Community
College Journal
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY COLLEGES
DECEMBER 2010/JANUARY 2011
The Migrant Workforce
Opportunities for
Undocumented Students
Labor’s $2B Deal
For Dislocated Workers
Getting There
Hot Careers in the
Transportation Sector
Future
Work
PREPARING
STUDENTS FOR
THE JOBS OF
TOMORROW
...
CONTENTS
JGI/GETTY IMAGES
features
36
36
24
24
■ ■ ■
Trading Up
Colleges ramp up industrial training programs to
meet demand for higher-skilled workers.
BY COREY MURRAY
28
■ ■ ■
■ ■ ■
The Migrant Workforce
Colleges aim to improve prospects for
undocumented students.
BY ELLEN ULLMAN
40
■ ■ ■
Innovation Stations
The case for change amid tough challenges.
BY GERARDO DE LOS SANTOS
Rebuilding America’s
Industrial Strength
Trades in Focus initiative spotlights technical
careers.
30
■ ■ ■
Getting There
Training America for careers in the
transportation sector.
BY BOB VIOLINO
40
30
VOLUME 81 • ISSUE 3
For more information about Community College
Journal, call AACC at 202/728-0200, ext. 209.
Cover: DV/Photolibrary
VISIT THE JOURNAL ONLINE AT WWW.CCJOURNAL-DIGITAL.COM
December 2010/January 2011
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
1
CONTENTS
...
departments
4
■ ■ ■
6
■ ■ ■
8
■ ■ ■
IN THIS ISSUE
Back to work.
BY NORMA KENT
FROM THE CHAIR
The role of community colleges
in workforce development.
BY JOHN SYGIELSKI
WHAT’S NEW ONLINE
Measuring student success.
44
10
10
■ ■ ■
44
■ ■ ■
46
■ ■ ■
48
■ ■ ■
NEWS AND ANALYSIS
Wind facility raises bar for alternative-energy
job training.
Report: Post-9/11 GI Bill helps, but student
soldiers need more.
Standards can improve quality of dualenrollment programs.
2
18
■ ■ ■
20
■ ■ ■
VIEWPOINT
Partners in success.
BY ROY CHURCH
Q&A
U.S. Labor Department’s Jane Oates discusses
$2B grant to help train dislocated workers.
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
December 2010/January 2011
20
LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP
Pathways to success: measuring student
attainment.
BY MARTHA SMITH
PERSPECTIVE
Expanding the dialogue
from the White House
Summit on Community
Colleges.
FACTS AT A GLANCE
International
enrollments surge
at U.S. colleges
and universities.
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IN THIS ISSUE
...
Work
Back to
A
s educators and other community college stakeholders convene in Newport
Beach, Calif., Jan. 26–29, for the American Association of Community
Colleges’ annual Workforce Development Institute, much of the focus
will be on how our institutions can help put Americans back to work.
In June, Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the
Workforce projected that by 2018, 63 percent of new jobs in this country will
require at least some form of postsecondary education. The importance of higher
education was further underscored by President Obama’s challenge to double the
number of degree and certificate holders in this country by 2020, which he reiterated at October’s White House Summit on Community Colleges.
If Americans are to find success amid a changing economy, community colleges
must provide the training to help them compete for and win higher-skilled jobs.
That requires both support and money, and comes at a time when colleges must
contend with the challenges of higher demand and decreasing resources.
In this issue of the Journal, U.S. Labor Department Assistant Secretary for
Employment and Training Jane Oates discusses plans for the Community College
and Career Training Program, a massive $2 billion federal grant effort to improve
job prospects for dislocated workers, many of whom lost their jobs as a result of
increased international competition (“A New Deal for Dislocated Workers,” p. 20).
Though much attention has been paid of late to new and emerging careers in
such areas as alternative-energy production and information technology, Managing Editor Corey Murray writes in “Trading Up” (p. 24) about new opportunities in
less-heralded industrial careers, including welding, electricity, and construction.
In “Rebuilding America’s Industrial Strength” (p. 28), program administrators
introduce the Trades in Focus Community College Initiative, an American
Association of Community Colleges-supported program in partnership with
W.W. Grainger, Inc., that pairs students with viable industrial-skilled jobs.
Opportunities Abound
Another career path that shows promise is transportation. As the economy surges
forward, demands for new and upgraded infrastructure are creating jobs in highway, railway, and air transportation. In “Getting There” (p. 30), writer Bob Violino
highlights efforts to prepare students for fast-paced, transportation-related jobs.
Plus, a special commentary from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Robert
Bertini (“Transportation: Design, Build, and Manage the Future for America,” p. 33)
defines the road forward for careers in transportation fields.
In “The Migrant Workforce” (p. 36), writer Ellen Ullman considers the importance of undocumented students to local and national economies and explores ways
colleges are creating opportunities for foreign workers.
Also in this issue, Gerado de los Santos, president and CEO of the League for
Innovation in the Community College, examines the relationship between innovation and the national completion agenda (“Innovation Stations,” p. 40), and industry leaders reflect on the importance of the White House Summit on Community
Colleges, (“From Rhetoric to Reality,” p. 46).
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Norma Kent
MANAGING EDITOR
Corey Murray
ART DIRECTOR
PROJECT MANAGER
CONTRIBUTING
WRITERS
PRINTING
MANUSCRIPTS
AND PHOTOGRAPHS
ADVERTISING
SUBSCRIPTIONS
December 2010/January 2011
John Sygielski
Tabitha Whissmore
Roy Church
Bob Violino
Robert Bertini
Ellen Ullman
Gerardo de los Santos
Martha Smith
RR Donnelley–Liberty, Mo.
Send to Journal Editor, AACC,
One Dupont Circle NW, Suite 410,
Washington, DC 20036; 202/
728-0200, ext. 209. Internet:
nkent@aacc.nche.edu (AACC is
not responsible for unsolicited
manuscripts and photographs.)
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COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL, ISSN 1067-1803,
is published bimonthly: August/September, October/
November, December/January, February/March, April/
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Single copy price is $6. Ninety dollars of AACC membership fees of institutional and associate members (includes
corporate, educational, foundation, and international
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Thirty dollars of membership fees for individual associate
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COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL is available in microform from University Microfilms International.
Printed in U.S.A.
© 2010 American Association of Community Colleges.
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ISSN 1067-1803
Digital: 2151-755X
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
Jerry Parks
DESIGN/PRODUCTION
NORMA KENT
Executive Editor
4
Brian Rees
National Center for
Higher Education
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www.aacc.nche.edu
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from the chair ...
The
Role
of Community Colleges in Workforce Development
By John Sygielski
A
s chairman of the board of the American Associa-
tion of Community Colleges, I was honored to attend
the White House Summit on Community Colleges in
Washington, D.C., in October 2010. One of the topics
discussed at the event was industry and
community college partnerships and how
these partnerships can best educate students and prepare them for employment.
In this issue, we focus on workforce development and how training
offered at community colleges can strengthen local communities and
local industry. Indeed, community colleges are uniquely positioned to
understand and respond to the needs of local businesses. By educating and
preparing the local workforce, we ensure the success of local business, keep
jobs in the community, and, in turn, support the local economy.
A Successful Collaboration
Across the country, there are many examples of community colleges supporting local
business through certification programs, workforce development, and specialized
training. Our colleges play a critical role in economic development, especially when it
comes to developing the local workforce. One example is the long-standing relationship
between Mt. Hood Community College (MHCC), where I serve as president, and the Boeing plant in Portland, Ore.
The collaboration between MHCC and Boeing is one of the most valuable ways MHCC
serves the needs of the community. For about 15 years, MHCC and Boeing have enjoyed
a successful collaboration in employee education, skills training, and career counseling.
Boeing workers and MHCC students benefit from this collaboration—Boeing workers get a chance to advance their careers, and MHCC students graduate with the skills
needed to work at Boeing.
Sharon Birge, International Association of Machinists (IAM)/Joint Programs administrator at Boeing Portland, agrees. “Mt. Hood Community College plays an important
role in preparing our employees for the future by offering training and coursework in
critical skill areas,” she says. “We expect that the long-term partnership between MHCC
and Boeing Portland will continue to enhance our manufacturing competitiveness while
contributing to the economic vitality of the Portland community.”
Boeing and MHCC collaborations include: scholarship funding through the MHCC
Foundation; fundraising events; MHCC educational opportunities for Boeing employees; MHCC classroom instruction by Boeing employees; apprenticeship courses; the
TechPrep internship program (started in 1994); the Boeing Co. Manufacturing Tech Prep
Associate Degree Intern Scholarship; and having MHCC staff work on site at Boeing.
MHCC employees on site at Boeing have a number of responsibilities, including:
providing career counseling; guiding professional development plans; developing and
coordinating educational and training programs for employees; researching, developing,
conducting, and evaluating computer classes and computer lab hardware and software;
and coordinating education and safety fairs, as well as specialty training.
The TechPrep program, a collaboration between Boeing and the IAM union, is a
summer internship offered to high school juniors that leads some interns to MHCC and,
eventually, to an apprenticeship at Boeing. MHCC graduate Dan Jones attests that the
6
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
December 2010/January 2011
transition from the TechPrep program to
MHCC “went really smoothly, and my
instructors at Mt. Hood prepared me to get
a good job at Boeing Portland. Currently,
I’m a machinist apprentice,
taking what I learned at
MHCC to the next level, on
really complex machines and
manufacturing processes.”
Focus on Community
President Barack Obama has
repeatedly stressed the importance of community colleges
in preparing the American
workforce for the jobs of
tomorrow. If the United States
is to compete internationally, community
colleges must educate and prepare the
country’s workforce. This might sound like
a tall order, but if we start at home—in the
communities we serve—we can improve
the nation’s workforce.
Toward that end, community college
leaders must address these questions:
1. Are we aware of the needs of local
industry?
2. How can we meet those needs?
3. How can we better prepare our students
for jobs in local industry?
Boeing Portland recently faced a wave of
retirements and lacked the trained workers needed to replace its retirees. By offering appropriate skills training and courses,
MHCC ensured Boeing a pool of skilled,
accomplished workers to draw from and
helped ensure the continued success of
Boeing Portland, its employees, and MHCC
graduates.
Through appropriate workforce training, community colleges can create a skilled
local workforce, support individual career
paths, and help local companies thrive.
What are you doing for your community?
John “Ski” Sygielski is AACC board chair
and president of Mt. Hood Community
College in Gresham, Ore.
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AACC ONLINE ...
Measuring
Student Success
A
s pressure mounts to improve college completion rates, the push
for an effective barometer of student success also has intensified.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan in June 2009 formed the Committee
on Measures of Student Success, a group of 15 educators and other stakeholders,
to explore the possibility of integrating success metrics at the nation’s more
than 1,173 community and technical colleges.
Community College Times Editor Matthew Dembicki recently caught up with several members of the committee
after a meeting in Washington, D.C., where he asked them
about the importance of their mission.
Tom Bailey, the committee chair and director of
Columbia University’s Teachers College Community
Center, says a national system is the
College Research Center
only means by which to effectively gauge our progress.
“If we don’t have good measures of student success,
then we don’t know how well we are doing,” he says.
For more interviews with national committee members,
visit AACC’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/
user/communitycolleges.
Also Available on YouTube
This Month:
• G. Edward Hughes, president of
Kentucky’s Gateway Community
and Technical College, discusses
the relationship between workforce training and the Completion
Agenda.
• Participants at the 2010 National
Council on Black American Affairs
Midlevel Institute share their experiences and talk about the value of peer
networking.
8
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
December 2010/January 2011
A Call to Action:
Want to get involved in the
Completion Agenda? Don’t miss
our new Call to Action landing
page at www.aacc.nche.edu/
About/Pages/calltoaction.aspx.
This latest resource features the
original agreement between the
six national community college
organizations that signed the
Call to Action to improve college
completion rates, provides a
commitment template that other
colleges can adapt, highlights
participating colleges and their
completion efforts, and offers
links to news stories and other
reports about improving student
success.
news & analysis ...
Wind Facility Raises Bar for
Alternative-Energy Job Training
by Tabitha Whissemore
The North American Wind Research
and Training Center, Mesalands
Community College, New Mexico
W
hen next semester begins at Mesalands Community
College (MCC) in New Mexico, students in the wind
energy technology program will have a 26,000-squarefoot state-of-the-art facility built to prepare them for
careers in the burgeoning alternative-energy workforce.
The North American Wind Research and Training Center (NAWRTC) boasts electric and electromechanical laboratories, classrooms, a lecture hall, and a hangar-like
blade maintenance complex that can house 120-foot wind turbine blades. The building sits next to a 400-foot-high wind turbine that went up in late 2008.
“Wind is the fastest-growing renewable energy,” said John Hail Jr., MCC’s wind
energy technology director. It’s also an abundant resource in Tucumcari, N.M.,
where the college is located.
The program graduated its first class in May. Fifty-eight students are currently in
the two-year program, and with the opening of the new facility, administrators say
there’s room to grow.
