CHS faculty, staff present employability skills research at Pedagogicon Conference

By Ryan Clark
CHS Communications Director

Faculty and staff from the College of Health Sciences (CHS) recently shared their work on workforce readiness and employability skills during the Pedagogicon 2026 Conference, held May 15 at the Perkins Conference Center on the campus of Eastern Kentucky University.

Karen Clancy, PhD, MBA, BHS, associate professor and program director for Clinical Leadership and Management (CLM), and Amanda Hale, MPA and academic coordinator for CLM, represented CHS during the statewide event, which was sponsored by the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE).

The conference focused on the Kentucky Graduate Profile and the state’s Ten Essential Skills framework, which aims to help prepare students for success in the workforce through development of key professional competencies.

Clancy and Hale’s presentation, titled “Developing Employable Skills: Mastering Collaboration and Teamwork!” highlighted ongoing assessment and curriculum-mapping work within the CLM program designed to help students strengthen critical workplace skills before graduation.

“CLM students develop employable competencies and skills throughout the curriculum, which makes them more in demand in the workplace,” Clancy said. “And collaboration and teamwork are often identified as one of the most important skills.”

According to the presentation, effective collaboration and teamwork remain among the most sought-after abilities by employers across industries, particularly as healthcare and clinical environments continue to rely on interdisciplinary approaches to patient care and organizational leadership.

The presentation explored ways faculty can intentionally develop those competencies through active learning, curriculum scaffolding and structured assessment methods tied to Bloom’s Taxonomy and Kentucky’s Ten Essential Skills framework.

Clancy and Hale demonstrated how collaboration and teamwork skills can be integrated throughout an individual course and across an entire curriculum, helping students progress from introductory understanding to demonstrated mastery.

Their session also included examples of assignments, curriculum mapping strategies and a proposed rubric model designed around the state’s employability skill framework.

The work aligns closely with the mission of the College of Health Sciences to prepare graduates not only with strong academic and clinical foundations, but also with the professional skills needed to succeed in increasingly collaborative healthcare environments.

The UK College of Health Sciences Clinical Leadership and Management Program is certified by the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) and is Essential Employability Qualities (EEQs) certified by QA Commons.