Background
To ensure the Retail Management Certificate program–originally created in 2000–continued to be relevant for our workforce, a panel of “Industry Experts” worked with a four-year University Provost and partner community college faculty in February 2013 to reassess and revalidate the Retail Management Certificate’s list of competencies. The recommended curriculum updates focused primarily on incorporating technology, and included enhancements to accelerate student learning and increase certificate completion rates.
(For additional information read the executive summary of the panel outcomes or access the full revalidation summary. The US Department of Labor Case Study is also available as a resource.)
As a result of the revalidation process, participating colleges are required to offer a robust, eight-course program, exempt of pre-requisites. Interested colleges must submit a Curriculum Crosswalk form to ensure their Retail Management Certificate program aligns with the recommended competencies and student learning outcomes.
Steps to Submitting Proposed Retail Management Program Curriculum
- Review the complete list of competencies required for each course.
- Review and complete the Curriculum Crosswalk form to assess which courses best meet the listed outcomes.
- Download the completed crosswalk and save to your desktop as a pdf. Enter all course information in the downloaded form and select “Save As” to save your completed pdf form. You may also download and fill out by hand and then scan as a pdf.
- In a separate document, list your college’s selected course titles, numbers, and course descriptions.
- Email both documents to wafc.consortium@gmail.com. Include college name and curriculum crosswalk in the subject line (e.g. American College: Curriculum Crosswalk).
If you have additional questions, please email wafc.consortium@gmail.com.