Climate-related disasters like hurricanes, wildfires or the extreme cold that took down most of Texas’ electrical grid last month present challenges for energy-related companies and, relatedly, the community colleges who train their future workforce. The Biden administration’s 13-figure infrastructure spending proposals, which have yet to take legislative form but seem likely to contain significant investments […]
Skills Gap Articles
Advancing student innovation and impact
The Community College Innovation Challenge offers an extraordinary opportunity for students to delve in to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) solutions to real-world problems. The challenge – a competition open exclusively to teams that community college students form with faculty or administrator mentors – is led by the American Association of Community Colleges in […]
The Community College Innovation Challenge returns
The Community College Innovation Challenge (CCIC) is looking for ideas to address real-world problems. The national program is designed to enable community college students to discover and demonstrate their capacity to use science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to make a difference in the world. “At a time when the world needs inventive thinking as […]
Badging up for a safe workplace
Maine’s community colleges are training Mainers to be healthy and safe in the Covid-19 era. Over the past seven months, that more than 10,000 people in Maine have completed Covid-19 safety training from the state’s community colleges, according to Maine Quality Centers (MQC) – the short-term training arm of the Maine Community College System (MCCS). […]
Serving the community during the pandemic
With vaccination efforts underway across the country, community colleges are opening their doors as vaccination sites. Some college students are personally helping with vaccinations, too. In North Carolina, second year associate degree nursing students at Roanoke-Chowan Community College administered Covid-19 vaccines to over 50 R-CCC faculty and staff, under the supervision of R-CCC nursing faculty […]
Real-life skills for a virtual world
Kirkwood Community College has created an augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) certificate course that has potential to dramatically impact regional workforce training and conferencing capabilities as well as how employees complete tasks remotely. The new offering, which began Jan. 25, is a mixture of lecture, hands-on exercises and lab experiences. As AR and […]
Paralegal program offers quick path to success
No matter the economy, the key to finding a good job or advancing in a chosen field is the right training. Students from Lewis & Clark Community College’s (L&C’s) paralegal program have proven that the need for qualified paralegals is real and immediate. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for well-trained […]
Workforce development working
In 2019, the state of Louisiana announced a collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to launch a statewide cloud associate degree program. Built in collaboration with the Office of the Governor John Bel Edwards, Greater New Orleans, Inc. (GNO, Inc.), and the Louisiana Community and Technical College System (LCTCS), the program provides cloud computing opportunities […]
Making the best of the situation
While Covid sidelined most MentorLinks activities planned for 2020, two faculty-led teams actually leveraged pandemic-related public health precautions to make progress toward their long-term goals to raise awareness of their colleges’ technician education programs. The American Association of Community Colleges offers the MentorLinks: Advancing Technological Education program with support from the National Science Foundation. To […]
Behind the bay
Sparks fly through the air around Valencia College student Emma Lynn Ponds as she strides into the room, swimming in her thick protective jacket and brown work boots with her welding helmet in hand. At first glance she stands out among the largely male-dominated room, perhaps as someone who might have taken a turn and […]