“It’s a golden opportunity for local students to stay in the area,” said Hail.
The region is rife with wind industry jobs. Several wind farms have recently
sprouted up within a two-hour drive of Tucumcari. With the hands-on training and
the certification students receive at Mesalands, many are able to step immediately
into upper-level management jobs.
The center is not only teaching students about wind energy—it’s generating it.
The wind turbine helps power the center and offset the college’s electricity bill.
The facility’s energy-efficient design includes skylights for natural lighting and the
capability to be carbon-neutral on windy days.
“We’re doing all the right things, for the right reasons, at the right time,” said
10
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
December 2010/January 2011
MCC President Phillip Barry.
The NAWRTC is a project six years in
the making for Barry, who began planning for and building interest around
the program in 2004. The college
received a $2 million U.S. Department
of Labor grant in 2006.
In addition to receiving state and
federal recognition for its efforts, MCC
formed a partnership with Albuquerquebased Sandia National Laboratories,
making it the first two-year institution
to have a major working relationship
with a national laboratory.
But it’s the 1.5-megawatt wind
turbine, donated by General Electric,
and the opening of the new facility that
sets the center apart.
“
The turbine and the
center are the cornerstone
of the training program.
’’
—Jim Morgan, director, NAWRTC
“The turbine and the center are the
cornerstone of the training program,”
said Jim Morgan, director of NAWRTC.
Funding for the facility comes
from New Mexico General Obligations Bonds. A $120 million bond was
voter-approved in the fall of 2008. MCC
received $7 million of the bond money.
Morgan said it was a great feeling to
receive the support of the entire state.
At the center’s dedication ceremony
in October, Sen. Tom Udall applauded
the college for its efforts.
“The new North American Wind
Research and Training Center will
increase economic development by
training students for clean-energy jobs
for today and for the future,” he said.
...
news & analysis
Report: Post-9/11 GI Bill Helps,
But Student Soldiers Need More
A
Jae Shim/Images.com
by Tabitha Whissemore
new report on the Post-9/11 GI Bill recommends postsecondary institutions devote more time and money to
the needs of student veterans and particularly to training staff with special knowledge about the challenges
these students face.
More than 300,000 veterans have enrolled in college since the Post-9/11 GI Bill
went into effect one year ago. Though its benefits are strong, veterans continue to
have problems transitioning to postsecondary programs, according to the American Council on Education’s Service Members in School: Military Veterans’ Experiences
Using the Post-9/11 GI Bill and Pursuing Postsecondary Education report.
Overall, veterans say they are happy with the expanded benefits in the bill, especially the living allowance, the book stipend, and the opportunity to attend private
institutions.
“That set the good part of the story,” said Jennifer Steele of RAND Corporation,
the nonprofit policy think tank that prepared the report. “But there are challenges.”
Veterans and college administrators said more training is needed to help staff
understand the complexities and protocols of this latest incarnation of the GI Bill.
They added that disability staff should get more instruction on how to handle
service-related injuries, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Transitioning to academic life is often difficult for veterans. Most are older than
traditional students and forced to juggle the responsibilities of school, work, and
family. Though many excel in the classroom because of their focus and maturity,
they don’t always relate well with their classmates. That makes program administrators a “key source of support for the students,” Steele said.
Veterans surveyed also were dissatisfied with the process of transferring military credits to academic credits. Some veterans reported taking years of defense
language training in the military only to receive no recognition for it when
enrolling in college; others entering similar programs at other colleges did receive credit.
“Institutions can think about ways to make their expectations more consistent
and transparent,” Steele said.
Veterans also recommended that colleges include veterans’ programs in their
campus orientation sessions, and that veterans’ information sessions be held during the year.
“Such simple gestures may help foster a climate of inclusion,” the report
suggested.
Its authors acknowledge that devoting more resources to the cause is difficult,
especially in light of recent budget constraints, but contend the federally funded
tuition subsidies that accompany veterans on campus help offset the costs.
More than that, they say, helping veterans is a way for communities to voice
appreciation for their service. The report deems this a time of “historical opportunity” for institutions to help “returning warriors” transition to civilian life and to
integrate into the workforce.
Community College Baccalaureate Association
Eleventh Annual
International Conference
Meeting the Challenge! 15 million new degrees by 2025!
February 25 – 27th, 2011
December 2010/January 2011
Hilton San Diego Bayfront
Register at accbd.org
Additional information:
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BHagan7@aol.com
239.947.8085
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
11
news & analysis
...
Standards Can Improve Quality
Of Dual Enrollment Programs
by Tabitha Whissemore
The programs, in which high school students take collegelevel courses for postsecondary credit, have been billed as an
excellent way to give students a head start on their college
educations. But some say the rapid expansion of these efforts—29 states have adopted quality standards for providers of dual-enrollment services—has raised questions about
the consistency and integrity of such programs. The NACEP
report examines standards used in six states.
NACEP Executive Secretary Adam Lowe said the report is
meant to show states what options are available to them.
The six states studied were Florida, Illinois, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, and
Virginia. The report examines how the state systems approve programs and
courses, analyze student outcomes, share best practices among state officials and
administrators, review partnerships between colleges and school districts, conduct
program reviews, and review how programs are operating.
According to the report, all six states are using some combination of these practices, and some states are thinking beyond them.
The Virginia Community College System (VCCS), for example, has implemented
a six-year strategic plan with five measurable goals for serving the needs of the
community. Goals include access, affordability, and success. Jeff Kraus, VCCS’
assistant vice chancellor for public affairs, said dual-enrollment programs play into
meeting those goals.
“It’s really integrated into everything we do,” Kraus said.
The VCCS chancellor, along with the state’s secretary of education and the superintendent of public instruction, signed off on the Virginia Plan for Dual Enrollment, which sets standards for faculty selection, admissions requirements, credit
awarded, and program assessment and evaluation. The plan is evaluated often.
There are also twice-yearly meetings for program directors to exchange ideas and
discuss issues. It’s something that, according to the report, originated from a policy
and procedure audit of nine Virginia colleges’ dual-enrollment programs.
Gretchen Schmidt, VCCS assistant vice chancellor for academic and student services, said the tone of those meetings has changed as the system has been refined.
“At first, they talked about housecleaning,” Schmidt said. “Now they’re talking
about expansion and providing opportunities for a broader student population.”
Part of that expansion includes increasing opportunities for students looking to
enter career and technical fields, such as IT or construction. By getting students
started earlier with dual-enrollment classes, Schmidt said, colleges can move them
more quickly through their postsecondary programs.
One common thread throughout the report is the desire of states to increase
12
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
December 2010/January 2011
access to dual-enrollment programs
without sacrificing pedagogical integrity. Lowe said that means ensuring
that classes taught in the high school
environment for college credit maintain the same rigors as those taught in a
college setting.
Lowe said examining states’ strategies for handling dual-enrollment
programs could help foster a dialogue
about how the programs can produce
college-ready students and reduce the
rate of college students taking remedial
classes.
The Indiana Commission for Higher
Education and the Oregon Department
of Community Colleges and Workforce
Development approached NACEP about
doing the report. Larry Cheyne, an education specialist in Oregon, was pleased
that the report showed not only what
Oregon is doing right, but also where
the state can improve. He said reading
about lessons learned in other states is
a good way for programs to reflect on
and evaluate their own merits.
The full NACEP report can be
found at nacep.org/research-and-policy/
promoting-quality.
Purestock/Getty Images
A
s interest in dual-enrollment programs
surges nationwide, a new report from the
National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships (NACEP) helps colleges assess the quality of these efforts.
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91
st
ANNUAL
CONVENTION
April 9-12, 2011
New Day. New Promise. New Orleans.
Spotlight Sessions at AACC’s Annual Convention
bring top-notch speakers to you!
Learn from the experts about some of the biggest issues facing
community college leaders today, including:
• Inclusion and Leadership
• Accountability Frameworks
• Employment Projections
• Completion
American Association of Community Colleges
www.aacc.nche.edu/Convention
Registration Form
Instructions: Forms received after January 14, 2011, will be processed at the higher fee. Registration
closes March 14, 2011, at which time onsite registration fees apply.
PAYING WITH A CREDIT CARD? REGISTER ONLINE. IT’S FAST AND EASY:
WWW.AACC.NCHE.EDU/CONVENTION
Attendee Information
N ew O rleaNs
(One person per form. Please type or print clearly.)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
First Name
Middle
Last Name
Nickname for Badge (not Dr., Ms., or full name)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Job Title
College/Organization
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Address
City
State/Country (other than U.S.)
Zip/Mail Code
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Phone
Fax
Email (Must be attendee’s email address.)
Do you have a disability that requires special accommodations? Yes* o No o Do you have dietary restrictions? Yes* o No o (* If yes, AACC will contact you.)
Registration Rates
Spouse/Guest Information
o Package: $735
o Spouse/Guest: $300
(After Jan. 14: $835;
After March 14: $850)
• ConventionRegistration
• AccesstoExhibitHall&Events
• Hail&FarewellLuncheon
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A: New CEO Institute(April8&9)
B: Interviewing for the Presidency(April8&9)
C: Show Me the Money: (April 9)
D: Breaking the Stained Glass Ceiling (April 9)
E: Leveraging Data in Strategic Planning (April 9)
F: The Butterfly Effect (April 9)
!
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OFFICIAL HOTEL RESERVATION FORM • RESERVATION DEADLINE: MARCH 11, 2011
American Association of Community Colleges
2011 Annual Convention
april 09–12, 2011
ernest Morial Convention Center
New orleans, la
Four Ways to Book
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aacc@onpeakevents.com
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Preliminary Schedule of Annual Convention Events
The New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and the Hilton Riverside Hotel
will serve as Annual Convention headquarters for events.
Register today at www.aacc.nche.edu/Convention
N ew O rleaNs
Friday, April 8
Sunday, April 10
7:30am—11:00am
AACCBoardofDirectorsExecutiveCommittee
Meeting (invitation only)
8:00am—11:00am
AACCCommissionMeetings
11:00am—12:00pm AACCBoardofDirectorsBrunch(invitation only)
12:00pm—3:30pm
AACCBoard,CommitteeMeetings
12:00 pm — 5:00 pm Convention Registration
7:00am—8:30am
BreakfastMeetings
8:00 am — 5:00 pm
Convention Registration
8:45am—9:45am
ConcurrentSessions
9:30am—11:30am
AACCCorporateCouncilMeeting
10:00am—11:00am
ConcurrentSessions
10:00 am — 12:00 pm Exhibit Hall Open
12:30pm—5:30pm
PreconventionWorkshops
12:30pm—5:00pm
Workshop A: New CEO Institute: Hit the Ground
Leading (Sponsored by AACC Presidents Academy
withscholarshipsupportfromSunGardHigher
Education)*Part1
12:00 pm — 2:00 pm Presidents Academy Hail and Farewell Luncheon
and AACC/Presidents Academy Annual
Business Meetings*
2:00 pm — 6:30 pm
Exhibit Hall Open
2:15pm—3:15pm
Workshop B: Interviewing for the Presidency and
Preparing to Work with and for a Board of Trustees
(SponsoredbyACCT)*Part1
Exhibit Hall:InnovationsTheatre,Roundtables,
Poster Sessions
5:30pm—6:30pm
ReceptionforWorkshopAParticipantsw/AACC Board&PresidentsAcademyExecutiveCommittee
(SponsoredbySunGardHigherEducation)
2:15pm—3:30pm
SpecialPlenarySession–CompletionAgenda
3:45pm—4:45pm
ConcurrentSessions,Roundtables,andInnovations
Theatre
6:30pm—10:00pm
DinnerHonoringRetiringAACCBoardMembers
(invitation only)
4:30pm—5:30pm
COACMeeting(invitation only)
Saturday, April 9
5:00 pm — 6:30 pm
Exhibit Hall(DedicatedTime)
MeetAACC’snewCEO,WalterBumphus,and
Dr.AileenBumphus
8:00am—12:00pm
AACCBoardofDirectorsMeeting
6:30pm—11:00pm
SocialEvents
8:00am—4:30pm
Workshop A: New CEO Institute: Hit the Ground
Leading* Part 2
8:00 am — 7:30 pm
Convention Registration
8:30am—4:30pm
PreconventionMeetings/Workshops
8:30am—12:30pm
SEEDtheFuture(AACCCommunityServiceProject)*
8:30am—12:30pm
Workshop B: Interviewing for the Presidency* Part 2
8:30am—4:30pm
Workshop C: Show me the Money: Essential
Fundraising Tools for Community College Presidents
(Sponsored by CRD)*
1:30pm—5:30pm
11:00 am — 12:00 pm Exhibit Hall DedicatedTime
Monday, April 11
7:00am—8:30am
BreakfastMeetings
8:00 am — 5:00 pm
Convention Registration
8:30am—9:45am
SpotlightSessions
9:30am—12:00pm
NewOrleansCityTour*
10:00am—11:00am
ConcurrentSessions
10:00 am — 4:00 pm Exhibit Hall
Workshop D: Breaking the Stained Glass Ceiling:
Preparing Administrators from Diverse Groups for
Executive Level Positions*
11:00 am — 12:30 pm Exhibit Hall DedicatedTime
9:00am—4:00pm
Workshop E: Leveraging Data in Strategic Planning:
Building Institutional Capacity (Sponsored by Datatel
and AACC FLI)*
12:30pm—1:45pm
SpotlightSessions
12:00pm—2:30pm
PresidentsAcademyExecutiveCommitteeMeeting
(invitation only)
2:00pm—3:00pm
ConcurrentSessions,Roundtables,and
InnovationsTheatre
3:00 pm — 3:45 pm
Exhibit Hall & Grand Prize Drawing (DedicatedTime)
1:00pm—4:30pm
Workshop F: The Butterfly Effect: Working with
a Board of Trustees (For New and Experienced
Presidents only) (SponsoredbyACCT)*
9:00am—4:00pm
11:15 am — 12:15 pm Exhibit Hall: InnovationsTheatre,PosterSessions,
and Roundtables
3:45pm—4:45pm
ConcurrentSessions
6:15 pm — 9:00 pm
Gala Reception and Dinner to Honor
Outstanding Alumni*
3:30pm—4:15pm
ConventionOrientation
5:00 pm — 6:30 pm
Opening Session
Tuesday, April 12
6:30 pm — 8:00 pm
Grand Opening–Exhibit Hall
8:00 am — 10:00 am
Convention Registration
8:00pm—11:30pm
SocialEvents
8:45am—9:45am
ConcurrentSessions
Connect with the American Association of Community Colleges on:
10:00 am — 12:00 pm Plenary Session w/Brunch*
www.facebook.com/CommCollege
www.twitter.com/Comm_College
*TicketRequired
Resources for the
Community College Professional
Fostering Civility on Campus
Judy Rookstool
Order # 1494
$38 nonmembers/$30 AACC members
A Fieldbook for Community
College Online Instructors
Kent Farnsworth and Teresa Brawner Bevis
Order # 1610
$38 AACC members/nonmembers
Core Indicators of Effectiveness
for Community Colleges
3rd Edition
Richard Alfred, Christopher Shults, and Jeffrey Seybert
Order # 1601
$33 nonmembers/$26 AACC members
Reinventing the Open Door College:
Transformational Strategies for
Community Colleges
Edited by Gunder Myran
Order # 1637
$53 nonmembers/$42 AACC members
Satisfaction Guaranteed
Preview books and order at
www.aacc.nche.edu/Bookstore
Call 800-250-6557
viewpoint ...
