Future Employees and Employers Help Improve the Workforce

Future Employees and Employers Help Improve the Workforce

At Sam Houston State University (SHSU), Academic Community Engagement (ACE) courses prepare students for the workforce through mutually beneficial relationships with community partners.  Huda Masood, assistant professor of management at the College of Business Administration (COBA), teaches her human resource development course using the ACE pedagogy. Students in this course collaborate with partners to evaluate current training programs and make recommendations.

Through evaluation of the partner organizations, students are tasked with taking concepts from the classroom and integrating them into a leadership or training plan for their partner organization. Students must then present the entire project in class, identifying what need the program met, what gaps were identified and what recommendations could best address the identified gaps. This course helps students gain experience in roles within their industry, develop and enhance personal skills and better prepare them to enter the workforce after college.

One student group, including Elise Longoria, Anna Martinez and Caitlyn Anderson, partnered with a local food establishment and expressed the endless benefits for students in this course.

“Getting that opportunity to have experience conducting interviews and learning about an industry I have absolutely no knowledge of was really beneficial,” said Longoria.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recognized the top three skills among occupational groups as adaptability, detail-oriented, and interpersonal skills (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026). Courses like Masood’s further support the development of these skills, leading students to higher success. Employers, in turn, learn what the future workforce has to offer and how to train accordingly.

“I want to make sure that we are generating a cohort of students that are socially responsible. Another goal was to increase employability, so we want students to be able to talk about something they have learned in the classroom using the relevant theoretical frameworks,” Masood said regarding her motivation for leading this course.

While students have greatly benefited from this, community partners have recognized the positive impacts as well. Through this course, employers can better identify what skill set employees are coming in with, how to better train them and can provide them with resources and recommendations. This course from a partner’s perspective has been well received.

“In mutually beneficial arrangements such as these, there’s an increased interaction between the two parties. There is also better engagement, better understanding and heightened awareness,” Masood said.

In the opinion of Masood and her fellow ACE instructors, courses such as this one are fostering long-term success for both future workers and their employers.