Across the country, community colleges are rethinking how they prepare learners for the workforce. But too often, “career readiness” still leans heavily on technical training, leaving the skills that matter most in the workplace implied rather than explicit. Calbright College is taking a different approach.
As California’s only fully online, non-term-based community college, Calbright was built to meet adult learners where they are. That means enrollment in programs is 52-weeks of the year, learning is asynchronous and flexible, recognizing adults’ busy lives, and durable skills are core to programs and coursework from the start. The College’s mission is clear: help students not just get jobs but succeed in them. And importantly, it means building a system in which those skills are clearly defined, intentionally developed, and consistently reinforced throughout the learner experience.
From Shared Language to Systemwide Practice
One of the most common barriers we see in durable skills work is fragmentation. Institutional departments may use different titles or even definitions for various durable skills. Faculty, advisors, and career services teams often operate in parallel rather than in sync. The result is confusion for learners and weak signals for employers. Calbright made the choice to tackle that challenge head-on.
Early on, leaders recognized the need for a shared, institution-wide understanding of durable skills. Drawing on the Pathsmith™ Durable Skills Framework and NACE Career Readiness competencies, they aligned on nine core skills, including communication, collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and digital savvy. But they didn’t stop at defining them.
Calbright built multiple cross-functional teams that brought together Learning and Instruction, Student Services and Success, workforce teams, and career services. Together, they created a common language and a coordinated strategy for how these skills show up across programs, supports, and student experiences.
The result is coherence. When Calbright talks about “digital savvy” or “collaboration,” it means the same thing across the institution. That consistency matters for both teaching and signaling to adult learners what they’ll learn, and for employers what skills they’ll gain from Calbright graduates.
Embedding Skills Where They Matter Most
Rather than isolating durable skills in standalone courses, Calbright integrates them directly into technical programs. Each program incorporates two to three durable skills into its curriculum, selected by faculty based on industry relevance. Instructors who specialize in career development introduce the skill, explain why it matters in that field, and then ask students to apply it in real-world contexts.
At the same time, students can opt into deeper learning and expand beyond the 2-3 modules incorporated in their programs through dedicated durable skills micro-credentials. These experiences are designed to be flexible and accessible, reflecting Calbright’s asynchronous, learner-centered model.
The curriculum itself is intentionally practical. It starts with clear outcomes, connects to workforce expectations, and uses scenario-based assessments, reflections, and dynamic, interactive activities to help students practice and improve. This combination of embedded instruction and optional deep dives gives students both exposure and agency. They don’t just encounter durable skills once; they build them throughout their learning journey.
Connecting Skill Development to Real Opportunity
Calbright’s approach doesn’t end in the classroom. Durable skills development is tightly linked to career services and workforce opportunities. Students move from building skills to learning how to communicate them, through job search micro-credentials, workshops, and ongoing collaboration between instructional teams and career advisors.
That connection shows up in tangible ways:
- Work-based learning experiences supported by platforms like Riipen
- Paid micro-internships following program completion
- Direct engagement with employers through advisory councils and projects
- Regular career readiness workshops and 1:1 support
- Collaborative workshops exploring ways for students to build durable skills inside and outside the classroom
These opportunities reflect an intentionally built continuum where skill-building doesn’t stop at the edge of a course but extends into the moments that matter most for career entry. Students are learning the foundational mindsets and dispositions that allow these skills to be developed. Then, they are applying them, practicing them, and preparing to signal them in real hiring contexts.
Building Signals That Employers Can Trust
Calbright initially explored ways to recognize durable skills through smaller skill-based indicators, such as badging. However, the institution’s focus is on issuing certificates, which represent more meaningful and credible signals of learning. This includes developing stackable micro-credentials and certificate pathways that demonstrate mastery of durable skills within a competency-based model.
This evolution is important. Employers consistently identify durable skills as critical to workforce success, yet they are often the most difficult skills to assess and verify. By embedding these competencies into validated learning experiences and institutionally recognized credentials, Calbright is helping create clearer, more trusted signals of student capability and career readiness.
Lessons from Calbright’s Model
Calbright’s work reinforces several lessons we see across leading institutions:
- Durable skills cannot live in silos. They require coordination across academic programs, student supports, and employer engagement.
- Shared language is foundational. Without it, consistency and credibility break down.
- Integration matters more than intention. Embedding skills into real coursework and experiences drives actual development.
- Signals are the next frontier. If skills cannot be clearly communicated, their value is lost in translation.
Perhaps most importantly, Calbright demonstrates that this work is possible at scale when it is treated as core to the mission, not as an add-on.
Learn more about the Pathsmith™ Durable Skills Framework.
