba, and Samantha Latham
Northern Illinois University

CAREER CENTER ACCESSIBILITY

Group Diversity Audit:

Career Center Accessibility
From a liberal perspective, education is a catalyst for challenging the definitions of social
justice, enhancing opportunities for social equity, and providing awareness, knowledge, and
skills to be effective world citizens. The world of academia provides students the opportunity to
expand their social, academic, and economic horizons while becoming more engaged in the
societys discursive framework. Many of the educational experiences in higher education
contributes to more marketable careers and job opportunities down the road. However, the
stratifications of racism, classism, and sexism, uphold barriers to educational access and
participation of particular groups within systems of higher education. Some ways that colleges
and universities work against these obstacles in access is through using various departments, like
Career Services at Northern Illinois University (NIU), to provide additional support for students
coming in with various levels of career readiness. Using a critical multicultural lens, this audit
explores the accessibility of Career Services at NIU with the context of their physical space,
marketing materials, and information they provide to students.
Career Services at NIU is a centralized, full-service department that works with students
to prepare them for careers after graduation. Their centralized, full-service department works
with [students] throughout [their] college career, employing the student career engagement plan
strategies to help [them] connect [their] academics to the world (About NIU Career Services,
2015). Through various networking opportunities, including practice interviews, career fairs,
employee outreach, on campus interviews, and events through the academic year, career services
works to help students create their own personal brand. An important and necessary function for
the department is to demonstrate leadership through providing students a comprehensive support
network for where they would like to develop their personal career path. Taking a tour of Career

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Services, it was apparent they focus on providing services for a wide range of student needs and
job interests.
In order to be available for all students, Career Services has created a centralized office
that promotes an inclusive use of their space. On the second floor of the campus life building,
Career Services has four different offices which work with preparing students career materials,
providing space to research and prepare career materials, or space for interviews. When looking
at the physical space of career services, our group had a specific focus on looking at the physical
accessibility for students. While it was apparent that Career Services follows the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance standards, some of the offices were cluttered with an excess
of chairs or tables that may inhibit some students from being able to fully use their spaces.
While Career Services followed basic ADA standards, there was little to no information
regarding how students with mental disabilities could receive additional help in their job
placement. According to Castaeda, Hopkins and Peters (2000), there is a steadily growing
number of students with intellectual disabilities attending programs at institutions of higher
education (p. 464). While students with mental or intellectual disabilities have been historically
excluded from accessing higher education, college programs have evolved to provide more
opportunities for these students to gain education, socialization, and skills to be applied to the
work place. From a critical multiculturalist lens, Career Services should have equitable access to
students from all backgrounds and experiences. However, there were limited opportunities for
students with intellectual and mental disabilities to have a strong support system in their career
search. With the rising number of students that the department must serve on the campus, limited
resources are provided to give additional support for such students to become fully prepared for
career planning.

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Another key component in gaining access to Career Services is by looking at how they
market themselves to the NIU community. College campuses have evolved dramatically to meet
the needs of students, parents, and a changing work force. With technology as a primary form of
communication, departments on college campuses have needed to shift their focus to having
technology that engages with the student. When looking to obtain information, a first thought is
to look up the information online to see if it can be provided via their website. Shifting from an
in-person meeting with Career Services to their online presence, students are faced with many
issues in receiving up to date and accurate information. From outdated advertisements to having
broken links on the page, the Career Services website tends to create barriers for students to gain
access to the information.
Instead of a presence on their main website, Career Services has a robust social media
presence. After conducting some research on their social media websites, the department is most
active on Twitter and attempts to connect with students where they are. In addition to Twitter,
they also engage with students via LinkedIn, Facebook, and a YouTube channel with have
various levels of activity on each website. The promotion of meeting students where they are on
social media creates opportunities for dialogue rooted in subjugated knowledge. As Kincheloe
and Steinberg (1997) discuss, subjugated knowledge is used to formulate a reconstruction of the
dominant educational structure (p. 47). Traditionally, departments of higher education have had
students look for the information rather than bringing those skills to the students. Through use of
their social media presence, Career Services creates a dialogue that provides opportunities for
students to get connected to the department in a unique way.
Another important way to look at access with Career Services is through their
accessibility of information they provide to students. When looking at Career Services and the

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resources they provide, the information gives preference to those who may have ideas about their
personal career path and have the time to seek out information during traditional office hours.
These barriers in providing direct contact with students outside of the typical work day can really
play into the role of class bias. As Kincheloe and Steinberg (1997) addressed, the centrality of
class in any effort to understand the nature of social diversity in America and the racism, gender
bias, and power inequalities that accompany it (p. 106). Having a set number of events that
happen during the work day, students who may not have the ability to focus only on their
academic and personal career path may have significant limitations to the information provided
by Career Services.
Taking a tour of the information center at Career Services, we were provided with
information around degree programs, career placement initiatives, and other information
regarding professional dress/interview preparation. Considering the larger campus community
and the wide range of degree programs, Career Services is limited in their information they can
readily provide to students. While asking about their on-campus interviews, many of their efforts
are focused on corporate or research positions. For a student with a liberal arts or creative degree,
it may be difficult to find that the information provided by Career Services could benefit them in
their development of a career path. As practitioners, it is important to understand the diverse
range of needs with students in exploring their personal career paths.
Accessing information from Career services through programs and events at Career
Services were incredibly limiting to the student population. As mentioned during the physical
tour of the department, one of the ways they promote events is through their interns. After taking
some time to follow up with the interns available, they limit their in-person invitations of events
at Career Services to just the classes they are enrolled in as students. Depending the classes the

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interns are enrolled, this promotion of programs can be seen as a networking privilege. As
Pittelman and the Resource Generation (2000) described, networks are one of the main ways
people find out about thinks like jobs, housing, and business opportunities (p. 221). When
thinking about engaging in outreach from departments on campus, it is imperative that
practitioners be willing to engage with students in classes, organizations, or other outlets. Based
on the conversations with staff and the information on how they market their events and
programs in person, Career Services has a significant limit to the student population obtaining
their information and resources.
With the current state of economics and education, job placement and career
advancement have become increasingly important to students and their support networks. Career
Services has needed to evolve to fit the needs of a dynamic community. From a critical
multicultural perspective, Career Services at NIU has started to work towards a more accessible
field that attempts to meet students where they are in developing their career path. However,
many of the obstacles students face with looking into the physical, marketing, and information of
the department can promote some strong barriers towards students career success. It is vital that
Career Services is able to break through the traditional ways of providing career planning
information in order to account for the subjugated knowledge of students. That way, Career
Services would be more impactful in helping students develop their own professional brand.

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7
References

About NIU Career Services. (2015). Retrieved November 9, 2015, from

http://www.niu.edu/CareerServices/About_Us/index.shtml
Castaneda, C., Hopkins, L., & Peters, M. (2000). Ableism. In M. Adams, W. Blumenfeld, C.
Castaneda, H. Hackman, M. Peters, & X. Zuniga (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social
justice (3rd ed.). New York, New York: Routledge.
Pittelman, K. & Resource Generation (2000). Deep thoughts about class privilege. In M. Adams,
W. Blumenfeld, C. Castaneda, H. Hackman, M. Peters, & X. Zuniga (Eds.), Readings for
diversity and social justice (3rd ed.). New York, New York: Routledge.