If you have a chance today, pick up  The Wall Street Journal and turn to page 3. “Colleges Get Career-Minded: More Liberal-Arts Schools Stress Skills Development, Ruffling Academic Feathers” discusses how some universities are beginning to make career development “a mission-critical” part of college.

While the article includes a large photo of Vice President for Career Development Andy Chan and quotes him extensively, it also includes one of Wake Forest’s newest alumni. Lesley Gustafson (’12) discussed how she graduated Monday with a double major in political science and computer science. “The former gives her the opportunity to enjoy the liberal-arts focus on ‘debating and reading and practicing critical thinking,’ said the 21-year-old, while the latter gives her coveted skills to take into the job market this year,” writes the Journal’s Lauren Weber. It’s nice to see national attention for one of our graduates who barely had a chance to send a mortar board airborne. (Gustafson of Minnetonka, Minn., has nothing to fear in the job market. She starts this summer as an entry-level analyst at Accenture.)

The article points to the emergence of a new model of education, as one educator puts it, that blends liberal and applied learning. Chan said members of his team have met with 150 faculty members to encourage them to link their students to career services and successful alumni. Earlier this year administrators from more than 70 schools attended a conference that Chan hosted at Wake Forest titled “Rethinking Success: From the Liberal Arts to Careers in the 21st Century.”

Still, as the article points out, while there is a shift across the country to blending the rigors of academic inquiry with preparation for an ever-changing job market, it is not an easy transition. There remains resistance. Gustafson’s path in future years, and that of graduates from similar colleges, will help tell the story about whether such resistance is warranted.