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There are several things to keep in mind to conduct a successful empathy interview. Check out this quick video for some "do's and don't's" of empathy interviewing. 

Check out this quick video that highlights the benefits of on-campus employment and it's connection to student success. 

This video introduces and discusses the working learner dilemma. It highlights the challenges that working learners are facing both during their time in college and what they face in the post-graduation job market. The issues and challenges that working learners face is important in understanding and guiding the work that we do. 

This resource outlines best practices for student employee supervisors during the interview process, broken down into support prior to the interview, during the interview, and after the interview.

User personas are crucial tools for understanding target audiences effectively. This article provides a guide on creating user personas. It emphasizes the importance of research, including gathering demographic data and behavioral patterns. It discusses the significance of empathy in persona creation, encouraging designers to step into the shoes of their users. By following these guidelines, you can develop accurate, insightful user personas that enhance your work moving forward.  

This resource outlines how to create and use "How Might We" questions as part of the design thinking process. Particularly, it will define How Might We questions, discuss how to gather themes from empathy interviews and produce problem statements that then become How Might We statements that drive your design thinking process forward. 

This resource outlines the empathy mapping process by overviewing what empathy mapping is, the steps to conduct empathy mapping, sharing tips and tricks to mapping, an overview of benefits, how to use the data from empathy mapping, and some differing templates of empathy maps.

This blog style resource outlines the benefits of successful institutional change, 5 strategies to go about successful institutional change, and 3 models outlining theories to approach change and institutional innovation.

This resource can be used as a guide for organization of an empathy interview with information on what an empathy interview is, why to conduct one, how to conduct one, sample questions, and next steps after the interviews.

This resource outlines what design thinking is, how it works, a step by step guide to what it looks like in action, and how it can benefit reimagining of student employment with helpful links to additional resources.

Design thinking, a human-centered approach to problem-solving, can help program designers understand the unique challenges and opportunities faced by student employees.  By empathizing with students, defining the problem, ideating potential solutions, prototyping ideas, and testing them with students and student employee supervisors, program designers can create a program that is innovative, effective, and sustainable. The following resource details a number of idea generation activities that can be leveraged as part of the design thinking process.

Northern Arizona University (NAU) is focused on their 100% career ready initiative. A large part of this effort focuses around the NACE Career Competencies and how the university engages students in the development of these skills through a variety of experiences across the institution.  Since this framework serves as the foundation for this career readiness work, NAU has developed this informative presentation that they regularly facilitate to staff across the institution.  The intended outcomes of this presentation are to educate the campus community about the NACE career competencies and support them in identifying how their experiences are already facilitating students' professional growth. 

Discussing the NACE (National Association of Colleges and Employers) career competencies is crucial for students' career readiness and success. These competencies provide a framework for students to develop and demonstrate essential skills that employers value. By discussing these competencies, students can gain a better understanding of the skills and attributes they need to succeed in the workplace. This discussion can also help students identify areas where they may need to improve and take proactive steps to develop these skills. Northern Arizona University has created the following tool to help their student employees to think more deeply and reflect on their current experience with each of the competencies.  Their supervisor then uses this as a discussion tool and an opportunity to identify action items, opportunities for growth and experiences that can support the student within their student employment role.

Performance appraisals for student employees working on a college campus are crucial for a number of reasons. They provide a structured way to provide feedback, helping students understand their strengths and areas for improvement. This feedback is essential for their personal and professional growth. Secondly, performance appraisals allow supervisors to set clear expectations and goals, which can improve the student's focus and motivation. Northern Arizona University (NAU) has implemented a structured performance appraisal process, centered around the evaluation of the NACE Career Competencies to ensure that students receive the necessary feedback and support to enhance their skills. NAU understands performance appraisals play a vital role in managing student employee performance, promoting their development, and ensuring their engagement and success on campus.

We all know student employees play a crucial role in the functioning of a college campus, often serving in various capacities such as library assistants, research aides, or student ambassadors. Their contributions often go beyond their job descriptions; they enhance the campus experience for all students, faculty, and visitors. Recognizing their efforts and the efforts of those staff that supervise them, is vital to the ongoing success of student employment. Northern Arizona University has leveraged their yearly student employee and supervisor of the year awards to ensure acknowledgement of this hard work and dedication to their campus. Their campus has seen many benefits from this campus-wide recognition effort -  it fosters a sense of belonging and loyalty among student employees and their supervisors, encouraging them to remain engaged with their work and the campus community. NAU understands recognizing student employees sets a positive example for others, highlighting the value of their contributions and encouraging a culture of appreciation and respect.  NAU has shared a variety of resources that can inform the build out of your own campus awards, help you think through structure and how to successfully facilitate this effort.