Career Connections
Colleges, workforce groups offer assistance for dislocated workers
By Roy Church
I
mproving educational attainment is a goal shared by many—
particularly those in higher education and workforce development.
Increasing the number of students who complete degrees, certificates,
and other credentials with value in the workplace is vital to our collective economic prosperity. At Ohio’s Lorain County Community College
(LCCC), in accordance with mandates from the Ohio Board of Regents
Strategic Plan for Higher Education to graduate more students, we place
a high priority on this urgent mission and recognize that we cannot realize our full
potential as an institution if we work in isolation.
It is imperative that we
Roy
enter into and sustain deep
Church
and authentic partnerships,
particularly with our community’s workforce systems.
In many communities
across the country, this
seems a daunting task. The
mission of higher education and local workforce
investment boards is not
always congruent and, until
reauthorization of the federal Workforce
Investment Act (WIA), will never be recognized as such by our nation’s leaders.
There is misunderstanding—animosity, even—between our workforce and
educational systems. One-Stop workforce
training centers often see higher education as interested only in getting Individual Training Accounts for prospective
WIA or Trade Assistance Act-eligible college enrollees. Community colleges and
adult career technical education centers
often put in place career and job placement services that work parallel to, but
independent of, the existing One-Stop
system. In the policy realm, interests are
competing rather than mutually supportive. Compounding matters, colleges and
workforce systems are subject to nearannual budget cuts, despite increased
demand for their services.
The economic situation in Lorain
County became so severe these past 18
months that our local workforce and
educational systems had no choice but to
18
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
December 2010/January 2011
reconcile their differences in favor of responding to the needs of the unemployed.
As president of LCCC, I have witnessed this progress firsthand. LCCC is
building a new system to better serve
transitioning adults, and our efforts
have earned us recognition as the
winner of the 2010 Best Practice for
One-Stops in Ohio. LCCC’s Stimulate
Your Career program, which pairs unemployed workers with new job-training
programs, received a grant from the
federal Fund for the Improvement of
Postsecondary Education. The grant has
been influential in helping our college
recruit, enroll, retain, and graduate transitioning adults committed to advancing
their career and job opportunities.
This effort was not born overnight,
but out of partnerships between postsecondary institutions, county government, and private-sector organizations
as part of the Lorain County Growth
Partnership (www.lcgp.net).
Our work shed light on three dimensions of innovation and integration credited with improving our local economy.
1.Full integration of LCCC career development and employment services
with our local One-Stop, the Employment netWork. This year we opened
the Employment netWork@LCCC as
a satellite center with services that
complement, not replace, those at the
primary One-Stop.
2.We also launched Adult Transition
Services@LCCC as an integrated
approach to student support services.
Collaboration between the employment and career services staff with
those in financial and enrollment
services is foundational to this
approach. Engagement with transitioning adults begins with their
commitment to setting career, educational, and employment goals through
a set of personalized services and
online tools. Once the adult student
has declared his or her goal, support
services are deployed to ensure their
success. The model is intended to
...
“
It is imperative that
we enter into and sustain
deep and authentic
partnerships, particularly
with our community’s
workforce systems.
’’
serve adults choosing career change,
advancement, or increased pay in
current jobs as their educational goal.
3.Academic innovations: In partnership with student support services,
new education and training programs
and delivery systems are a priority
to graduate more students who meet
the needs of employers and the new
economy. While engaging academic
leadership in the workforce development agenda is nothing new, it is
often reduced to a series of noncredit
programs with no interaction within
the true academic community.
An example that cuts across these
three dimensions is LCCC’s recent
design of one-year credit certificates for
dislocated workers in Lorain County.
With the flexibility of the WIA and
federal Recovery Act funds, our WIB
issued a request for proposals to postsecondary educational institutions for
class-size technical training programs.
LCCC responded with four one-year
Viewpoint
credit certificates (along a career pathway to an associate degree) for dislocated workers.
All were funded and proved successful for adults, mostly age 40 and up
with limited college experience. These
students were placed in cohorts and
assisted in every phase of student
services, including career discovery,
academic advisement, financial,
services, assessments, tutoring, credentialing, preparation for job search, and
subsequent placement.
Though I am proud of our accomplishments at LCCC, we still have much to
do. Part of our federal grant requires us
to work with the American Association
of Community Colleges and to network
with other community colleges that
also are working on how, in partnership
with their respective workforce systems,
to achieve greater success in enrolling,
retaining, graduating, and placing transitioning adults into career jobs. We invite
you to participate in this network. If
you are interested, we hope you will join
the cause. Good luck to us all.
Roy Church is president of Lorain County
Community College in Lorain, Ohio.
Wallace State Community College is widely recognized for its tradition of excellence,
comprehensive educational offerings and unique opportunities. WSCC enrolls
approximately 6,000 students and offers more than 50 programs of study in academic,
health and technical programs in addition to an unlimited number of transfer options. A
blend of modern and old, Wallace State is a charming campus spanning 250 acres, with
41 buildings located in Hanceville, AL.
The college would like to announce the following job opening:
Vice President of Administrative Services
To view the job vacancy announcement and application procedure for this position, please
visit our web site at http://www.wallacestate.edu/employment/faculty-positions.html
Deadline for application packets is
January 7, 2011 at 2:00 p.m.
Wallace State Community College is an AA/EEO Employer.
December 2010/January 2011
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
19
Q&a ...
Labor’s $2B grant focuses on career retraining
T
he U.S. Department of Labor this month will begin
soliciting grant applications for its long-awaited Community
College and Career Training Program (CCCTP), a massive
$2 billion, multiyear effort that encourages colleges to
create job-training courses for dislocated workers.
Administrators say the program, an offshoot of President Obama’s
ambitious and ultimately stalled American Graduation Initiative (AGI),
will help put Americans back to work while contributing to the president’s goal of increasing the number of U.S. postsecondary degree and
certificate holders.
Under the agreement, institutions of higher education, including community
colleges, are asked to submit proposals for job-training programs aimed at workers
eligible for federal Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA)—namely, those unemployed
who lost their jobs as a result of international trade.
20
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
December 2010/January 2011
U.S. Labor Department Assistant Secretary
for Employment and Training Jane Oates
(left) meets with workers as part of a
federal job-training program.
Grants will be awarded over a threeyear period with minimum grants of
$2.5 million a year. Originally part
of the 2009 American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act, but not funded,
the CCCTP found its way into the
health care reconciliation bill, where it
survived despite the same fierce budget
negotiations that eventually sealed
AGI’s fate.
To help colleges better understand
the program and how students can
benefit from it, Labor Department
Assistant Secretary for Employment
and Training Jane Oates talked with
Journal Managing Editor Corey Murray.
What follows is an excerpt of that
conversation.
MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GEtty IMAGEs
A New Deal for
Dislocated Workers
...
JOURNAL: Tell me a little bit about
what the Department of Labor hopes to
accomplish with this grant program.
How can this $2 billion really help
community colleges in the job-training
arena?
nity colleges to produce an additional
5 million degree and certificate holders
by 2020. How will this grant program
help colleges meet that goal?
OATES: There is no way to get to the
president’s number simply by building
on 18-year-olds. This grant represents
a way to get a population that might
have defined itself as not going to college, going back to college. We think
that by adding the relevance of job
training and credentialing and degrees
associated with getting a good job
that we are going to lure a lot of folks
back to college to get that degree or
industry-recognized certification who
never would have come back before.
We’re doing everything with this
grant in collaboration with the U.S.
Department of Education (ED). Because we really believe that, had AGI
gone forward, ED would have worked
in partnership with us. This is a real
joint effort to make sure that we’re not
only adhering to the president’s goal
JANE OATES: This program is about
capacity building. At a time when
all community colleges are resourcestrapped and literally bursting at the
seams, the last thing these colleges are
able to do is to think about programs
that they should expand, programs
they need to restructure, or programs
they need to create. This money will
allow them to do all of that based on
strong evidence about what works on
their campuses.
JOURNAL: President Obama has
stressed the importance of community colleges to the nation’s economic
recovery. At the White House Summit
on Community Colleges in October, he
reiterated his challenge, asking commu-
Q&a
of more college graduates and at least
one year of postsecondary education
for all Americans, but that we are really
spotlighting community colleges as a
guiding light to get us permanently out
of this recession and back onto strong
economic footing in every community.
JOURNAL: When we initially reviewed
the grant, the language seemed very
targeted—focused on workers eligible
for TAA. Does this focus limit the
reach of the program, or can these
job-training programs reach a wider
range of people?
OATES: Clearly, because of its placement in the Trade Adjustment Act,
any programs that are created must be
created with the hurdles that tradeimpacted workers face in getting reemployment and coming back to school.
Now, once the program is created,
anybody can participate in it. But there
would be some populations who very
clearly wouldn’t be in the design of this
Call for Presentations
We invite you to submit presentation proposals for the 2011 NISOD International Conference on
Teaching and Leadership Excellence. This conference has been the largest conference to focus on
community colleges for the past four years. Don’t miss out! Submit your presentation proposal today!
This year’s presentation strands include:
• Teaching and Learning
• Student Success
• Diversity
• Culture of Evidence
• Developing Faculty
• Educational Technology
• Economic and Workforce Development
• Leadership and Organizational Development
NISOD Excellence Awards
NISOD-member colleges are invited to submit the names of individuals to receive the NISOD
Excellence Awards. Selection criteria are left to the discretion of each institution. Only faculty, staff,
and administrators at NISOD-member institutions are eligible.
Deadline for submission of presentation proposals
and Excellence Awards is December 1, 2010!
www.nisod.org
Sponsored by the National Institute for Staff & Organizational Development (NISOD) • Community College Leadership Program (CCLP) • College of Education • The University of Texas at Austin
December 2010/January 2011
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
21
Q&a
...
to that kind of effort while they are
bursting at the seams with traditional
students.
JOURNAL: One need that many dislocated workers have is an updated skill
set, particularly if a person has been out
of work for a year or more. Job requirements are constantly evolving. To win
jobs, prospective employees need to be
on the cutting edge of their professions.
How can this program help?
program. Some of the great work that
colleges are doing with dual enrollment
with high schools, for instance, you
couldn’t expand those programs with
these funds because they are geared
toward high-school-age students, not
trade-impacted workers.
JOURNAL: So when colleges are devising plans to apply for these grants, it’s
important to ensure that their grant
applications demonstrate how these programs will impact a particular group of
students—in this case, students eligible
for TAA?
