High Impact Learning: How University of Detroit Mercy Prepares Gen Z for the Workforce

Deborah Stieffel, Vice President for Enrollment Management & Student Affairs at University of Detroit Mercy, shared her insights on navigating Gen Z’s shifting expectations during an exclusive panel webinar with Kaplan. Key takeaways focus on the importance of developing original thinkers, aligning unique talent with a mission-driven sense of purpose, and empowering students with resources to ultimately be successful. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.

Share with us a high-level overview of the University of Detroit Mercy along with a quick take on what most excites you right now in the higher education field.

Deborah Stieffel: I'm Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs at University of Detroit Mercy (UDM). We are an urban-based university in Detroit, Michigan, which is a very up-and-coming economy and city. UDM is a Catholic institution, sponsored by two charisms, the Society of Jesuit Education and also the Sisters of Mercy, which is an unusual combination because there are no other Jesuit universities that also have Sisters of Mercy overlooking them.

What's exciting to me right now in higher education overall is the diversity of the students who are looking to come to higher education. We know that there are concerns that they have about cost and return on investment, but I feel that higher education in general is primed to be able to deliver an education that just cannot be topped. They need to be able to think critically and wade through all the stuff that's going on out there. It's been a real pleasure to be here in Detroit, because we're a city that’s indicative of what's going on more broadly in the United States.

How is Gen Z behavior different from millennials and Gen X?

Deborah Stieffel: Technology shapes Gen Z because they're digital natives who grew up with it. They're also experiencing a lot of economic turbulence, more than recent generations. Being digitally fluent, they have access to a lot of information, but it may not always be accurate information.

Many Gen Z students are looking for purpose and values built into their education. Yes, they want the emphasis on technology and social media however they've already curated their online presence. They know who they are there. They want personalization and they want us to help them further define what they're going to do and who they're going to be.

Gen Z is very interested in outcomes and so are their parents. It's incumbent upon us to provide information about our outcomes, how we're going to help them get a job, what that job can look like, and to help set their expectations. It's not just about us helping them, but it's also about them working with us, it's a very mutually decided upon education, and that's probably one of the biggest differences that I see. We're learning from them, they're learning from us, and we're putting together a great pathway for their future.

How can universities adapt to Gen Z’s need for practical career focused education?

Deborah Stieffel: At UDM, we just embarked on a brand new strategic plan and I'm excited about where we're heading as an institution to provide practical experiences for students. One of the goals of our strategic plan is to make sure that 100% of our students are participating in a high-impact experience, which could mean anything from a capstone project, service-engaged learning, collaborative projects, undergraduate research, co-ops, internships, and even micro-internships where a student works on a project for six weeks with a particular company. Providing those kinds of experiences for students is important because it complements what we do in the classroom.

The key is helping students to really understand themselves. Gen Z students want to participate in something that is original. They want to bring originality to the table, and they want to use original thought and original contributions to set them apart from a typical business major with a prescribed list of things to do.

For example, we're finding a lot of students who want to study business, but they also want to study law. So, how do you bring those two things together? Sometimes they realize that they like law better or they can see how those things combine. We have a wonderful theater program here and there are a lot of students who are in technical fields, or nursing, or architecture, who have talent, and they want to be able to express that. They can be a drama minor and participate in the plays that our theater program is putting on to express themselves in multiple ways.

It’s about helping them discover how to connect all those things together. It's important for us to realize that what students are looking for is not just your cookie-cutter major, but how we can really help them personalize and become original thinkers when it comes to their education.

How do you blend meeting expectations of both students as well as their parents when it comes to supporting them on a career path and finding a career they love?

Deborah Stieffel: There are often students who are very talented in math and science and may think that they want to be a doctor or a dentist. However, once they figure out what doctors and dentists actually do, they reconsider that they don’t want to do that. When we hear this, we ask, “what else is there?” There are many other avenues that students who want to major in the sciences can take that are outside of being a doctor. It’s about helping them navigate what those opportunities look like.

Our values system also dictates that we want them to see what those values can bring to whatever major they're in. For example, it’s thinking about how we can bring community development into our architecture program. That makes it more interesting and applicable, because Gen Z students are very interested in values. They want to see the good in doing something beyond or doing something different than what they had originally thought they were going to do.

The University of Detroit Mercy offers free test prep to students through Kaplan’s All Access License®. Why did you choose to offer this program?

