Stony Brook University’s School of Professional Development Offers Digital University Badges to Showcase Workplace Skills
|
| Dr. Ken Lindblom, Associate Dean for Academic Programs, School of Professional Development and Amy Margolies, Assistant Director, Career Development Programs introduce Stony Brook’s new “University Badge” credentialing program. |
STONY BROOK, NY,
September 1, 2015
– Students in the Stony Brook University School of Professional Development (SPD) may now earn “University Badges” – digital icons that demonstrate achievement of a particular skill or set of skills, and which are designed to help the student make academic progress toward achieving another credential such as a graduate certificate or master’s degree.
Offering university badges puts the School of Professional Development at the fore of credentialing programs for graduate students and those in SPD’s non-credit career development programs.
“We are very excited about Stony Brook University badges,” says Ken Lindblom, Associate Dean for Academic Programs in SPD, “because they will allow our students to showcase very specific, workplace-related skills that are highly desirable to employers.”
|
|
Amy Margolies, Assistant Director, Career Development Programs and Dr. Ken Lindblom, Associate Dean for Academic Programs, School of Professional Development |
The badge itself is a digital, hyperlinked icon designed to be used for display on online platforms including Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook and any digital badge backpack, such as Mozilla Open Source. They are a type of credential from the University that when clicked upon leads to an official, protected website describing the achievement the badge represents.
Those who are eligible to enroll in badge courses include current students, non-matriculated graduate students and non-credit students. Some courses are offered online, others are offered only in-person.
According to Lindblom, seven locally-based educators earned a University badge in the newly-created ‘Spanish Language for Educators’ course – SPD’s first badge-related program – two 24-hour, non-credit courses that thoroughly immersed participants in school-related Spanish vocabulary.
Beginning this fall, SPD is offering university badges in several business-related areas, including three in finance and two in human resource management. Another University Badge is offered in higher education advising and counseling. University badges will also be offered in special education, middle school teaching, diverse literatures, Long Island coastal studies, and more.
Dr. Chuck Taber, Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Education, says SPD’s new University badge initiative will allow students to develop and demonstrate twenty-first century skills through an innovative micro-credentialing process.
“We are very pleased to offer this new mode for aspiring and practicing professionals to demonstrate competencies in a variety of fields. Employers are looking for ways to identify highly-skilled job candidates, and university badges offer a clear way for candidates to stand out.”
About the School of Professional Development
Stony Brook University’s School of Professional Development (SPD) offers part-time graduate programs for working professionals who seek to advance their careers. The School enrolls approximately 2,000 students in 25 master’s, certificate and post-master’s programs, eight of which are offered completely online.
About Stony Brook University
Part of the State University of New York system, Stony Brook University encompasses 200 buildings on 1,450 acres. Since welcoming its first incoming class in 1957, the University has grown tremendously, now with more than 24,600 students and 2,500 faculty. Its membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU) places Stony Brook among the top 62 research institutions in North America. U.S. News & World Report ranks Stony Brook among the top 40 public universities in the nation and Kiplinger named it one of the 35 best values in public colleges. One of four University Center campuses in the SUNY system, Stony Brook co-manages Brookhaven National Laboratory, putting it in an elite group of universities that run federal research and development laboratories. Stony Brook is ranked in the top 1 percent of the world’s higher education institutions by the
Times Higher Education World University Rankings
. It is one of only 10 universities nationwide recognized by the National Science Foundation for combining research with undergraduate education. As the largest single-site employer on Long Island, Stony Brook is a driving force of the regional economy, with an annual economic impact of $4.65 billion, generating nearly 60,000 jobs, and accounts for nearly 4 percent of all economic activity in Nassau and Suffolk counties, and roughly 7.5 percent of total jobs in Suffolk County.
###
Reporter Contact:
Lauren Sheprow; 631-632-6310
Follow us on Twitter @sbunewsdesk