OATES: That’s right. Picture a tradeimpacted worker. It’s often somebody
who is between 35 and 55. If you think
about what some of the hurdles are
for these workers—men and women—
coming back, some of them might not
have been in formal education since they
were 18 years old; they might have some
real developmental and remedial education needs. So revamping how we deliver
remedial and developmental education
would be something that directly responds to some of these workers, and that
could be something that people go after.
JOURNAL: What are some of the characteristics of a strong TAA job-training
program? What questions should colleges ask when developing proposals for
this grant?
22
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
OATES: My mental picture of a tradeimpacted worker is somebody who is
a hard worker—somebody who might
have been with the same employer
for 20 years or more—and has a very
targeted skill. That skill might be
something we would call middle skill; it
might be something we would call high
skill. But it usually is not academic. So
how do we take that high- or middleskilled person and work with local
employers to figure out what kinds of
programs would get them credentialed
and degreed and up to speed and ready
to be employed quickly? Acceleration
clearly is going to be a big deal.
JOURNAL: OK. Give me some examples.
What could these grants be used for?
OATES: Some of the things that community colleges are doing already in
terms of boot camps, for instance. Like
truncating and accelerating industryrecognized credential acquisition and
degree recognition by having classes
not Tuesday and Thursday at 9:45 a.m.
to 11:15 a.m., but by having classes
Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to
4 p.m. with a lunch break, and getting
people where they need to be, academically and occupationally, in six weeks
rather than 15 weeks—that’s the kind
of thing that I think that our colleges
know makes sense, but they just don’t
have the resources to devote faculty
December 2010/January 2011
JOURNAL: What is the department
looking for in applications from colleges? Is it focusing on certain highgrowth industries or giving preference
to coalitions or coordinated approaches?
OATES: The one thing that we’ll
definitely be looking for is the evidence
base. Just like when ED has run some
programs, we understand that there
is not a strong evidence base for everything, but we really do want colleges not
just to pick and choose something that
looks good and smells good, we want
them—if there are things where there is
a strong research base—we’d like them
to include that evidence. If they don’t
have an evidence base for what they
are pursuing, we’d like them to explain
in their application why they chose a
particular methodology.
MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images
Workers demonstrate their hands-on job training experience.
OATES: For a trade worker, a lot of
things are going to be about technology.
A lot of these workers—when they came
into the business—didn’t have to use
technology as they do now, whether in
construction or manufacturing or working with a local utility company. When
they came into the business, they didn’t
have to know the technology; now, they
do. Some colleges might really want
to put some effort into using online
as a resource. Clearly, there are some
things—from remedial education to
academics—that can be done efficiently
by workers online. Many community
colleges have dabbled in this, but they
have not put whole credential programs
or whole degree programs through the
test of what should be online and what
shouldn’t.
“ ’’
...
recommendations about changes to the
federal financial aid program. We might
have real policy recommendations for
state governments. Because a number
of states don’t give their colleges any
money for noncredit students—yet, in
many places, the noncredit side of the
house is growing at twice the speed of
the credit side.
We’re going to ask people to build their
own evaluations—how they would evaluate
themselves—into these grants. And we hope
that is game-changing on campuses.
JOURNAL: What about community
colleges? What can they hope to glean?
JOURNAL: Aside from putting people
back to work, might this program also
help the administration better understand how to serve a changing U.S.
workforce? What does your department hope to learn?
We’re going to ask people to build
their own evaluations—how they
would evaluate themselves—into these
grants. And we hope that is gamechanging on campuses. For those campuses that have been making decisions
under fire at the eleventh hour, we’d
like them to sit back, catch their breath,
and really describe to us how databased decisionmaking played into their
proposal. We want the evidence base
on why they chose a particular project.
And we want the evidence base on why
they are pursuing the pedagogical reasons for doing something differently.
Q&a
OATES: The real mind shift for community colleges is to remember that
this is not about direct services. This
is not about providing counseling or
transportation. It’s not about providing
tuition or childcare. What it’s about is
rethinking the way your college goes
about doing all these things—all of
those things that we know people need,
this is a real opportunity to structurally
rethink how it’s done on your campus.
And this money could pay for any of
that rethinking.
OATES: Certainly, we will share all
the curricula developed and all the
lessons learned from the individual
grants. But we also think that recommendations will emerge for the federal
government. There might be recommendations around how we count
students, for instance. There might be
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December 2010/January 2011
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
23
Feature
BY COREY MURRAY
TRADING UP
W
hen Dale Townsend lost his job
manufacturing car and truck seats
at a Lear assembly plant in 2008,
he made a decision. At 52, and with
the U.S. auto industry on the verge
of collapse, he enrolled at Blackhawk Technical
College in Janesville, Wis., trading in 17 years of
factory experience for a career in heating and air
conditioning.
24
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
December 2010/January 2011
“What I enjoy doing is troubleshooting
and fixing things,” says Townsend, who
plans to leave Blackhawk in May after a
year and a half of full-time schooling as a
certified HVAC technician. “I saw this as
a good opportunity to springboard and
go off into another area.”
As the U.S. economy slowly rebounds,
the nation’s community colleges are
focused on putting Americans back to
photos courtesy lee college
colleges ramP
uP industrial
training Programs
to meet demand
For higher-skilled
Workers
Students participate in various industrial trade programs at Lee College in Texas.
work. Across the country, training
programs in emerging career fields,
including nuclear, wind, and clean coal
production, vie for the attention of
job seekers in search of a more secure
financial future.
But, as Townsend can attest, these
shiny new careers aren’t the only ones
with promise. Dozens of industrial education courses for electricians, plumbers,
VISIT THE JOURNAL ONLINE AT WWW.CCJOURNAL-DIGITAL.COM
automotive workers, and other skilled
professionals are evolving in lockstep
with new technologies, generating substantial earning potential for students
willing to update their skills for the
next generation of work.
Just how abundant are these opportunities? A recent study published by production equipment providers Advanced
Technology Services, in association with
ACNielsen, projects that 40 percent of
the skilled industrial labor force will
retire in the next five years, at a estimated cost of more than $100 million
each to the largest U.S. production and
manufacturing firms.
“The trades are vitally important
and lead to jobs that pay well and offer
excellent benefits,” says Michael Murphy, president of Lee College in Texas.
“At the same time, large numbers of
retirements are looming. Working with
the industries to replace highly skilled
employees who will be retiring is a
major priority.”
Finding employees to fill the void is
the easy part—thousands of unemployed
Americans are in need of good-paying
jobs; providing the updated education
and training to navigate an industrial
landscape transformed by vast technological change is something else entirely.
“The industrial trades certainly require
a lot more expertise than they used to,”
says Rosemary Coffman, interim dean of
student affairs at Lee College. “There is
a lot more computerization—a lot more
knowledge required. Years ago, a process
technology operator required very little,
if any, college. Now, an associate degree is
necessary to compete for these jobs.”
Tailor-Made
It’s a shift that experts say is tailor-made
to the strengths of America’s community
colleges.
“Where community colleges can be
really sharp is by looking at projected
openings and building programs to match
that—or, by adapting existing programs
December 2010/January 2011
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
25
as the workplace changes,” says Jerry
Weber, president of the College of Lake
County in suburban Chicago.
“I think industry itself is seeing the
importance of education and of higherskilled individuals going into these
professions,” adds Lee’s Coffman.
Leaders from both colleges meet regularly with economic advisory boards
consisting of educators and representatives from local employers to better understand local employer needs. If there
is a demand for process technicians, for
instance, officials will look at ways the
college can help. The same is true for
welders, pipefitters, architectural drafters, and so on.
“What we offer mirrors the needs of
our community,” says Coffman. “Fifty
percent of our students go into applied
science and certificate programs, which
leads to direct employment.”
More Than Words
Much has already been made of President Obama’s charge to double the
number of U.S. postsecondary degree
and certificate holders by 2020. Research
suggests Obama’s challenge is more than
a hollow political maxim.
In June 2010, Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the
Workforce published a landmark report,
“Help Wanted: Projecting Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018,”
which illustrated the growing need for
postsecondary education in every facet
20
photo courtesy College of lake county
Feature
College of Lake County student Darnell Anderson, a recipient of a Grainger Tools for
Tomorrow Scholarship, and an instructor use a diagnostic tool to access data from the
onboard computer in a Ford Mustang.
of American work. (For the full report,
visit: cew.georgetown.edu/jobs2018.)
The report’s authors project that by
2018, 63 percent of all new jobs will
require some form of postsecondary
education—that includes trade and
technical careers.
“The day when people left high
school to go to work in the local industry and then worked their way up is
disappearing,” writes Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown’s workforce center, and one of the authors
of the report. “Starting out, straight
from high school, on the loading dock
or in the mail room and climbing to
the CEO’s corner office is no longer an
option. America needs more workers
with college degrees, certificates, and
industry certifications.”
Demand for Postsecondary Education by 2018
New and replacement demand
in millions
16
36%
(46.8 million by 2018)
33%
17 million
16 million
30%
12
13.8 million
8
4
0
High school
or less
Some college/
Associate degree
Bachelor’s degree
or better
Source: Center on Education and the Workforce forecasts of educational demand to 2018, Georgetown University.
26
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
December 2010/January 2011
Creating Opportunity
Across the country, the line between
blue- and white-collar work is disappearing. Even the most manual and hands-on
professions—building, maintenance,
machine operation—require advanced
schooling and specialized skill. Technical
jobs that for years have been associated
with images of tool belts and hard hats
present an opportunity for high-wage
earnings.
SupplyLink facility operations estimates that maintenance technicians
make an average of $56,000 a year. With
overtime, some technicians make well
into six figures. Welders average $35,000
to $80,000, plus overtime.
Recognizing the demand for workers
in the industrial trades, W.W. Grainger,
Inc., a maintenance, supply, and operations
company, partnered with the American Association of Community Colleges to create
the Tools for Tomorrow scholarship program. The awards assist students enrolled
in programs such as welding, plumbing,
automotive mechanics, and construction.
In the 2010–11 academic year, the
scholarship’s fifth, Grainger will provide 75
U.S. community colleges with two $2,000
scholarships for students enrolled in industrial training programs. Winning students
receive the money and a Westward toolkit
outfitted for the trade of their choosing.
In recognition of the thousands of
veterans returning home from war in
Afghanistan and Iraq—many of whom
will soon enroll in community colleges for
updated job training—one-third of this
2
1
1
year’s scholarships have been reserved
for veterans.
Program administrators point to a
recent U.S. Bureau of Labor statistic
that says of the more than 22 million
veterans in this country, a substantial
number are likely to enter occupations
in installation, maintenance, repair, production, and material moving industries.
Alejandra Contreras, a water treatment specialist for the U.S. Army and a
2009–10 Tools for Tomorrow recipient,
enrolled in the water treatment program at Red Rocks Community College
near Denver with a grand ambition: to
eventually develop clean water technologies for Third World nations.
“It’s absolutely vital for me to take
these classes because I need the technical
experience provided to accomplish what
I want to do,” says Contreras. Though
she plans to enroll at a four-year college
and eventually earn a degree in environmental engineering, she says there is no
substitute for the hands-on technical
education she received at Red Rocks.
“With a little skill
enhancement, there is a job right around
the corner.”
—Dale Townsend, student,
Blackhawk Technical College
“I would never have learned these
skills at a four-year college,” she says.
Tools for Tomorrow worked for Dale
Townsend in Wisconsin. After deciding
to attend college full time, Townsend
contacted Blackhawk’s job center and
learned how to apply for scholarships.
His early grades showed promise—A’s
across the board. He later learned the
college had submitted his name for the
Tools for Tomorrow program.
The scholarship enabled him to take
a full course load—12 credits during
the regular semester and six over the
summer. As an older student return-
ing to the classroom after years in the
workplace, getting reacquainted with
the nuances of academia took time.
Blackhawk, like many community colleges, offers refresher courses for returning students. “I needed to get my head in
gear,” says Townsend, who enrolled in
several refresher courses, including Being
a Master Student, which reinforces good
study habits and helps students identify
the thought processes that best match
their own learning styles.
Townsend credits the teachers and
faculty at Blackhawk with giving him
the guidance and confidence necessary
to make a career change and encourages
others in his situation to consider the
benefits of continuing education.
“There are a lot of intelligent people
who are working in these factories,” he
says. “It’s never too late to go back to
school. With a little skill enhancement,
there is a job right around the corner.”
Corey Murray is managing editor of
Community College Journal.
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To learn more about the Chamberlain Education Partner Program, either visit chamberlain.edu/ccpartnership, or
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December 2010/January 2011
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
27
FEATURE
INDUSTRIAL
REBUILDING AMERICA’S
TRADES IN FOCUS INITIATIVE SPOTLIGHTS TECHNICAL CAREERS
In the midst of the nation’s persistent unemployment malaise, the
Trades in Focus Community College
Initiative aims to shine a light on these
opportunities. Conducted in partnership with the American Association
of Community Colleges (AACC), the
yearlong project promotes the visibility and value of industrial-skilled
trades careers and how to match them
with the training and skills offered by
community colleges to deliver stable
jobs and wages.