For context, Kaplan’s All Access License is an umbrella program where institutions have the opportunity to offer students industry-leading test preparation for graduate admissions exams, licensure, credentials, as well as workforce development courses all for one flat fee. With zero out of pocket costs to students, this solution removes cost barriers and unlocks new opportunities as they take high stakes exams such as for the MCAT®, LSAT®, or GMAT™ or career readiness programs such as Critical Thinking or Confident New Hire, among others.

Deborah Stieffel: At UDM, we invested in Kaplan’s All Access License a couple of years ago because we have a lot of students on financial aid. It is difficult when they know they have to take these high-stakes tests to get into medical school, graduate school, dentistry school, or other master's programs. What can set us apart from other schools is that we offer this service and students don't have to pay extra for it.

The icing on the cake to this program is also serving our faculty and our curriculum experts, because they can go in and see where students are taking the practice tests. Our faculty can look specifically at where the students are having difficulty, and maybe even supplement the education in the classroom with some of those areas where it looks like our students may be having difficulty. So, while it's good for students, it's good for us, too. We've been really pleased with that. By taking cost off the table for test prep, it shows our true commitment to student success. And after all, their success should be our first priority.

A core focus of Gen Z is prioritizing mental health. How is your school addressing this need whether through programming or changing the way that administration and faculty think about supporting students in general?

Deborah Stieffel: While 94% of Gen Z students in a recent poll said that they had mental health challenges, it's not only about mental health, it's more about well-being. And well-being is different than mental health. Well-being allows people to achieve their full potential, being in an optimal and dynamic state where they can just be the most that they can be. So how do we help them get there?

We try to model the behaviors and to teach good habits such as getting sleep, exercise, and eating right. Therapy and counseling are available, but peer support is also important. Students are craving person-to-person encounters, so it's really important to make sure that they can see other people who may be struggling or how they're handling things.

I heard a strategy where students were saying things such as, “I program in my day a particular time to worry, and I'm only going to worry during that period of time, and I'm not going to worry at any other time.” I thought, “wow, I need to adopt that myself” and I looked more into the strategy behind it. You find a location, make sure it's not too comfortable, because if it's comfortable, then you'll equate worry with comfortableness. Then think about the things that you have to worry about and split them into two packages: things you can do something about and things you can't do anything about. Kick off the ones you can't do anything about and then try to solve the ones that you can.

It's also important for us to measure how well we are adapting ourselves to helping students. If you monitor and test the things that you're doing to see if it really does help students, then you know the things that really make an impact. There's a lot that we can do as institutions to model and show students how they might be able to handle a lot of these stressors on their own.

And a part of well-being isn't just the individual piece of well-being, but it's the well-being of the community. If we can portray healthy well-being in our community, it filters down into the individual for our students. I want to be part of an organization that has a very positive well-being. I feel like I have it here at UDM and I know that students are coming from life situations where it's not always positive. If we can provide that safe space for them—and students have told us that they feel safe on our campus—that to me is the ultimate that we can do to help them navigate that part of their life and their education.

How do you scale career advising, empowering staff to discuss personalized paths without information overload?

Deborah Stieffel: One of the things that we're focusing on is engaging students with each other in productive and efficient ways. We recently implemented an app where students can get on and connect with other students who are in a particular area. For example, maybe they're in that organization or they're in that major. Instead of sending out 50,000 emails to everybody about something that is going on, they can find what they're interested in. That's helping to engage students more.

It's also helping our faculty engage with students, too. Instead of sending emails to all their students, they're forming their own areas in the app, our writing center has its own and our career center has its own. It's another digital platform, but it's also one where students can connect with each other directly. The more that we can find things that are a cross between personal and digital is really helpful for all of us and for our students.

How are you preparing Gen Z to navigate professional workplaces’ cultural norms?

Deborah Stieffel: In the working world, we have to think about how we approach circumstances. The workplace is constantly changing, and some companies are less flexible. For our students, it’s about teaching them how to handle situations with good social skills to communicate. Emphasizing communication skills is probably one of the biggest things that we can do for our students.

What are students saying about the impact receiving free test prep has on their lives?

Deborah Stieffel: It's not all just about cost, it's about the enhancement of the experience you can have when you come to our school, and you may not be able to get that at another school. Even though you may have a similar program, will you have those enhancements at the other school, or will you go to a school that gives you those add-ons that make it worth more? I'm not saying cost is not an issue, we all know that. But we have to promote the value add to what we do.

Empower your students for the workforce with comprehensive exam prep and career readiness tools available through Kaplan’s All Access License.