Call for Institutional Partners (2026–28)
Priority Deadline: December 31, 2025 Final Deadline: February 2, 2026 Opening Activities: Spring 2026
Go Directly to the Application Instructions
About the TX-WBL Consortium
CIC’s Texas Work-Based Learning Consortium (TX-WBL Consortium) is a three-year initiative designed to expand equitable access to career-building experiences for students at independent colleges and universities across Texas. The initiative places special emphasis on serving Pell-eligible and first-generation students, who often face barriers to traditional work-based learning opportunities due to family obligations, transportation challenges, lack of social capital, or existing job commitments.
Ten CIC institutional members will be selected through a competitive application process to join the Consortium. Faculty members will integrate work-based learning opportunities into 60 new or transformed courses, reaching up to 1,200 students by December 2028. Participating institutions will explore new ways to provide supporting career services and to evaluate student outcomes.
The Consortium will partner with Riipen, an online experiential learning platform and marketplace, to offer students real-world, employer-designed projects that are embedded into the curriculum. This approach allows students to gain valuable workplace skills and build professional networks without leaving campus. The TX-WBL Consortium builds on the success of a national consortium that CIC and Riipen launched with 24 colleges and universities in 2023. The national consortium has already proven the power of remote work-based learning; the TX-WBL Consortium will continue to focus on student success but also institutional sustainability and collective impact across a single state.
The TX-WBL Consortium is generously supported by the Trellis Foundation and the Greater Texas Foundation.
Benefits of the TX-WBL Consortium for Institutions
- For your students: Real-world, worked-based learning opportunities that will enhance their academic skills and their future career prospects.
- For your faculty members: Effective professional development, a community of peers, and access to industry partners around the world.
- For your institution: An innovative way to support underserved students, explore alternatives to traditional internships (at no cost), and build institutional capacity for career preparation, wraparound student services, and assessment of student outcomes. Your career services office and institutional research office are expected to be active participants in the project.
- For your community: Make a greater contribution to the economic development of your community, region, and state; demonstrate your institution’s impact; and help demonstrate the public good that private colleges and universities contribute to Texas. We hope the Consortium will become a model for other states.
Overview of the TX-WBL Consortium in Action
CIC will select ten institutions to participate in the TX-WBL Consortium through a competitive application process. Each institution will be represented by a team of three full-time faculty members, a career services professional, an institutional research officer, and a senior academic officer (who will serve as the principal institutional contact).
The “faculty champions” will be expected to integrate work-based learning projects into new or revised courses and offer one such course during each of the 2026–27 and 2027–28 academic years. To the greatest extent possible, the courses should be designed to attract and enroll Pell-eligible and first-generation students, who often have less opportunity to participate in traditional work-based learning experiences.
The remaining members of the team will play vital supporting roles, helping to assure that the work-based learning projects align with other curricular goals and career preparation activities on campus.
To support this campus-based work, each participating institution will have access to the following resources:
- Free institutional access during the project duration to the Riipen work-based learning platform, which connects college courses with real-world industry projects. Use of the platform will not be limited to the three faculty champions.
- During the spring 2026 semester, all team members will participate in meetings and webinars hosted by the Riipen staff and/or CIC. The Riipen-led training and support for faculty champions will focus on pedagogy, the practical management of remote work-based learning projects, and use of the Riipen platform.
- Other virtual workshops and webinars to share best practices and institutional results (at least one per semester during the project’s duration).
- Stipends for the faculty champions to support the development of two new or revised courses ($500/course).
- Participation in a facilitated online community of practice and access to a crowdsourced library of resources.
- A statewide conference in Spring 2027 for the core team members (faculty champions, career services professional, academic administrator). Travel and lodging costs will be covered by CIC grant funding.
- Dedicated grant funds for institutional research offices to support data collection and project evaluation ($1,000/year). An external evaluator will work closely with campus representatives to establish relevant benchmarks about student demographics (especially Pell eligibility and first-generation college student status), graduation and retention rates, and career preparation, and to collect quantitative and qualitative data about the impact of work-based learning opportunities.
- Supplemental grants to support campus-based activities ($1,500 per year in AY 2026–27 and AY 2027–28). Grants can be used to showcase student work on real-world projects, to recruit students for future courses, and/or to introduce additional faculty members to best practices for incorporating virtual work-based learning into the curriculum.
- A supplemental grant of $5,000 (awarded in AY 2026–27) to introduce or enhance wraparound services for students who participate in virtual work-based learning experiences through the Riipen platform. In most cases, these grants will be awarded to the institution’s career services office. They are intended to support pilot projects that bridge curricular and co-curricular career preparation.
Additional Expectations and Obligations
Members of the TX-WBL Consortium will:
- Identify a dedicated team of six people, including three faculty champions, a staff member based in career services, a senior academic officer (who will ensure ongoing institutional support for the project and serve as the primary liaison with CIC), and a staff member responsible for institutional research.