W. W. Grainger, Inc., a maintenance, repair, and operating supplies
company that distributes a range of
products from nuts and bolts to solar
panel analyzers, understands the
importance of well-trained workers to
industry and through its partnership
with AACC has sponsored Trades in
Focus.
28
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
For Grainger, it boils down to
corporate values. “Grainger provides
the products and solutions that help
customers keep their facilities up and
running, often in urgent situations
when things break down,” says Janis
Tratnik, the firm’s senior director of
corporate communications and public
affairs. “Products are only a part of the
equation; businesses need skilled workers to get the job done. Trades in Focus
fits well with this because it really goes
to the heart of bringing more people
into these critical jobs.”
Skilled Labor Shortage Exists
While the slumping economy continues to dominate headlines, industrial
and manufacturing executives are
managing a mushrooming crisis—the
critical shortage of skilled workers.
The Georgetown University Center on
December 2010/January 2011
Education and the Workforce estimates
that by 2012, the United States will be
3 million workers short across all segments of its economy.
IndustryWeek reports that in the next
five years, 40 percent of the skilled
labor force, many of them baby boomers, will retire, a daunting prospect for a
manufacturing industry that is rapidly
automating and has worked internally
to upgrade its workers’ skill sets. Without more awareness about the opportunities these jobs offer, the shortage of
welders, pipe fitters, and other highdemand workers is likely to worsen.
Public Perception
“There is a real gap in understanding about the need for workers in the
industrial-skilled trades and the caliber
and earning potential for these jobs,”
says Tratnik. “The workforce of the
future is going to be very different
than it has been in the past, with a
greater need for people with technical
skills. People just assume that there’s a
workforce out there that will regenerate itself.”
PHOTOS COURTESY LEE COLLEGE
I
t’s no secret within the academic or manufacturing communities
that community colleges are the nation’s training ground for industrial-skilled trade careers. But outside community college classrooms
and industrial plants, many people are in the dark about the growing
numbers of these often-well-paid and in-demand jobs.
STUDENTS GRADUATING FROM INDUSTRIAL
TRADES PROGRAMS WILL HELP MEET A
SERIOUS AND GROWING SKILLS GAP
IN OUR COUNTRY. —GEORGE R. BOGGS, PRESIDENT & CEO, AACC
STRENGTH
Helping Returning Veterans
The Trades in Focus initiative also
offers resources to help community
colleges work with veterans, who face
a higher unemployment rate than
the general population. According to
the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 10
percent of veterans returning from
Iraq and Afghanistan were unemployed
in November 2010, while the national
unemployment rate in the same time
period was 9.8 percent.
Outreach materials, part of a Trades
in Focus toolkit, will help community
colleges work with veterans. “The people at Grainger are very appreciative of
the service that veterans provide to our
country,” says Tratnik. “With veterans
returning and taking up occupations in
the industrial-skilled trades, the Trades
in Focus program will raise awareness
and make it easier for them to pursue
career interests and build on their military training.”
The Ideal Partner
The reality is that opportunities
in the skilled trades are growing and
changing faster than most people
realize. The jobs available today and in
the future offer exciting, rewarding,
and long-term career opportunities.
The challenges include a lack of
awareness and the perception that
blue-collar trade careers offer less
status, money, and opportunity for
advancement than white-collar careers.
The economy will generate some 47
million jobs in the next eight years.
Fourteen million will be new jobs,
while 33 million will replace baby boomers who are retiring. Sixty-four percent
VISIT THE JOURNAL ONLINE AT WWW.CCJOURNAL-DIGITAL.COM
of those jobs will require at least some
postsecondary education, according
to Georgetown University workforce
center researchers. And that’s where
community colleges can help.
“Students graduating from industrial trades programs will help meet a
serious and growing skills gap in our
country. By stepping up to recognize
the sometimes under-valued opportunities, Grainger is not only helping
deserving students, but they are also
investing in our nation’s continuing
economic success,” says outgoing
AACC President and CEO George R.
Boggs.
Community colleges are an ideal partner
with Grainger for the Trades in Focus
initiative says Tratnik, because both
share a commitment to local communities. “Community colleges are very
service-oriented and help meet needs
specific to their communities; so do we.”
Through the Trades in Focus initiative, AACC has developed communication strategies, tools, and materials to
empower community colleges to better
educate community college staff, policymakers, industry partners, returning
veterans, students, and other important stakeholders. Toolkit materials
include handouts with tips and advice,
materials about industrial-skilled trade
careers, and salary prospects, and fillin-the-blank news releases for colleges
to use to raise awareness about their
training programs.
The toolkit will be available soon on
the AACC Web site.
The American Association of Community
Colleges provided information for this article.
December 2010/January 2011
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
29
geTTing
There
BY BOB VIOLINO
Training aMerica For JoBs
in The TransporTaTion secTor
30
COMMuNItY COLLeGe JOurNaL
December 2010/January 2011
ge
F
Feature
ew industries are as critical to the U.S. economy as transportation. Skilled automotive, railroad, and airline technicians
shuttle the goods and people that drive every aspect of domestic
and international commerce. Community college workforce
programs play a central role in preparing students for positions
in these rapidly advancing career fields.
“A safe, efficient, and resilient transportation system is one of the necessary
components of a vibrant economy,”
says Robert Bertini, deputy administrator of the Research and Innovative
Technology Administration at the U.S.
Department of Transportation. “The
U.S. economy’s fundamental dependence on transporting people and goods
is matched by the national transportation system’s reliance on a highly
skilled and qualified workforce.”
Transportation training programs in
key areas, such as automotive, rail, and
air transportation, are in high demand
on community college campuses, in
some cases aided by grant money.
HAL BERGMAN/GETTY IMAGES
On the Road
The Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) in September 2009 received a $5.5 million grant
from the National Science Foundation
to strengthen the competency and
global competitiveness of the automotive manufacturing workforce.
The grant helped transform KCTCS’
Automotive Manufacturing Technical
Education Collaborative (AMTEC) into
a National Center for Excellence in
Advanced Automotive Manufacturing.
AMTEC is a collaborative of 25
community and technical colleges,
automotive manufacturers, and manufacturers’ suppliers working to improve
the preparation of skilled technicians
and manufacturing engineers for work
in automobile manufacturing.
It counts among its members several
large automakers, including General
Motors, Ford, Toyota, and BMW, says
Annette Parker, system director at
the Kentucky Center for Excellence in
Auto Manufacturing & Workforce
Education and AMTEC executive
director and principal investigator.
AMTEC has several goals; one is to
define a common core curriculum for
automotive manufacturing. “We now
have about 50 faculty from all over the
country working on the development
of the curriculum with industry partners,” Parker says.
Another goal is to determine a career
pathway for young people interested
in pursuing careers in the automotive
industry. AMTEC recently completed a
“pathway model” based on shared best
practices of members. A third goal is to
create AMTEC academies to facilitate
the exchange of best practices during
regularly hosted events.
Several thousand students are
projected to pass through the program
each year, says Parker, and many will
go on to careers in the automotive
industry.
Another effort is under way at
Chattanooga State Community College
in Chattanooga, Tenn., which in 2009
formed a partnership with Volkswagen Group of America to manage the
automaker’s U.S. training center, the
Volkswagen Academy.
The Volkswagen Academy is a
162,000-square-foot facility that combines classroom and laboratory instruction with hands-on training opportunities. It gives students experience with
real-world automotive manufacturing
concepts and equipment.
The goal of the project, according to
the college, is to contribute to a wellqualified, technologically literate and
highly skilled workforce. In addition
to overseeing its educational programs,
Chattanooga State manages daily operations of the training center and recruits
and hires instructors and support
personnel.
Enrollment at the academy is limited
to Volkswagen employees, says Leo
LeBlanc, director of the facility. The
first class was held in March. Students
typically go through 18 weeks of
training in areas such as hydraulics,
December 2010/January 2011
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
31
Feature
electronics, mechanics, robotics,
motors, and controls. Other areas of
study include safety, leadership, and
team building.
“A lot of the people who go through
the training are multiskilled maintenance people,” LeBlanc says. “We offer
practical and theoretical training; this
is truly a working academy.”
By Rail
Another transportation sector experiencing increased employer demand is
the railway industry. Dakota County
Technical College (DCTC) in Rosemount,
Minn., for example, offers a railroad
conductor training program with help
from Canadian Pacific Railway and
Union Pacific Railroad.
When the program launched five
years ago, railroad companies operating
in Minnesota cited a 40 percent projected retirement rate among railroad
workers and an estimated 50 percent
increase in commerce over the next
10 years, says Larry Raddatz, director
of customized training at the college.
The railroads “did not want to be committing resources to training when
they needed people to operate trains,”
Raddatz says.
Canadian Pacific and Union Pacific
donated equipment, supplies, instructional materials, and staff time to
develop curriculum and to plan and
construct an on-campus rail yard. Four
retired conductors were hired to teach
and assist in the classroom.
The 16-credit certificate program consists of seven weeks of classroom and
hands-on activities and an eight-week
internship. As many as 70 students go
through the program each year.
The on-campus rail yard is a quarter
of a mile long and includes three tracks,
two switches, six rail cars, and a track
mobile (a diesel tractor to move the
cars).
Raddatz credits DCTC’s ability to
work with government and industry
partners with helping to sustain the
program. “We have been able to keep
the cost lower with the support of the
railroads and a state grant we received
when we started the program,” she says.
32
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
Kentucky Community College and
Technical System students use a hydraulic
trainer at a Toyota assembly plant.
“There’s been consistently healthy
demand for people with railroad
conductor skills,” Raddatz says. “With
the exception of 2009—the height of
the recession—there have always been
many more jobs than DCTC has had
graduates.”
The college offers other transportation programs, including truck driving,
diesel mechanics, and auto mechanics.
And railroad companies and other transportation industry recruiters are regularly on campus to recruit graduates.
“We receive requests from all over
the country for our graduates,” Raddatz
says. “A couple of years ago, the Alaska
Railroad called because they needed 30
conductors as soon as possible. I even
received an e-mail from South Africa
wondering if we could train conductors
for them. Earlier this week, I received
an e-mail from a U.S. soldier deployed in
Iraq who wanted to know how to apply
when he gets home.”
DCTC is not alone. Gateway Community College (GCC) in North Haven,
Conn., also offers a railroad-training
program. In October 2010, the college
launched the first railroad engineering
technology program in the northeastern United States. Gateway will offer a
new associate degree in railroad engineering technology (RET) beginning in
the spring of 2011.
Work on the RET program began in
2009 after officials from Metro-North
Commuter Railroad approached GCC to
enhance the education of Metro-North
employees eligible for tuition assistance
through its employee union. MetroNorth needed a training program to
backfill anticipated retirement vacancies, says Paul Silberquit, division
director of Gateway’s Engineering and
Applied Technologies Division.
Students who enroll in the RET
degree program can choose from two
specialties: electromechanical or signaling and communications.
Silberquit estimates that 30 to 40
full- and part-time students will enroll
in the program each year. That includes
students now in the college, new students from high schools, people looking
to make a career change, and current
railroad employees interested in pursuing an associate degree.
Even after earning a degree, new
hires will likely have to go through
in-house training at railroad companies,
Silberquit says. “One of the goals of the
program is to shorten that in-house
training, so new employees are coming
in better prepared and can get assigned
to work areas much sooner,” he says.
In the Air
A student at Dakota County Technical
College in Rosemount, Minn., works on a
railcar.
December 2010/January 2011
Aviation industry training programs
also are taking off at community colleges. Mid-South Community College
in West Memphis, Ark., offers a new
program to train aircraft and power
plant (A&P) technicians.
(Continued on page 34)
TransporTaTion: Design, BuilD, anD Manage The FuTure For aMerica
BY ROBERT BERTINI
a
safe, efficient, and effective
transportation system is
critical to the growth and
stability of the U.S. economy,
our ability as a nation to
compete in increasingly
competitive global markets,
and as a commuter network
that provides access to jobs
and recreational facilities
that are important to quality of life for all Americans.
The continued effectiveness
of the national transportation system depends on our
ability to develop and maintain a highly skilled and
qualified workforce, now
and for the future. More than 13 million Americans are currently employed
in transportation-related jobs. That includes civil engineers, architects, plane
and ship pilots, transit system managers, transportation planners, and intelligent transportation systems design
engineers and technicians. America’s
community colleges can play a central
role in keeping these vital professionals
trained, prepared, and up to the task.
PHOTODISC PHOTOLIBRARY
Challenges and Opportunities
The transportation workforce is facing
important challenges that will present new opportunities for the next
generation of workers. Nearly half of
the nation’s transportation workforce
will be eligible to retire within the
next 10 years. The development of new
technologies and business practices will
require transportation professionals to
possess new technical and management
skills. Innovations in transportation
VISIT THE JOURNAL ONLINE AT WWW.CCJOURNAL-DIGITAL.COM
safety; freight shipment tracking; air
traffic management; highway, bridge,
and pavement design; transportation
planning; and transportation systems
management will be only as effective as
workers’ ability to apply
those skills.
