The Laurie Riley ‘82 Center for Career Success recently published its 2024-25 annual report, highlighting the changes and reach that the center has had on campus.
Most prominently, the Center was renamed and has fully transitioned to the Career Success Team cohort model, restructuring its support for students during their Moravian experience. Upperclassmen will recall the Center for Career and Civic Engagement’s previous career strategist model, where students had a single strategist with whom they met one-on-one throughout their four years.
The Center now has two dedicated teams: one serving first- and second-year students, and another serving juniors and seniors. Ryan Smolko, the director of Career Success, works with Moravian’s graduate and non-traditional students to offer career guidance.
During the fiscal year, the Center saw almost 1,500 one-on-one appointments. Compared to the national average of 506, Moravian’s Center has remained well above national benchmarks for an institution of its size.
Overall, the Center received 4,264 non-unique in-person student contacts. Non-unique students include every interaction by every student, even if the same student engaged with the Center multiple times. This shows the overall volume of engagement. This comprised 2,941 non-unique contacts in person and 2,800 through Handshake.
“What truly drives our success is the personal connection our staff builds with students,” said Kristin Eicholtz, dean for the Center of Career Success. “They know they can count on the Career Success Team for guidance, encouragement, and honest feedback. That trust shows in our engagement levels.”
This year, the Center also launched the Faculty Advisory Board to strengthen collaboration between the academic community and the Career Center and to help integrate career readiness more intentionally into the classroom experience. The FAB is a group of faculty and Career Success staff that collaborates on programming, providing feedback, and sharing insights.
They held two Employer Advisory Board meetings and reintroduced in-person site visits for the first time since the pandemic began. The EAB is a group of employers that meets with the Center for Career Success twice a year to support career services for students.
“These opportunities give students firsthand exposure to professional settings while building meaningful relationships with organizations across the region,” Eicholtz said.
The Riley Center is dedicated to engaging first-year students from the moment they arrive on campus. This begins with the Career Launch, a first-year self-assessment designed to help students identify their strengths, set goals, and begin reflecting on their values and aspirations.
Students build on this throughout their four years, revisiting their goals through one-on-one appointments, hands-on career opportunities, and utilizing digital tools like Handshake and Suitable. Eighty-eight percent of our students logged into Handshake during the 2024-2025 academic year. Suitable serves as a platform for tracking engagement and earning digital badges aligned with NACE eight career competencies: career & self-development, communication, critical thinking, equity & inclusion, leadership, professionalism, teamwork, and technology.
The Career Readiness Digital Badging Program earned national recognition with the 2025 Program Growth Award from Suitable. It was featured in a national case study highlighting Moravian’s success in redefining student engagement. The Center saw a 63% increase in activity completions and a 44% increase in engagement across all with NACE career readiness badges.
There was also growth across experiential learning opportunities, with 91 students completing internships for academic credit. This is up from 69 the previous year.
“These experiences help students apply what they learn in the classroom to real-world settings while gaining clarity about their career goals,” Eicholtz added.
Another milestone for the center was the graduation of the first ten Elevate students. These are students who completed Moravian’s integrated Elevate experience with the digital badging program and by meeting with Career Success mentors.
The Center expects this growth to continue. During the fall 2025 semester, students have logged 15,005 activities in Suitable, surpassing the total for the entire 2024-25 year of 14,477. They are organizing new ways to engage students, by offering a professional headshot booth in their new HUB location and by connecting with employers in more interactive settings, among others.
