Reimagining the Economy and the American Institutes for Research hosted community college and workforce development leaders from around the country for a two-day conference at Harvard Kennedy School. We spoke with some of them about the projects they’re most excited about and the challenges they face.
Community college leaders
President, Northwest Vista College, Aspen Presidential Fellow
Dean, Corporate Training and Economic Development, Northwestern Wisconsin Technical College
Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs, HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College
Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives, San Jacinto College
Executive Vice President and Provost, Miami Dade College
Dean, College of Business, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College
President, Northwood Technical College
President, Stark State College
Partnerships
Many of the community college leaders highlighted industry and educational partnerships.
Bosley: “One of the things I’m most excited about is being able to partner with one of the other colleges in San Antonio to bring a nursing program to our college… We’re in the fastest growing part of the city where every crane you see is a new hospital being built. In order to rapidly scale a nursing program and health program, rather than building it ourselves, we’ve invited one of our partners to come in, bring their brand, bring what the community knows, and offer that at our college. And I’ll tell you who’s most excited about it is the students.”
Draeger: “One of our long term, probably most successful collaborations is with the maritime industry in northeastern Wisconsin. We partner with Fincantieri Marine Group. They have three shipyards within our district, and we train and onboard all their new hires in welding, electrical, shipfitting, and pipe fitting.”
Griswold: “One of the things I’m very excited about: we have a very robust relationship with a variety of healthcare industry partners in our area. We provide direct training for quite a few of those hospitals in our region… We do a variety of things from CVT tech to surgical technology to medical assisting.”
Harris: “One of our partnerships is with the biomanufacturing community… We’ve partnered with the economic development council, with some investors, and others to bring businesses in… It’s a new industry, new partnership, new way of doing things, and it’s exciting.”
Jones: “We’re really excited about a collaboration with the world’s largest producer of natural gas compression equipment… We’ve been doing their training for fifteen plus years even though their primary campus is not in our service district… but they like what we do so much that they came to us and said ‘We’re not going to work with anyone else’... That includes everything from CNC machining to production technician to maintenance… even to the point where they used to hire four-year engineering grads for their supervisors, they are now going to be hiring our engineering technicians.”
Innovation
In addition to creating partnerships, many schools are innovating from within.
Will: “We serve a very large geographic area, and it’s a very sparsely populated area. So we have recently invested in mobile training solutions. We view that as the next step in access for our students. So instead of requiring students to come to one of our college campuses… we’re able to take labs into small communities… and do training in those communities... Examples include mobile welding, mobile dental assistant, mobile advanced manufacturing, GED programming… In order to help people in rural areas achieve economic mobility, we need to go to them instead of expecting them to come to us.”
AI was a particularly hot topic in innovation.
Harrison: “The college has really prioritized embedding AI into the educational and operational aspects of our college. Something that we’re very, very proud of because we see the impact is the fact that in the space of about two years we have introduced a college credit certificate in AI… We’ve also embedded AI into every single general education course. That’s important because every single individual in this world needs to have an understanding of how to use AI ethically and responsibly and how that bodes for their life and their career… The great news is that our faculty are on board. We have trained all of our full time faculty and many of our adjuncts in utilizing AI tools for educational excellence and student success.”
Vander Heiden: “So many businesses are looking at how to implement AI within their companies: the advantages of it, but also the concerns of it. What are the security issues that might be encountered? How do you control what is happening within the walls of your business and outside?”
Challenges
Making these partnerships and innovations work requires handling a number of challenges. The most obvious is money and funding.
Bosley: “That’s where things get sunk: trying to figure out who’s going to pay what for what and when.”
Griswold: “A pain point is always cost. Being able to meet [student] needs… ensuring that we’re doing those wraparound services.”
Will: “Funding is always an issue, but that’s kind of a boring issue. Everybody has those kinds of issues, and we’re blessed in Wisconsin to be very well-funded compared to other states.”
Their work also requires people power and working together.
Bosley: “It just takes a lot of ‘yes.’ A lot of people saying ‘yeah, let’s try it.’”
Draeger: “It takes a village to make [the maritime collaboration] work. We meet regularly with the trades managers and the CEOs of the shipyards. It’s always getting together, having the conversation, finding out what’s working, what’s not working, updating the curriculum and making sure we customize the content to meet their needs.”
Business and education work in different ways and on different time frames, so collaboration requires flexibility and communication.
Draeger: “Industry works at a fast pace, and higher sometimes needs to make decisions a little bit quicker to make sure those resources are there.”
Jones: “Working with business is not an easy process. It requires a lot of flexibility. It requires a lot of understanding because business cycles change. So, you might work really hard to get something ready, and then it gets put on hold. So you have to be patient. And most of all you have to have a relationship that allows each party to share what we really need to do to make it work so you can be honest, you can be transparent, you can be comfortable with each other.”
Vander Heiden: “The challenge is how to work with industry, with business leaders. Where do they see the benefits coming into their company [from AI]? Then developing training and credentials behind that which are broad enough… and to contextualize it to each and every industry.”
Making meaningful commitments sometimes means taking on risk.
Harris: “[Biomanufacturing] is a new industry [in our region]. We have a really strong board that was willing to take a responsible risk and invest in growth. It’s not an industry that’s here currently, but it’s one we believe we can bring.”
Even among many hurdles, the community college leaders were optimistic.
Will: “I don’t think we have a challenge that is insurmountable.”