At the same time, continued population growth
will drive the need for
transportation services.
The U.S. population ballooned from 280 million
in 1990 to 307 million
today; experts expect it
to grow to 321 million by
2015 and 346 million by
2050. Additionally, vehicle
miles traveled are increasing twice as
fast as the population and are expected
to double in the next 10 years. Freight
miles will increase at twice the rate of
passenger car miles. As the population
grows, suburban sprawl is creating
new challenges in addressing highway
capacity, congestion, land use, and
resources. An aging population, with
a significant number of drivers over
age 65, will require new innovations in
roadway design and safety.
Air, Freight, and Transit:
Growing and Growing More
In addition, significant increases in
airline travel, freight, and transit traffic will strain our ability to meet the
nation’s growing transportation needs.
Unlike the highway sector, we generally don’t think about congestion in the
airline industry, but as domestic and
international air travel increases, it’s
getting a bit more crowded at 30,000
feet. Air traffic is expected to increase
to 1 billion passengers by 2015 and to
double the current levels by 2025. Assuring safe airline travel requires cuttingedge technology to design and construct
mechanically sound planes and provide
effective air travel management. New
technologies to ensure safety, smoother
rides, and greater passenger comfort
are being developed and implemented
now. The Federal Aviation Administration is working to completely transform
air traffic control—from ground-based
radar to a satellite-based system—
through its Next Generation (NextGen)
Air Transportation System Integrated
National Plan. NextGen is critically
important, because the current system is
not equipped to effectively manage the
air traffic expected in the coming years.
Technicians and operators who understand this technology will be essential to
its success.
New design and management systems
for rail freight are also being developed
to enhance safety and performance.
Research to advance the use of biobased fuels and lubricants with the goal
of cleaner air and lessening the nation’s
dependence on fossil fuels is ongoing.
The U.S. Department of Transportation
(USDOT) is investing $50 million to develop and deploy Positive Train Control
(PTC) collision avoidance systems and
other advanced technologies that use
Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to monitor and control a train’s
movements. These new technologies
will help enforce train speed limits,
prevent train collisions, and keep rail
workers safe.
(Continued on next page)
December 2010/January 2011
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
33
Feature
Rail passenger service is moving forward quickly as well. The United States
has fallen behind other countries in
high-speed rail technology and implementation. However, in October of last
year, USDOT awarded $2.4 billion for
planning and construction of intercity
passenger-rail service, with 54 projects
in 23 states. The United States is moving full-speed ahead toward a nationwide high-speed rail system.
The New Green Economy
“Green-collar” jobs and integrated
environmental interest in more traditional transportation disciplines, such
as engineering and project management, will be big growth areas throughout the 21st century. With the eventual
depletion of the world’s oil reserves and
growing evidence of climate change,
the demand for clean energy and sustainable community solutions will continue to grow. The “greening” of our
economy will necessitate significant
changes to the American workforce.
With this focus on “green” will come
a greater emphasis on communities
designed for enhanced quality of life.
The transportation sector offers some
of the most exciting opportunities for
workers to address critical issues of our
time: climate change, resource conservation, and energy use. Transportation
accounts for nearly 28 percent of the
energy we use, whether it’s in delivering goods or services or simply helping
us get to where we need to go.
Community Colleges and
Transportation
Community college students can
make a significant contribution to the
transportation workforce. Community
colleges can prepare students for transportation careers that require technical
and two-year degrees and provide a
gateway for students to four-year and
postgraduate work. President Obama
has referred to community colleges as
the “21st-century job training center.”
Legislation to fund the nation’s
highway program, the Safe, Account-
able, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users
(SAFETEA-LU), provides for a Transportation Education Development
Pilot Program (TEDPP) to develop
transportation curriculum and education programs at all levels. Funding
is limited to $300,000 per year for
each of the four years of SAFETEALU funding, and the grants are
awarded to “institutions of higher
education.” The Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA) specifically
requests proposals that focus on the
role of community colleges in transportation workforce development.
The University of Vermont received a TEDPP award to consider
community colleges and transportation. The project was managed by
Karen Glitman at the University of
Vermont with the support and assistance of the American Association of
Community Colleges. The report includes the results of a survey of community college transportation curricula, a description of best practices
in community college transportation
programs, and recommendations for
future efforts. The full report can be
found at: www.uvm.edu/~transctr/
trc_reports/UVM-TRC-10-002.pdf.
Innovation and ingenuity applied
by a skilled, technically competent
workforce will provide for a safe,
efficient, and effective transportation
network. New challenges and new
technologies mean new opportunities
in transportation for today’s aspiring
students. The opportunity to improve
an industry vital to our nation’s
economic well-being and important
to the quality of life for all Americans
makes a career in transportation both
satisfying and rewarding. An effective, efficient, and safe transportation
system contributes to the public good
and to our strength as a nation.
ROBERT BERTINI is deputy administrator
for research and innovative technology
administration at the U.S. Department
of Transportation.
(Continued from page 32)
“The aviation industry, like other
industries, is facing a future shortfall
in skilled technicians as the workforce
ages,” says Gibson Morris, liaison for
special projects in the office of the
president at Mid-South.
The college will use a $3.4 million
grant from the U.S. Department of
Labor to establish the program. Funding for the program comes from the
American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act of 2009, or the Recovery Act.
The college partnered with FedEx,
the shipping and logistics giant, which
supplied a training aircraft, tooling, and
test equipment. FedEx has developed
a co-op program that will let students
gain industry experience while they’re
still in school, Morris says.
“The goal of all this is to reduce the
time it takes to produce a technician
who is capable of working on the flight
line,” Morris says.
At South Seattle Community College
in Seattle, an Aviation Maintenance
Technology Program provides the
training and skills students need to become aircraft maintenance technicians.
Students who complete the two-year
program are certified to take the FAA
Airframe and Power plant exams and
then go on to work on any aircraft in
the world, says Malcolm Grothe, executive dean, Professional & Technical
Programs, at South Seattle.
There are usually about 100 students
enrolled in the program at any given
time, and it graduates about 40 people
each year, says Morris.
Experts say transportation programs
such as the one at South Seattle and
other colleges fill an important and
growing economic need.
“Across the workforce lifecycle—
from attracting new entrants, to hiring
and retaining the best qualified, to
transferring knowledge to the next
generation—the challenges facing
the transportation industry require
significant, sustained attention,” DOT’s
Bertini says.
BOB VIOLINO is an education and technology writer based in Massapequa, N.Y.
34
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
December 2010/January 2011
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R
Feature
The Migrant
BY ELLEN ULLMAN
R
uby Salinas knows a thing or two about moving. Born in San Juan, Texas,
she spent her childhood summers traveling the country with her family
in search of farm work. Her mother and father harvested fields in
California, Florida, and northern Texas. But they dreamt of a brighter
future for their children.
Opening Doors
“My parents wanted us to break the
cycle and go to college,” says Ruby.
“They didn’t want us, or our children,
to be migrants.”
Ruby signed up for dual-enrollment
classes at South Texas College in high
school. Her early community college
work earned her a full scholarship to
the University of Texas at Brownsville
and Texas Southmost College, and she
was recently granted early admission
to dental school, where she will begin
in 2012.
The Salinas family is not alone.
According to the Geneseo Migrant
Center, 1 million to 3 million migrant
workers leave their homes each year
to work in agricultural fields, many
coming to the United States from
homes in Mexico and Latin America.
The Pew Hispanic Center recently
reported that one in four U.S. farm
workers is an unauthorized immigrant,
meaning they lack either a legal green
card or U.S. citizenship. (For more,
see: pewhispanic.org/reports/report.
php?ReportID=126.)
The contributions of these workers
to their local economies are indisputable. More than 85 percent of fruits
and vegetables in this country require
Efforts are under way across the country
to open more doors to more students,
particularly to children of unauthorized
immigrants. In October, President Obama
tapped Miami Dade College President
Eduardo Padrón to chair the White
House Initiative on Excellence for Hispanic Americans. Padrón will steer a commission of 30 academics, business leaders,
and philanthropists tasked with helping
the Obama administration improve educational prospects for Hispanic students.
(For more, see: www2.ed.gov/about/inits/
list/hispanic-initiative/index.html.)
Congress also has had discussions on
the topic. One effort supported by the
Obama administration and the American Association of Community Colleges
(AACC) is the Development, Relief, and
Education for Alien Minors (DREAM)
Act, which aims to put unauthorized
immigrant students on the path to U.S.
citizenship and qualify them for federal
financial aid.
The U.S. House of Representatives
passed its version of the DREAM Act
on Dec. 8, 2010. The Senate tabled its
version of the bill in favor of acting on
the House-passed legislation before the
end of the year. In September, Senate
hand planting, hand cultivation, and
hand harvesting—jobs largely held by
migrant workers. For many of these
workers, however, opportunity often
ends at the crop line.
The road to a higher education—
to the dreams realized by Ruby Salinas
and her family—is pocked with
uncertainty.
COLLEGES AIM
TO IMPROVE
PROSPECTS FOR
UNDOCUMENTED
STUDENTS
JGi/GETTy imaGES
Workforce
VISIT THE JOURNAL ONLINE AT WWW.CCJOURNAL-DIGITAL.COM
Democrats attempted to attach a bill to
defense authorization legislation, but were
blocked from bringing the defense bill up
for consideration.
“The DREAM Act has always been a bipartisan bill with some Republican support, but
the Republican takeover of the House is not
promising,” says Jim Hermes, AACC’s director of government relations. “It will remain
on our agenda and we will work with our
partners to try and move it forward.”
Taking Action
As efforts continue on Capitol Hill, colleges are doing their part to provide opportunities for the migrant workforce.
“Migrant workers are such an important part of our country, and many of
these folks are tax-paying citizens who
deserve equal access to success,” says
Luzelma Canales, interim associate dean
of community engagement and workforce
development at South Texas College (STC)
in McAllen, Texas.
The college, situated on the border
between Texas and Mexico, serves two
counties—one with a migrant population
of 35 percent, the other with a migrant
population of 15 percent. Ninety-five percent of STC’s students are Hispanic.
“If we don’t educate this population and
get them the skills they need to stay here
in this robust region, it could be devastating to our economy,” Canales says.
Texas—the country’s second-leading
state in agricultural production—has
approximately 132,034 migrant workers,
according to the Texas Department of
Housing and Community Affairs. Agricultural products add an estimated $16
billion annually to the state’s economy,
making agriculture the second-largest
industry in Texas.
It’s a similar story in Arizona, where
Mexican migrant workers have historically been an important part of Arizona’s
economy as miners, ranchers, and agricultural workers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture lists agriculture as a $9.2 billion
industry in Arizona, and the state leads
the country in cantaloupe production.
STC aims to help by offering classes
that better match migrant work patterns.
“Migrant students would come to us in
October and be ready to start college and
December 2010/January 2011
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
37
we’d have to say, ‘Wait until January.’
Then they’d be leaving in March. They
could never accumulate college credits. We saw it as our responsibility to
change,” Canales explains.
To ensure high school students don’t
miss out on dual enrollment and other
opportunities, STC opens new courses
throughout the year. Since the college
needs only 12 to 15 students to form a
dual-enrollment course, classes can start
anytime—so long as there are enough
hours to teach the curriculum. “It’s
about being responsive and understanding the community,” says Canales. The
more than 9,000 students who currently
participate in STC’s dual-enrollment program are a testament to that sentiment.
Through a partnership with Motivation, Education & Training (MET),
Inc., a federally funded organization
that facilitates skills development and
training for migrant and seasonal farm
workers, STC co-developed a curriculum
to prepare migrant workers for careers
in green construction. “It’s hard to find
farm work because so much has been
automated,” says Canales. In addition to
green construction, MET provides shortterm training in such high-need fields as
phlebotomy and nursing.
STC is also working with the nonprofit Jobs for the Future to help migrant adults earn their GEDs. “We take
folks at an eighth-grade level and put
them into a simultaneous certified nursing and GED program,” says Canales.
For migrant workers with a sixthgrade education or less, STC offers a contextualized English as a Second Language
class, as well as the chance to enroll in an
allied health postsecondary program.
“Employers have been telling us that
so many doctors and nurses don’t know
Spanish; we’re hoping that once we prepare these dual-language learners, they’ll
become a hot commodity,” says Canales.
“With the economic downturn, we expect
more of our migrant families will stay
here, so we will leverage our programs to
put them into successful pathways.” STC
so far is headed in the right direction: In
the past five years, the number of graduates has increased by 32 percent.
Providing Social Services
Santiago Canyon College (SCC) in
Orange, Calif., is one of three community
colleges in the state participating in the
College Assistance Migrant Program
(CAMP). According to Anna Catalan,
SCC’s CAMP director, the school serves 40
students each year. To qualify, students
must be U.S. residents in their first year of
college who have worked in the fields for
at least 75 days in the last two years.
