Inside Higher Education reports that Furman University in Greenville, SC has received a $47 million dollar award from the Duke Endowment, over half of which will be allocated to the “Furman Advantage”, a new career readiness initiative.  The funds will support student internships and research experiences, tracking of student data and faculty development around mentoring. Furman and Spelman both belong to the Associated Colleges of the South.

Emily Peck of the Huffington Post writes that women of color are woefully underrepresented at the executive levels in corporate America.

“Defined as black, Asian or Hispanic, women of color make up just 3 percent of executives in the C-suite at the 132 North American companies surveyed, which include JP Morgan Chase, Procter & Gamble, General Motors and Facebook. Yet, these women comprise 20 percent of the United States population. White women were also nowhere near parity in those high-level offices, but at 17 percent are doing much better by comparison.”

The complete report, produced byMcKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org, is available online.

Steve Pearlstein writes in today’s Washington Post, about the downturn in American college students selecting liberal arts majors.  Here are a few important quotes from the piece:

• “In the real world, most physics majors don’t become physicists, most psychology majors don’t become psychologists, and most English majors don’t become writers or teachers. You’ll find a surprising number of philosophy majors at hedge funds and lots of political-science majors at law firms.
• “This focus on college as job training reflects not only a misreading of the data on jobs and pay, but also a fundamental misunderstanding of the way labor markets work, the way careers develop and the purpose of higher education.

McGraw Hill Education published the results of a survey conducted by Hanover Research on college students’ perceptions of their own career readiness.  Of particular interest are student answers to the question “What would have made you feel more prepared for your professional career?”

Ellen Wexler of Inside Higher Education, writes about a unique approach to internships adopted by several employers and the University of Cincinnati. Both Cincinnati Insurance and Proctor and Gamble have leased space near campus so that student interns don’t have to travel to their office locations.  Interns’ hours are flexible and accommodate class schedules.

“Cincinnati Insurance hasn’t just pursued this strategy out of the goodness of its heart, or to give students flexible jobs. When it opened its on-campus location, Cincinnati Insurance was having trouble recruiting. It wanted a steady supply of motivated, professional workers, and it hoped to capitalize on the nearby student population. And maybe, eventually, those students would become full-time employees….

“During the summer, interns train full time at the company’s headquarters. During the academic year, they work at the on-campus center, usually for about 20 hours a week. While deadlines are firm, hours are not: students work when they don’t have class, putting in a couple of hours here and there.

“Everybody wins, company leaders say: students get work experience, flexibility and $11 an hour. Cincinnati Insurance gets access to a steady source of reliable, talented workers early on in their careers, before they’re lured away by other companies.”