New fabric

New England Journal of Higher Education, The, Summer 2001 by Sbrega, John J

Community colleges also bear the responsibility to serve currently employed and dislocated workers who are looking to change careers. In one notable example, Middlesex Community College of Massachusetts offered special courses to workers upon the unfortunate closing of both the Prince Spaghetti factory and the city of Lowell's Computer Learning Center. Related to this emphasis on life-long learning is the fact that more than 20 percent of current community college students already hold at least a bachelor's degree-and a surprising number hold doctorates.

Emphasis on work

Many years ago, my preparation for the dreaded "college admissions interview" incorporated a firm decision never to link my quest for knowledge as an undergraduate with an impure desire to obtain employment. How crass! Now, students throughout higher education demand relevance and they want to be equipped to enter the workforce. All higher education institutions, including highly specialized graduate schools, face this challenge. But the community college mission is particularly suited to preparing people for work that is technologically based, market-responsive and globally sensitive.

Indeed, community colleges prepare the workforce of the future, the present and the past. The future refers to our current traditional-age students (ages 18-20) who we prepare to become productive members of the workforce for decades to come. We also train the present workforce by making sure that they update their skills to keep pace with our fast-changing environment. BCC, for example, assisted People Inc. in obtaining a grant from the Workforce Training Fund, and as a result, we now offer them computer applications training. In addition, we work with a workforce of "the past"primarily dislocated workers whose career fields have been eclipsed or whose individual skills have lapsed, to refurbish those skills or train them for new careers.

BCC earned national recognition through a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to prepare unemployed or underemployed residents of New Bedford to work in brownfield sites; this 17-week program prepares students for jobs as groundwater technician aides, field sampling technician aides, lab assistants and lead or asbestos abatement workers. Another innovative program focuses on literacy training through a "Perkins Career Access Center Liaison" who alternates between Fall River and New Bedford.

New hallmarks

How will community colleges meet the challenges before them? Partnerships, collaborations and regionalism are the hallmarks of the future. The various dimensions of the education world-elementary and secondary, community colleges, bachelor's degree-granting institutions, graduate schools-must form a seamless career (yes, "career) path to ensure the expeditious flow of students across the continuum. Educators must also form strong links with public and private entities-businesses, chambers of commerce, government agencies, foundations-to marshal precious resources in a common effort.