“We provide support services, including a part-time counselor, a $200 book
voucher, a computer lab, two mentors,
and English and math tutoring,” says
Catalan. CAMP also provides laptops
for students to borrow on a weekly
basis and bus passes, since many of the
students ride the bus to school.
Unauthorized Immigrants in U.S. Civilian
Labor Force, 2000–09
10
(millions)
8
6
6.3
6.4
6.5
2001
2002
2003
6.8
7.4
7.8
8.4
8.2
2007
2008
7.8
5.5
4
2
0
2000
2004
2005
2006
Source: Pew Hispanic Center estimates.
38
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
December 2010/January 2011
2009
Tom Grill/Photolibrary
Feature
Reaching Out to
Undocumented AsianAmerican Students
When addressing the challenges of undocumented students, much of the national
conversation focuses on students from south
of the border—in places such as Mexico and
Latin America. But there are a number of
undocumented students from other countries
as well, including those of Asian descent.
“Generally, people in higher education are
surprised to learn there are undocumented
Asian-American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) students,” says Mark Mitsui, president of North
Seattle Community College (NSCC) in Washington. “The DREAM Act would open a lot of
doors.”
Mitsui, who became president of the college in July, was previously vice president of
student services at South Seattle Community
College (SSCC), where he helped secure a
$2.4 million U.S. Department of Education
grant and special designation for SSCC as one
of six institutions serving AAPI students.
“It took a long time for that designation to
occur,” says Mitsui. “We had black colleges,
tribal colleges, and Hispanic colleges, but it
wasn’t until two years ago that this designation
was approved” for AAPI students.
SSCC currently is using the grant money to
improve retention, transfer, and graduation
rates for low-income and underserved AAPI
students. It’s a capacity-building grant that focuses on sustainable initiatives and replicable
programs.
When applying for the designation, Mitsui’s
team created a series of videos to address
some of the misperceptions about college,
such as applying for financial aid and time
management. Because many AAPI students
struggle with English acquisition, Mitsui
formed a learning community. “It was very
successful,” he says, “and served as a link between English and student-success classes.”
As an added incentive, at semester’s end, students who adhere to the
program’s rules receive a $600 stipend
toward the next semester.
Catalan and her staff use their own
experiences as former migrants to better
relate to students and families.
“We do a lot of parent meetings to
discuss college requirements and what
college entails,” she says. Parents will
ask, ‘Is the library open on Saturdays?’
They don’t understand how much studying is required, especially if they need
their children to help out at home.”
During the summer, incoming migrant
students are invited to take a six-week
course that prepares them for college
life. They learn such necessities as study
skills and time management, and how to
navigate the financial-aid department. In
recent years, Catalan has invited Planned
Parenthood to do workshops for the girls,
since an unwanted pregnancy can derail
education plans. She says the students
who attend the summer program are
more confident and trusting.
Diplomas and More
Larry Chaney, who runs the Bringing
Education and Achievement to Migrants
(BEAM) project at Somerset Community
College (SCC) in Kentucky, says BEAM
provides a year of instruction, tutoring,
stipends, and other services to migrant
farm workers. BEAM is funded through
a High School Equivalency Program
grant that allows the college to serve
110 participants each year; the goal is
for at least 85 percent of those students
to obtain a GED. “We work with them
to transition into higher education, a
higher-paying job, or the military,” says
Chaney. “Quite a few go into higher education, so we help them with enrollment
and financial aid.”
The 12-person staff (five are full time)
spends a lot of its time on recruitment.
Two of the full-time instructors work
with local adult-education programs
and social agencies that come into contact with potential students.
Two years ago, 90 participants earned
their GED. Last year, 66 did so, and about
one-third went on to higher education.
Chaney says the number decreased because of stricter enrollment requirements.
Blazing a Path
Educators know that helping one or two
migrant workers tackle the rigors of college blazes a path for hundreds of others.
For STC’s Canales, helping migrant
workers earn a postsecondary degree
or credential is more than a job—it’s
a calling. “Half of our population over
the age of 25 has less than a ninth-grade
education,” she says. Without the help of
these people, the economy in and around
McAllen would would suffer.
Ruby Salinas is doing her part, tutoring freshmen through the CAMP affiliate
at her college. She’s even been working
on her family members. “I keep telling
my little sister that since I’m going to
get a doctorate, she’d better go for her
Ph.D.,” she says.
Ellen Ullman is an education writer based in
Fairfield, Conn.
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December 2010/January 2011
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
39
Feature
BY GERARDO de los SANTOS
THE NATIONAL COMPLETION AGENDA—manifested in Presi-
PiXtal iMaGes/Photolibrary
dent Obama’s challenge to double the number of degree and certificate
holders in this country by 2020, and in the quest for employable skills by
displaced workers in the current economic crisis—is having a transformative effect on America’s community colleges.
40
Calls from politicians, policy makers, former CEOs, and union leaders for more
innovation in solving our nation’s economic problems, together with the belief that
our educational system could benefit from a greater emphasis on degree attainment,
underscore the need for change across our campuses.
A new brand of education—one that promises to look far different from the pedagogy of the past—is emerging. Enter the “new normal.”
Paul Yakoboski, principal research fellow at TIAA-CREF Institute, says the new
normal will require “innovating to meet the need for higher education.” David Gergen,
professor of public service and director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard’s
John F. Kennedy School of Government, says it “means the budget crunch is not going
away…We’re going to have to innovate our way out of it as a country.”
Such optimism about innovation reflects the value placed on it as an end and a
means for solving problems. Innovation is prized as a way of creating new applications
to improve and expand student learning, and to deal with some of the elusive issues
that confound educators in achieving that goal.
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
December 2010/January 2011
Innovations and creative faculty,
staff, and administrators have always
been part of the educational enterprise.
There was a time when having students
read or solve problems on a blackboard
was considered an innovative breakthrough. Innovations today are more
broadly dispersed, more widely applied,
and more effectively orchestrated,
especially when supported by technology. As we steer our way through
economic challenges and strive to meet
the ambitious goals of the completion agenda, we find ourselves in the
midst of a renaissance of innovation
in education, an escalation of interest
and experimentation that anticipates
The case
for change
amid tough
challenges
significant changes in how we conduct
the business of learning.
At a time of recognition and attention unmatched in community college
history, our institutions are asked to do
more: educate more students, retrain
more displaced workers, meet the needs
of an increasingly diverse population,
and expand not only access, but also
successful completion of a postsecondary certificate or degree. If ever there
were a time for innovation in community colleges, that time is now.
Creatas/Photolibrary
Finding Innovation
VISIT THE JOURNAL ONLINE AT WWW.CCJOURNAL-DIGITAL.COM Community college innovation in some
ways mirrors community colleges
themselves: open, diverse, encompassing, collaborative, and successful in
some areas, while challenged in others.
In a 2009 study of 173 award-winning
community college innovations organized by researchers into 26 categories,
the League for Innovation in the
Community College, with support from
December 2010/January 2011
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
41
Feature
MetLife Foundation, sought insights
into the nature of innovation in the
community college. Award-winning
innovations appeared in most areas of
the college, with some notable absences.
Workforce Development. In the past
several decades, the role of community
colleges as centers for job training and
workforce development has become the
contemporary hallmark of our institutions. Colleges have responded, creating a large array of federally funded
programs to train workers and better
organize business and industry institutes to retrain and provide short-term,
contracted training to meet employer
needs. Against that background, it
was somewhat surprising to discover
that only 12 of the 173 innovations (5
percent) were categorized as workforce
development initiatives, particularly
since this area lends itself to innovation
and is such a priority among community colleges.
Faculty and Staff Development. Twentytwo (13 percent) of the innovations
studied were in the areas of faculty
and staff development, an encouraging finding—because if community
colleges are to meet the goals to which
they have committed, to provide for
the diversity of students, and to help
more students succeed to completion
or graduation, they must provide op-
42
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
portunities for faculty, administrators,
and staff to learn and practice the latest
innovations.
Student Services. Student services is
another important area that lends itself
to innovation. Historically, colleges
have struggled with their identity
and role, especially related to other
functions of the college. Tapping the
innovative spirit of student support
personnel and connecting it to instruction can lead to collaborations that improve student learning, retention, and
completion. The League study found
that 17 (10 percent) of the innovations
reviewed were in the area of student
support services. Another five were
considered collaborations between
student services and academic services,
and four more were in related areas of
course and program development.
Other. Of the 173 innovations in the
study, 106 (61 percent) placed in the
five categories mentioned above. The
others belonged to categories including community service, basic skills,
diversity, and library and facilities.
Researchers also examined data for
trends in such emerging categories as
innovation, global awareness, sustainability, and learning outcomes, but a
small sample size made it difficult to
discern trends in these areas.
Who Are the Innovators?
Innovators are everywhere within
our colleges. They are the educators
December 2010/January 2011
Faculty. Full-time faculty (44 percent)
are well represented, but part-time
faculty (3 percent) are hardly as influential, a reflection of the challenges
community colleges face when attempting to integrate part-time faculty
into the daily fabric of their institutions. If our colleges are to rely more
heavily on adjunct faculty, especially
in light of persistent budget cuts, it is
incumbent on our institutions to
ensure that these part-time educators
are fully engaged and committed to
their respective missions.
Administrators. A little more than
one-fourth (26 percent) of survey
respondents were administrators—
a recognition that administrators
are highly engaged, along with faculty,
in addressing the need for change
and innovation at their colleges. Eighteen percent of survey respondents
were non-faculty professional staff,
including a variety of technical and
specialized staff, with and without
degrees. These employees also play an
important role in the functioning of
the institution.
Support and Classified Staff. Support
and classified staff composed just 5
percent of the innovators in this
study. This number is an indication
of how college leaders perceive the
role of support and classified staff in
academic affairs, student affairs, and
college operations; it probably also
reflects written or unwritten policies that limit or fail to encourage the
involvement of these employees in
creating and implementing innovations. These employees might still have
insights and perspectives worth considering. Tapping into this rich human
resource, inviting their contributions,
Creatas/Photolibrary
Academic Affairs. Historically, colleges
have almost always used a framework
of courses and programs to organize
and deliver student learning. It is an
efficient way to organize, to track, to
count, and to be reimbursed by funding agencies. College leaders recognize
that significant learning can occur
in the extra-curriculum, but it is the
curriculum—expressed in courses
and programs—that frames the core
mission of the educational enterprise.
It was predictable, then, that nearly
one-fourth (23 percent) of the innovations reflected experiments in course/
program development, with 16 more
innovations (9 percent) in the closely
related category of instruction.
and faculty who go beyond their job
descriptions to correct problems and
explore new methods of teaching and
learning. As part of the League’s study,
117 Innovation of the Year award
winners highlighted the areas of their
colleges in which innovators are most
often found.
The Need for Collaboration
and listening to their ideas might
provide the missing element that
makes an innovation successful.
Area of Responsibility. Given the job
classifications of survey respondents,
it is not surprising that 38 percent of
innovators identified their primary
responsibility as instruction and
18 percent as student services. The
majority of innovators (56 percent)
worked in these two areas when they
received the award. During the decade
in which these awards were made—
1999 to 2008—community colleges
faced deep budget cuts, a reality now
compounded by substantial increases
in enrollment. The time is right to
encourage innovations that will enable
our colleges to do more with less, to
find cost-saving measures that do not
impede student success and completion,
and to identify alternative funding
sources to ensure that student learning
remains the focus of community college
work.
Overwhelmingly, the work of community college innovation is collaborative.
Eighty-five percent of award-winning
innovations reviewed in this study
were the result of teamwork. Innovators were asked questions about the
collaborative nature of their work.
Respondents gave high marks to the
importance of the team in such factors as the quality of the innovation,
the chances of the innovation enduring, and the benefits of the experience
beyond the innovation.
Next Steps
Survey respondents were asked to
select one description that “best reflects
a definition of innovation for the community college environment.” Two
definitions tied for the top spot: “The
creation of new opportunities that are
transformative” and “The development
or adoption of new or existing ideas
for the purpose of improving policies,
programs, practices, or personnel.” The
former is briefer and a bit more transcendent; the latter is more inclusive
and practical. Both definitions work for
the community college environment
and should prove useful to community
college leaders.
Beyond simply defining innovation,
though, the nature of innovation in
the community college reflects, and
depends on, other factors. Resources
certainly have a role, but in great part
innovation depends on the culture and
climate created by leaders to encourage,
support, and celebrate the individuals
and teams who design and implement
these changes. Community colleges have
a strong tradition of innovation. The
completion agenda can serve as a catalyst
for our colleges to expand the tradition
of innovation throughout all areas of the
institution, focusing on our core work:
student learning and student success.
GERARDO DE LOS SANTOS is president and
CEO of the League for Innovation in the
Community College.
DoCtor of ManagEMEnt
in CoMMUnity CollEgE poliCy anD aDMiniStration
Soon, thErE will bE a lot MorE rooM at thE top.