- Each faculty champion will integrate a work-based learning unit or component into a new or existing course, and the project must be accessed through Riipen’s online platform. They must offer at least one such course during each of the 2026–27 and 2027–28 academic years. (The second course may be a revised version of the first course.) If necessary, the senior academic officer will assure that new courses receive expedited approval.
- Institutional researchers will work closely with an outside evaluator throughout the project to identify and collect appropriate data about student outcomes and to build institutional capacity for ongoing data analysis beyond the term of project. The formal evaluation process will conclude with a public report at the end of 2028.
- Institutional teams will submit annual reports on the progress and outcomes of the project as well as supplemental reports on the supplemental grants that support campus-based activities and the development of wraparound services.
- Team members will work together to develop co-curricular activities (i.e., two campus-based events and a pilot program of wraparound career services).
- All members of the team will become part of a virtual community of practice. In addition, team members are expected to participate in a webinar each semester and an in-person conference (location in Texas TBD) in Spring 2027.
- Institutions must remain members of CIC in good standing for the duration of the project (through the 2028–29 academic year).
CIC and Riipen will support the campus-based work at every step:
- CIC and Riipen will work with the faculty champions to incorporate project-based and work-based learning opportunities into a range of professional and liberal arts courses.
- Riipen will add a dedicated hub for the TX-WBL Consortium to its existing marketplace.
- CIC and Riipen staff will continue to advise institutional teams on course design and implementation for the duration of the project.
- Riipen staff will provide technical support as needed for effective use of Riipen’s online platform.
- CIC staff will support and facilitate a virtual community of practice.
- CIC staff and the external evaluator will support all reporting activities through clear guidelines and technical advice.
How to Apply
All CIC institutional members in the state of Texas are invited to apply. Selection priority will be given to institutions that serve (or seek to serve) students who have historically faced barriers to participating in traditional work-based learning experiences (e.g., Pell-eligible and first-generation students).
Applications must be submitted through an online portal. Applications received by the preliminary deadline of Wednesday, December 31, 2025, will receive priority consideration. The final application deadline is Monday, February 2, 2026.
A complete application will include the following materials, which should be combined into a single document in PDF format:
- A Team Contact Form (PDF), listing the three faculty champions, a staff member based in career services, a staff member responsible for institutional research, and a senior academic administrator (preferably the chief academic officer). The senior administrator will use this form to affirm that all members of the team understand their obligations should the institution be selected to participate in the TX-WBL Consortium.
- A letter of support and commitment from the president of the institution.
- An annotated list of the proposed team members, with short bios highlighting the expertise and experience that they bring to the team.
- An application narrative of no more than four (4) pages that addresses the following topics. (You do not need to respond to all of the specific prompts.)
- Institutional Goals
Some questions to consider:
a. Why does your institution want to participate in the TX-WBL Consortium? What challenges or opportunities will it help your institution address?
b. How will participation advance your institution’s current strategic goals, especially when it comes to preparing students for future careers?
c. How will participation strengthen existing connections between your institution and local or regional employers — or help you build new connections? - Career Preparation and the Curriculum
Some questions to consider:
a. Tell us about the specific disciplinary areas of your proposed faculty champions. Why do you want to focus on these disciplines (or even specific courses)? Are the fields especially relevant to Texas employers or especially compelling to your students? How do they reflect the current curricular priorities and/or strategic priorities of your institution?
b. How is career preparation generally integrated into the curriculum?
c. What professional development, training, or other support does your institution offer to faculty members who want to integrate career preparation or work-based learning into their coursework? - Current Support for Career Development
Some questions to consider:
a. How will participation in the project complement and expand existing initiatives on campus to strengthen career preparation and guide students through the transition from college to careers? (Because the TX-WBL Consortium is designed to build institutional capacity, we are especially interested in initiatives that bridge curricular and co-curricular activities.)
b. What barriers do your students typically face in preparing for careers? How does your institution currently help them overcome these barriers?
c. Do you have dedicated programs or initiatives to serve students from groups that may face additional barriers in preparing for careers (Pell-eligible students, first-generation students, rural students, etc.)? How do you recruit students from these groups to participate in work-based learning opportunities and career preparation? - Measuring and Sustaining the Impact of the Project
Some questions to consider:
a. Every TX-WBL Consortium member will contribute to an evaluation of the project’s collective impact. But what will success look like for your institution, and how will you measure it?
b. What longer-term plans do you have to train and support faculty members who want to integrate work-based learning and career preparation into their coursework? Or to support the integration of curricular and co-curricular career development activities? Or to track and analyze student career outcomes after graduation?
Contact Information
For more information about the TX-WBL Consortium or the selection criteria, please contact Philip M. Katz, CIC’s senior director of projects, at pkatz@cic.edu or (202) 466-7230. CIC and Riipen encourage interested institutions to reach out to us before they submit an application.