The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) has announced an upcoming professional development event tailored for educators and administrators within its member institutions. The organization will host a specialized webinar titled “Measuring What Matters: Embedding Career Readiness Assessment into the Undergraduate Business Curriculum and Student Experience,” scheduled to take place on November 19, 2026, at 1 p.m. Central Time.
The virtual session is designed to address a critical priority for modern higher education: how institutions can systematically track, evaluate, and enhance the professional preparedness of their undergraduate students before they enter a competitive job market. Educators, academic program directors, career services professionals, and institutional leaders interested in attending the online event can access registration details through the official HACU webinar portal.
As higher education continues to adapt to the evolving demands of the global workforce, the integration of career readiness into core academic programs has taken on heightened urgency. Traditional college curricula have long focused on theoretical knowledge and discipline-specific technical skills, yet employers increasingly seek graduates who also demonstrate strong interpersonal abilities, adaptability, strategic relationship-building capacity, and clear career mobility pathways. Bridging this gap requires intentional curriculum design that not only delivers professional development concepts but also measures their practical impact over the course of a student’s undergraduate journey.
The forthcoming HACU webinar will directly tackle this challenge by examining a real-world institutional model. Specifically, the session will explore how the Dominican University of California is successfully implementing an innovative pre- and post-assessment strategy within its undergraduate business curriculum. This framework is designed to quantitatively and qualitatively measure student growth across several key pillars, including core career readiness, professional relationship building, the adoption of life design mindsets, and overall career mobility.
By evaluating students at multiple points during their academic tenure, educators can move beyond anecdotal feedback and gain concrete insights into how undergraduate programs shape professional trajectories. Participants in the webinar will be introduced to practical, actionable strategies for seamlessly embedding these assessment tools directly into existing courses, ensuring that career development is not viewed as an extracurricular add-on, but rather as an integral component of academic learning.
Furthermore, the session will address how institutions can effectively leverage the data generated by these assessments. When colleges collect meaningful metrics regarding student progress, academic departments gain the capacity to understand student growth patterns with greater precision. This evidence-based approach allows universities to identify specific areas for programmatic improvement, refine instructional methods, and make informed, strategic decisions regarding future curriculum updates and resource allocations within business schools and related academic divisions.
To provide attendees with expert guidance, the webinar will feature two prominent professionals deeply engaged in higher education and student career success. The presentation will be led by Giulia Welch, who serves as the director of internships and professional development as well as an adjunct professor at the Barowsky School of Business at Dominican University of California. Welch brings direct, frontline experience in managing student professional milestones and bridging the transition between academic instruction and corporate or organizational employment.
Joining Welch as a co-presenter is Marieli Rubio, partner and vice president of impact at Career Launch. Rubio brings a broader perspective on organizational impact and program evaluation, offering participants insights into how higher education partnerships and external frameworks can amplify student outcomes and career readiness initiatives across diverse institutional settings. Both presenters are expected to share comprehensive perspectives combining academic administration, classroom teaching, and institutional impact measurement.
This upcoming online event is being organized and offered as part of the broader HACU-member webinar series, an ongoing professional development initiative coordinated by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. Through this series, HACU continually provides its member institutions with access to innovative practices, expert insights, and collaborative strategies aimed at strengthening academic programs, supporting student success, and enhancing institutional effectiveness across its diverse network of colleges and universities.
Registration for the November 19, 2026 session is currently open for representatives from HACU-member institutions through the designated online portal provided by the association.