A recent study shows that 60 to 80 percent of community college
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the perfect time to earn your Doctor of Management (DM) in
community college policy and administration from University of
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VISIT THE JOURNAL ONLINE AT WWW.CCJOURNAL-DIGITAL.COM
5/10/10 5:21:18 PM
December 2010/January 2011
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
43
Lessons in Leadership ...
Pathways to Success
Measuring students’ success through the attainment of educational goals
By Martha Smith
The goal: to further our commitment
to student success by helping more students become more successful. The initiative aims to measure student success
by the attainment of educational goals
with emphasis on the completion of degrees, certificates, and other workforce
credentials. Specifically, Anne Arundel
Community College plans to:
44
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
• Help all students identify meaningful
educational goals;
• Build systems and programs to track,
monitor, and support student progress toward achieving predetermined
goals;
• Involve faculty and staff in examining, identifying, and addressing
potential roadblocks to completion;
December 2010/January 2011
• Adjust current policies and procedures to improve student success;
and
• Integrate Student Success 2020
into the college’s broader strategic
plan.
Action plans directed at specific
subsets of students (e.g., program
majors, transfer students, developmental education students, GED students,
and so on) have been developed to
achieve these goals. In addition, a major
effort is under way to involve the
college community in identifying and
analyzing the kinds of data most critical to helping students succeed. The
first collegewide Student Success
Summit will be held in January.
Digital Nation/Photolibrary
I
n the wake of President Obama’s challenge to again make the United
States the world’s No.1 producer of college graduates and degree and certificate holders, the nation’s community college leaders are shifting their focus
from access to success.
Fueled by the president’s goals, and six months of conversation and deliberation within our college community, Maryland’s Anne Arundel Community College (AACC) launched Student Success 2020, an effort to double the
number of degrees, certificates, and workforce credentials awarded at the college
by 2020, with milestones established at three-year intervals.
Broadening the
Completion agenda
Student Success 2020 expands the
definition of completion to include credentials that help students prepare for
jobs and careers, as well as for continuing their education. It recognizes that
students enter and exit community colleges at various stages of their lives and
at differing points of their educations.
This covers the gamut: those arriving in
search of adult basic education, English
as a Second Language, or GED preparation courses; adults who already have
postsecondary or graduate degrees in
search of industry certifications or continuing professional education; high
school graduates and dropouts; adult
learners seeking credit and noncredit
courses, degrees, and professional
certificates; and new, transitional, and
dislocated workers.
As the “completion agenda” gains
traction, it is imperative that community college leaders ensure the
credentials, certificates, and degrees
awarded by our respective institutions
retain their value and relevance. A
degree or certificate means very little
to a student if it does not help secure a
job, advance a career, or contribute to
further education.
Many local and national employers
continue to work with the college to
create certifications and other jobtraining opportunities for students.
These basic entry-level credentials
often help students take the first step
toward achieving their professional
goals. They, too, are legitimate parts of
the completion agenda. The Bowling
Proprietors’ Association of America, the
association representing the bowling
industry, recently created an educational certification for its profession.
AACC developed course work for the
credential. Students complete the work
online through the college, and the
association awards the certificate. As
another example, network specialist
Ciena recently developed a credential
for its Carrier Ethernet technology,
which supplies faster online connections across large computer networks.
AACC is working with industry organi-
zations to validate the certification.
To help students and employers
navigate the many options available
to them, AACC created the “institute”
educational model, which brings all
learning programs within a given
industry—from credit and noncredit
programs to personal and professional
enrichment—under one roof. One
contact person oversees the development, offerings, and updates within
the institute. We think that by putting
all courses in one field in one place,
blurring the lines between credit and
noncredit programming, our institutes
make it easier for our students to see
the pathway to success.
But just as some current strategies
can be tweaked to help with Student
Success 2020, it is also clear that we
must be willing to change or even
discard other policies, programs, and
procedures. For example, initial discussions with faculty and staff showed
that some students may be transferring
without realizing how close they are to
earning a degree or certificate; others
change their majors, making it harder
to track their progress. Both these
situations may have easy fixes by using
the latest technology. It’s that mindset
again—we have to keep Student Success 2020 uppermost as we handle our
day-to-day routines.
As we embark upon this initiative, we are excited and motivated by
the challenge. If our students are to
identify a pathway to educational and
career success, it’s up to us as college
leaders to point them in the direction
of their goals.
In the end, our colleges will be
measured by the achievements and
successes of their students. Whether
a graduate is a nationally recognized
filmmaker or performer, a business
entrepreneur, a caregiver, or a cybersecurity specialist, their successes make
a difference not only in their personal
lives, but also in the community at
large and, collectively, in the nation’s
progress in a global society.
Read Community
College Journal
digital edition
anytime, anywhere.
Read, download,
print, and search
the news.
FEATURE
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BY ROD GITHENS AND TIMOTHY SAUER
32
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
June/July 2010
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Each issue is
archived online
for your future
reference.
Free access to all AACC members
and Journal subscribers. (Members
are defined as all employees of
a member institution.Your email
address will be your log-in.) Not a
subscriber yet? Call 202-728-0200.
Or visit www.aacc.nche.edu and
click on AACC Publications.
www.ccjournal-digital.com
MARTHA SMITH is president of Anne Arundel
Community College in Arnold, Md.
December 2010/January 2011
Published 6 times per year by
the American Association of
Community Colleges
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
45
Perspective ...
From Rhetoric to
Reality
Expanding the dialogue from the White House Summit on Community Colleges
T
he spotlight on community colleges has not dimmed in the weeks since the first-ever White House Summit on
Community Colleges. After hearing from President Obama, Second Lady and community college professor Jill
Biden, and students and peers in the East Wing, thought leaders returned to their boardrooms and districts
charged with turning the rhetoric from this historic event into reality. Below, several participants share their
experiences and look forward to the future.
In my 36 years of working in and with
community colleges, the White House
Summit on Community Colleges was
arguably the most phenomenal day of
my career. The only thing that would
have been better is if we could have had
1,200 college presidents and chancellors
in the audience. I have never witnessed
a more positive and optimistic feeling
amongst college leaders as I did that
day. While extremely optimistic, all of
the leaders were nevertheless very realistic about the tremendous amount of
work to be done in the future, and the
pending budgetary crisis most of the
leaders face in their respective states. It
is important that we all continue to roll
up our sleeves to get the job done and
to continue to move the needle as it relates to not only access, but to student
success and completion.
The White House Summit on Community Colleges was a historic event
that validated the great work that
community colleges are doing all across
the nation and the important role our
institutions play in higher education. That acknowledgement and recognition
of our work with millions of students by
the President of the United States was
most appreciated. The summit also challenged us to do more and to be better at
what we do and, therefore, sent a clear
signal for change.
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
Chancellor, Contra Costa
Community College District, Calif.
Jennifer Lara
>>
Helen Benjamin
President and CEO, American
Association of Community Colleges
46
>>
>>
Dr. Walter Bumphus
Professor of Education,
Anne Arundel Community
College, Md.
What a valuable opportunity to
collaborate and dialogue with prominent leaders and stakeholders in
higher education and showcase the
effectiveness of community college
programs. To carry the momentum
forward, the education department
at our college is meeting with several
leaders at the U.S. Department of
Education to discuss current programs, legislation, and our college’s
role in either or both.
In my 36 years of working in and with
community colleges, the White House
Summit on Community Colleges was
arguably the most phenomenal day of my career.
December 2010/January 2011
—Walter Bumphus, president-elect and CEO,
American Association of Community Colleges
...
>>
Randy Smith
President, Rural Community
College Alliance
The White House summit provided a
spotlight on community colleges that
we have not seen for many years. Now
that the spotlight is on community
colleges, it is our responsibility to
continue to educate the general public
on the important role our colleges
play. We need to continue to educate
our communities on the role we play
in economic development, access to
higher education, job training, the
educating of vital professionals in
the community such as nurses, law
enforcement officers, allied health care
professionals, fire fighters, auto mechanics, and farm and ranch managers,
among others. It is our responsibility
to continue to keep our colleges in the
spotlight, especially when it comes to
educating our local communities on
the services and accomplishments we
provide.
Rod Risley
>>
—Randy Smith,
president,
Rural Community
College Alliance
>>
The summit
placed a very
positive light
on community
colleges; it’s
up to us to
continue to
build on this in
our local areas.
perspective
Executive Director, Phi Theta Kappa
The summit accomplished two very
important things: It served as an historic
touchstone that validated the vision of
those missionaries who came before us;
and it raised to an unprecedented level
of awareness—nationally and internationally—the need for all institutions of
higher education to take responsibility
for the success of their students. Our
institutions must support the development of a culture that encourages the
holding of courageous conversations
about institutional performance, that
embraces transparent and evidencedbased decision-making to improve student success, and that promotes successful and timely completion of credentials
and degrees.
Jim Jacobs
President, Macomb Community
College, Mich.
The White House Summit on Community Colleges was an important symbolic
recognition of the significance of community colleges to the future of American society. While somewhat ironic, it is
fitting that our local institutions are now
considered fundamental to the resolution of national issues. But underlying
the praise and focus showered on us is a
profound challenge. Community colleges
are being asked to alter the complexion
of our society by significantly increasing the percentage of Americans with
college credentials—including those from
families without experience or interest in
postsecondary education. This will strain
the creativity of our staff and tax the
resources of our institutions. But with
determination and focus, we will succeed
not only in our communities, but in ultimately implementing a national agenda.
Wallace State Community College is widely recognized for its tradition of excellence, comprehensive educational offerings and unique opportunities. WSCC
enrolls approximately 6,000 students and offers more than 50 programs of study
in academic, health and technical programs in addition to an unlimited number of
transfer options. A blend of modern and old, Wallace State is a charming campus
spanning 250 acres, with 41 buildings located in Hanceville, AL.
The college would like to announce the following job opening:
DEAN OF ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
To view the job vacancy announcement and
application procedure for this position, please visit our web site at
http://www.wallacestate.edu/employment/faculty-positions.html
DeaDline for application packets is
January 7, 2011 at 2:00 p.m.
December 2010/January 2011
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
47
FACTS AT A GLANCE ...
Host to the
World
•
★
D
NO ES
RT TIN
A
H
10
A TI
D E MER ON
IC
DE
C
A
PA
RT
20
EE
10
•
★
International students enroll in U.S.
colleges and universities in record numbers
The number of international students studying at U.S. colleges and universities
increased by 3 percent to 690,923 in the 2009–10 academic year. The figure represents the largest number of international students ever to study in the United
States, despite a slower rate of enrollment growth than seen in recent years, according to the report.
For many colleges, the sight of international students is a welcome sign. Students
from other countries reportedly contribute more than $20 billion a year to the U.S.
economy through such expenses as tuition, room and board, and books, making
higher education among the nation’s leading service exports.
Where’s Home?
The largest group of international students in the United States is from China, says
the report. The number of Chinese students studying at U.S. colleges and universities reportedly jumped more than 30 percent in 2009–10 to 128,000 students, or
nearly 18 percent of the U.S. international student population. The next-largest providers of international students reportedly are India (105,000 students) and South
Korea (72,153). Together, the top three countries account for 44 percent of international students in the United States. Saudi Arabia, now the seventh-largest sender
of students to U.S. host colleges and universities, sent 25 percent more students to
What Are They Studying?
International Student Trends
700,000
675,000
650,000
600,000
pLAmen petKoV/corbiS
575,000
550,000
525,000
‘01
’02
’03
’04
’05
’06
SCHOOL YEAR ENDING
’07
Source: National Center for Education Statistics
48
Twenty-one percent of international
students come to the United States to
study business and management courses,
according to the report, followed closely
by engineering (18 percent), physical16and
life sciences (9 percent), and math and
computer science (8.8 percent), which
experienced an 8 percent increase in12
2009–10 enrollments compared with the
previous year.
8
California hosts the most international students of any state (92,279),
followed by New York (76,146), Texas4
(58,934), Massachusetts (35,313), Illinois
(31,093), and Florida (29,708).
in millions
625,000
500,000
the United States in 2009–10 than in
the previous academic year. In contrast,
Japan, the sixth-largest sender, reported
a 14 percent decline in the number of
students studying at U.S. colleges and
universities in 2009–10.
Many attribute declines in certain
subsectors of the U.S. international
student population to the down economy. Even so, experts say, the United
States remains among the most popular
countries in the world in which to
pursue a higher education.
“The United States continues to host
more international students than any
other country in the world,” says IIE
President and CEO Allan Goodman.
“Active engagement between U.S. and
international students in American
classrooms provides students with
valuable skills that will enable them to
collaborate across cultures and borders
to address shared global challenges in
the years ahead.”
COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL
December 2010/January 2011
‘08
’09
’10
For the full report, visit: www.iie.org/
opendoors.
Stephen nicodemuS/corbiS
E
ven amid a down economy, international students continue to flock to U.S. colleges and universities for the benefits
of American higher education, says the latest installment
of the Institute of International Education’s annual “Open
Doors” report.
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funding. The study leads to such powerful results because
it gives a bottom-line return on investment to both
students and taxpayers.
Find us at www.economicmodeling.com for more information.
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