Profile of a Faculty Work-Integrated Learning Champion

At many colleges and universities, work-integrated learning (WIL) is widely recognized as a high-impact practice but rarely supported at the desired scale due to economic fluctuations impacting employer participation, geography, lack of funding and/or internal capacity constraints. Few campuses have the centralized infrastructure, staffing, or resources needed to design, broker, and sustain WIL opportunities across all its constituent students, programs and industries. In this environment, faculty play a critical, and often under-acknowledged, role.

WIL is one of the most powerful levers faculty have to ensure that courses and programs keep pace with rapidly changing workforce needs. Plus, WIL strengthens academic relevance, deepens employer engagement, and expands learners’ access to real-world learning that builds career readiness.

Across its network and key initiatives, like the Connecticut Tech Talent Accelerator and the Faculty Innovation Fellowship, BHEF consistently observes the emergence of faculty WIL champions: individuals who step beyond formal job descriptions to make WIL work for students. In fact, research from NACE, AAC&U and SEE indicates that roughly 27% of faculty facilitate, lead or coordinate internship or work-based experiences. 

Traits of a Faculty WIL Champion

These faculty champions often take on multiple roles simultaneously. They proactively collaborate with employers to design WIL opportunities that align with learning outcomes and program requirements. Over time, many become trusted sources of talent for employer partners, leading to sustained or even expanded pipelines of opportunities for learners. They frequently play a matching role, helping employers identify learners who are well-suited for specific projects, internships, and eventually full-time roles. Often, individual faculty are able to pilot an approach to WIL or a new WIL model that creates a proof point for greater investment by an employer partner or a scaled institutional strategy.

Faculty WIL champions also engage beyond the campus. For example, some interact with state or local workforce entities, include chambers of commerce or regional/sector partnerships, to increase awareness of funding, initiatives, or partnership opportunities that benefit learners and employers alike. They participate in peer learning experiences to share lessons learned, strengthen their practices, and build relationships with colleagues doing similar work elsewhere. And they often collect data on learner participation and outcomes and use that information to tell a compelling story about impact and to advocate for expanded partnerships.

Importantly, these faculty members frequently serve as informal resources for other faculty within and beyond their departments, helping colleagues navigate employer relationships, curriculum alignment, and institutional processes.

Supporting Faculty WIL Champions for Impact

However, much of this work is unpaid, unrecognized, and well outside the formal scope of faculty roles. Institutions that are serious about expanding high-quality WIL should intentionally recognize and support these faculty champions. This can include considering WIL contributions in promotion and advancement decisions; providing micro-grants, stipends, or course release time to support innovation; and nominating faculty for national fellowships or professional learning opportunities.

Equally important, institutional leadership can ensure faculty’s work is visible across campus and create platforms for them to share the value of WIL for learners, employers, and the institution as a whole. Connecting these faculty with administrators and peers across units can help reduce bureaucratic friction and unlock efficiencies to enable scale.

Faculty WIL champions are already expanding capacity from within. Research from SEE also points to the role institutional context plays in shaping how WIL is valued and implemented, underscoring the importance of aligning structures, culture, and leadership to strengthen and sustain faculty-led efforts.

BHEF offers technical assistance to its network members, as well as on a fee-for-service basis for those outside the network through its WIL Innovation Center. To learn more, share your contact information here.