Monday, December 12, 2022

From Noah Leavitt, director of the Career and Community Engagement Center:

 

The most attention-getting job market-related discussion during the past month has been the increasing emphasis employers are placing on skills. In addition, and relatedly, many commentators have started noting how an emphasis on candidates’ skills may be becoming ascendant over other types of credentials or expertise.

 

To begin, a recent report from the Burning Glass Institute found that four high demand skills are spreading “from Silicon Valley to Main Street” so fast that the authors argued they are becoming “foundational.” 

 

A columnist in Forbes questioned the sweeping argument Burning Glass was making about skills replacing intuitional credentials but concluded “employers’ more granular focus on the skills required in a changing workplace reflects momentous underlying innovations and is most likely to continue—education institutions had better take notice.“

 

More expansively, the learning platform provider Pearson recently crunched more than 21 million job postings from the US, UK, Canada and Australia. Pearson’s Skills Outlook identifies what they call power skills—the habits “powering the world’s work economy and individual careers.” Five skills in particular rose to the top. (Want to know what they are?)

 

Read more.

Noteworthy

Raymond and Elsie DeBurgh Chair of Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology Michelle Janning recently published "A Guide to Socially-Informed Research for Architects and Designers" (Routledge). The book is a go-to reference for design professionals interested in using accessible social scientific methods to gather essential and practical information from people who occupy the spaces they design and to do so in an ethical, inclusive, and socially-informed way in order to enhance social sustainability in the built environment.

The Whitman website will undergo system maintenance and style updates on the Ingeniux CMS platform today through Monday, Jan. 30. If you normally submit website requests through whitman.edu/webrequest, you may continue to do so. However, if you normally work with Workflow, please submit updates through whitman.edu/webrequest instead during this time. If you have an urgent request or have any questions, please contact the web team.

As you are packing things up, cleaning things out, and spending those extra flex dollars to finish the semester, consider giving to the Winter Food and Clothing Drive put on by the Whitman Food Pantry and Food Justice Project. Collection bins are located by the entryway of Cleveland Commons and in the Reid Campus Center Café. Proceeds will support the Whitman Food Pantry and Blue Mountain Action Council at a time when food security can be a challenge for folks in the Whitman and Walla Walla community. Thank you for your help!

Writing a paper? Need research help? Librarians are a great resource! Look for the "research help" sign at the library or make an appointment in advance. Penrose Library will also be open extended hours during the next week:

• Monday, Dec. 12-Thursday, Dec. 15 from 7:30 a.m. to 2 a.m.
• Friday, Dec. 16 from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The library will be closed Dec. 17-18, reopening at 9 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 19.

COVID-19 Updates

In accordance with Washington state Labor & Industries employer requirements, we are notifying the campus community that over the weekend, no one with Whitman access was confirmed positive for COVID-19.

 

Please continue to follow all our campus COVID-19 protocols to help prevent transmission. If you have any symptoms that may be COVID-19 or know that you may have been exposed to coronavirus, please be tested. Additional masks and rapid test kits are available in the front entryway at the Welty Student Health Center during normal operating hours. 

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“Whitman Today” is produced by the Office of Communications and is emailed Monday through Friday to Whitman College staff, faculty and students. All times are listed in Pacific Daylight Time. 

 

All submissions are welcome! If you have accomplishments to celebrate, an event to publicize or other content to share with the Whitman community, email whitmantoday@whitman.edu. Submissions should be 125 words or less. The deadline is noon for the following day's newsletter. Submissions may be edited and/or held for a later date according to space and editorial needs. Your submission also authorizes use on Whitman's social media unless otherwise specified.

 

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