Can you recall your very first professional interview? The person behind the desk may have said something like: “Tell us about a situation where you encountered a problem and how you solved it” or “Tell us about a time when you were required to act as a leader.” If all your jobs up to that point had been serving ice cream or bussing tables, it was likely difficult to come up with a good answer on the spot.
You knew you had solved problems and been a leader at some point during your college career, but you weren’t sure exactly how to tell that story.
In today’s competitive landscape, the ability to clearly articulate foundational skills, such as critical thinking and leadership, is not just helpful but essential. However, for the most part, higher education still relies on a tool that tells only part of a student’s story: the traditional academic transcript.
Grades matter, of course, but they capture only a fraction of what a student learns during college. They don’t necessarily reflect the analytical thinking sharpened in a lab, the leadership practiced through student organizations or the creativity refined during complex class projects. And as employers increasingly look for these intangible yet foundational skills, higher education must find ways to document them.
At the University of Georgia, we tackled this challenge head-on. The result is the comprehensive learner record at UGA, a new digital credential that captures the full breadth of a student’s learning, both inside and outside the classroom. This fall, we rolled out the CLR to all 36,000 of UGA’s undergraduate and graduate students, making us the first university to implement this type of system on such a large scale.
Fiona Liken, Associate Vice President for Instruction and Registrar, and Shefali Dhar, Senior IT Director for Instruction, are preparing to share the CLR at the upcoming Digital Credentials Summit in Philadelphia.
Building the CLR with Faculty, Staff, Students and Employers
Creating the CLR took several years of ideating and planning, and it required campuswide collaboration. My colleagues in the Office of Instruction partnered with faculty and staff across UGA to uncover the transferable skills students were gaining through coursework, leadership roles, projects, research and experiential learning—the skills behind the grades that often define a student’s readiness for life after graduation. At the same time, we worked closely with employers to understand what qualities they desire most in new hires.
Those conversations led us to identify six institutional competencies that reflect the knowledge and skills students should develop during their time at UGA: critical thinking, analytical thinking, communication, social awareness and responsibility, creativity and innovation, and leadership and collaboration.
With the CLR, students can intentionally pursue experiences tied to these competencies by enrolling in specific courses, engaging in leadership opportunities and participating in experiential learning. Students were already doing these things at UGA, but now they have a way to document them.
UGA’s CLR Stands Out Because It Is Validated by Faculty Governance
Even more important, these competencies have been validated. For example, when a student takes a class that includes communication as one of its institutional competencies, the professor has specifically listed communication as a learning outcome. Think of it as a seal of approval from the instructor.
As students complete courses and experiences, they can showcase their earned competencies in their CLR. During a semester, they might earn five experiences in critical thinking, three in leadership and two in social awareness and responsibility. These will be listed on their CLR, and each earned competency can be clicked on, revealing more about where and how the student earned it. The digital record is also customizable, allowing students to highlight the strengths and competencies most relevant to their goals.
This new tool helps students tell a clearer, more compelling story about who they are and what they can do. It helps them translate their education into language that employers and graduate programs understand. It prepares them to stand out.
My motivation for this work is deeply personal. As a first-generation college student, I know firsthand how higher education can open doors and how daunting it can be to navigate those doors without guidance. In my role as vice president for instruction, I want our students to have every possible advantage as they step into their futures. The CLR is one way to make that happen.
While the CLR is designed to help students tell their stories, it’s just one part of a much larger effort. Together with our active and experiential learning initiatives and other key programs focused on student success, the CLR elevates UGA’s broader mission: to provide a transformational educational experience that equips students not just with knowledge but with confidence, purpose and practical skills.
Even with a 95% career outcomes rate, we hear from graduates who struggle to clearly explain what they learned and why it matters. Higher education must respond to that challenge, and the CLR is an important tool in this arsenal.
The comprehensive learner record is more than a digital document; it’s a record of all the intangible skills our students are learning to prepare them for life after college. It is a tool for empowerment, and it reflects UGA’s commitment to preparing students to thrive, long after they leave campus.
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