The Venture Fund is an innovative initiative designed to empower and support campus partners in fostering career-related ideas, innovations, and new concepts for students' career education. This program is tailored to promote collaborative efforts between campus departments, fostering a "one-university" mindset when it comes to student career development. Our goal is to inspire purposeful work, support discipline-specific experiential learning, and help students co-create their unique college journey.
1. Fostering Collaboration: The Fund encourages close collaboration among various campus entities, including academic departments, career services, student organizations, and administrative units. By working together, we aim to provide a holistic and integrated approach to career education.
2. Inspiring Purposeful Work: We believe that students thrive when they pursue careers that align with their passions and values. This program empowers campus partners to create initiatives that inspire students to explore meaningful career pathways.
3. Supporting Discipline-Specific Experiences: Recognizing the importance of hands-on learning, the fund provides financial support to campus partners proposing discipline-specific projects, internships, and innovative career programs. This support enhances students' readiness for the job market.
4. Co-Creating the College Experience: The Fund encourages campus partners to actively engage in shaping the college experience for students. It provides resources to design career-related programs, workshops, and experiences that enrich students' academic journey while breaking down silos often found in Higher Education today.
By nurturing a culture of innovation, purpose-driven work, and collaboration, The Venture Fund is dedicated to transforming students' college experiences and preparing them for meaningful, fulfilling careers. Together, we aim to create a vibrant and student-centric ecosystem that empowers students to embark on purposeful career journeys and succeed in a rapidly evolving job market.
To qualify for Venture Fund assistance, you must:
Register for the faculty & staff Career Collaborative and complete one or more of the following trainings:
This initiative created a replicable model for making career competencies visible within General Education and CTCM courses by embedding them directly into syllabi, assignments, and feedback. Drawing on expertise in Quality Matters course design and curriculum mapping, the project developed template tools for Theme Course and CTCM faculty to help students see how their coursework builds transferable skills relevant to careers, part-time jobs, internships, and volunteering. The model was piloted in Language and Culture Studies with plans to expand across the college. A future workshop and Canvas course are planned to scale the work institution-wide.
This initiative supported a faculty member's participation in a specialized professional development workshop focused on integrating career readiness into language programs. The training equipped the instructor to help students in Spanish and other world language courses recognize the career value of skills like cultural competence, interpersonal communication, and multilingualism — competencies that open doors to local, national, and international opportunities. The insights gained were shared across the Department of Language and Culture Studies to benefit both heritage language speakers and second language learners. The initiative addresses the risk of declining language enrollment by making the career connections to language study more explicit and compelling.
The College of Arts + Architecture partnered with Charlotte-area non-profit arts organizations to offer a 50% salary reimbursement program, enabling paid internships in fields that have historically relied on unpaid positions. This initiative removed financial barriers for both students who couldn't afford to work for free and non-profits that couldn't budget for paid interns, creating a sustainable pathway to real-world experience and professional networking. Internships in the creative sector have proven to lead to post-graduation employment and help students expand their vision of what a successful arts career can look like. The program engaged multiple student organizations across the college, including Niner Designers, Pi Mu Alpha, and Student Theater.
In response to student interest gathered at the start of the semester, this initiative brought two prominent dance artists — one from Charlotte and one from New Jersey — to present to students in DANC 3221: Dance History Seminar. Held during International Education Week, the panel highlighted the artists' diverse career pathways and how their disciplines connect to broader professional competencies. The event addressed engagement across perspectives career skill while inspiring students to see how their developing skills apply to real careers in the arts. The initiative was developed in partnership with the Office of International Programs.
This initiative expanded on earlier Career Competency work in ELED 3111 by pairing award-winning UNC Charlotte alumni guest speakers with the creation of a companion digital resource for future teacher candidates. The guest speakers led interactive workshops on sustaining pedagogies, leadership, and instructional design, connecting directly to NACE career competencies including communication, teamwork, professionalism, and engagement across perspectives. A student worker was hired to build a Career Competency research module for the GREET Center website to document the presentations and extend their impact beyond the classroom. The initiative was developed in collaboration with the Cato College of Education's GREET Center and the Department of Culture and Language Studies.
Building on previous Venture Fund-supported work, this initiative brought two award-winning UNC Charlotte alumni to ELED 3111 to lead workshops centered on leadership development and career self-development in the teaching profession. Students applied workshop strategies directly to their lesson planning and clinical teaching practice, while a student-developed website module captured and extended the learning for future Cato College of Education students. The initiative reinforced key NACE career skills — including critical thinking, communication, professionalism, and career and self-development — within a discipline-specific context. Collaboration with the GREET Center and the Department of Culture and Language Studies further strengthened the initiative's reach.
This initiative set out to connect Globally Networked Learning (GNL) and Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) experiences to measurable career readiness outcomes recognized by employers and career services professionals. Working across offices, the project team mapped GNL/COIL learning outcomes to employability frameworks and embedded reflective strategies to help students articulate the value of their international experiences to future employers. The team attended the AAC&U COIL Clinic on Career Readiness and Employer Engagement to bring expert-informed practices back to UNC Charlotte's curriculum. The initiative was led collaboratively by faculty and staff from the Office of International Programs, the Career Center, and the Department of Reading and Elementary Education.
Students in an upper-level art history seminar took on the full scope of professional curatorial work — researching 24 newly acquired artworks, writing catalog essays, designing publication layouts, and mounting a campus-wide exhibition at the Popp-Martin Student Gallery. The interdisciplinary show drew works from across UNC Charlotte's colleges and invited donors, artists, and community members to engage with the university's growing art collection. Students left the course with publication-quality photography experience, copyright clearance know-how, a finished catalog, and a real exhibition credit for their CVs. Planned as a recurring biennial, the exhibition will continue building an archive of research and cultural leadership for the university.