Introduction to the NCDA Centennial Special Series

Abstract

This National Career Development Association (NCDA) Centennial Special Series honors the 100th anniversary of NCDA. The Career Development Quarterly (CDQ) has played a key role in recording the research, promising practices, and theories that have shaped professional career practice. Over the next four issues of CDjQ,(Volume 61), this series will feature eight invited articles written by individuals who have provided leadership and vision to NCDA over the years. Their articles will highlight significant issues, programs, and accomplishments that have contributed to NCDA's considerable story. There is a New Zealand Maori proverb Kei mua kei muri (One needs to look back to look forward). By celebrating a sample of NCDA's successes and accomplishments, this series will provide what Amundson (2009) called backswing to provide the impetus for future accomplishment as NCDA enters its 2nd century.Ironically, this introduction is written on Labor Day in the United States. Labor Day was legislated in 1894 by Congress 6 days after U.S. marshals broke a strike, killing workers at a railroad car factory in Illinois. NCDA's history, like that of labor, is shaped by the desire to give voice to those seeking advocacy, access, and choice as they navigate dynamic and increasingly complex occupational structures in an effort to build satisfying and meaningful lives. As we write this, workers worldwide are experiencing tremendous workplace changes. Across the globe, many are becoming educational consumers who have learned that it is less important where they learn than it is what and how they study throughout their careers. Today, some fear that they may be the last to experience the American dream while others imagine Abundance: The Future Is Better Than Tou Think (Diamandis & Kotier, 2012) or what Clifton (2011) called in his book The Coming Job Wars. Some hope to find immediate help to move from unemployment to a job or to a better opportunity. Others see the dream moving from one of materialism and purchases to one of finding purpose and relationships within an age of Knowledge Nomads and the Nervously Employed (Feller & Whichard, 2005). Career counselors and specialists know they work within a technology-fueled global economy, where cultural contexts are increasingly important and assumptions about how career interventions can be provided, by differently trained career specialists to meet exponential demand, is changing.NCDA works within a complex field wherein specialists freely interchange the words career guidance, career interventions, career assistance, career counseling, career planning, and career coaching as proposed techniques and models to support the achievement, satisfaction, and freedom of choice in career decision making. Career development is a lifelong strategy for individuals, talent management within organizations, and a human resource issue within national economies critical to a country's prosperity. Career development owes its heritage to Frank Parsons, who helped the poor, underserved, and immigrants a century ago. In terms of a measurable impact on personal, community, economic, and workforce development, NCDA has helped capture the attention of policy makers, supported organizations to best use human resources, and promoted social equity through advocating for educational and occupational access. Most important, NCDA has provided professional development and resources to support state chapters and international affiliates worldwide.Noting the connections among work, learning, and well-being, NCDA's story includes published and private recollections of inspiring careers that empower others. Returning to Boston in July 2013, NCDA will begin its second 100 years of supporting career counselors and specialists at its conference titled Celebrating 100 Years of Career Development: Creating Hope, Social Justice and Legacy. …