Brennan School of Business Earns Awards for ‘Incredibly Unique and Life-Changing’ Career Programs

Preparing students for rewarding careers after graduation helped earn Dominican University’s Brennan School of Business two prestigious awards this year. 

Brennan’s Career Development Program, launched in 2017, was the recipient of a Best Practices Award from the Cooperative Education and Internship Association (CEIA), and a Career Services Excellence Award from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). 

The Career Development Program was recognized for its required internships and courses in career development, as well as built-in mentorship for students through its hallmark Executives and Experts in Residence program. 

NACE noted that since the launch of the program, graduation rates have increased by 35% and 77% of 2022 Brennan graduates had full-time jobs or were attending graduate school within three months after graduation. 

The award recognition “signals that what we are doing here at Dominican with career programs is incredibly unique and life-changing,” said Jamie Shaw, executive director of career programs and employer relations at Dominican University. 

In fact, career development and a required internship will soon go beyond Brennan when it becomes part of the new core curriculum for all students. 

“Career development has typically been a resource students have to seek out themselves, and we wanted to change this model to something entirely equitable,” Shaw told NACE in an interview this year.