Workforce Development
The economy is still recovering from the Great Recession, which was characterized by skyrocketing unemployment rates. Many adults found themselves without the skills needed to find work in the new, knowledge-focused economy, and colleges and universities have ample opportunity to create programs to help people find careers in growth industries.
The Essential Employability Qualities Certification: Assuring Graduates Are Prepared for the 21st Century Workforce
Melanie Booth | Executive Director, The Quality Assurance Commons for Higher and Postsecondary EducationPreparing learners for employment has become an expected outcome of higher and postsecondary educational programs, regardless of discipline or degree level. Yet surveys and studies continually reveal a growing divide…
Beyond Vocational: Adult Education Confronts the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Tommy Perkins | Vice President of Marketing, AboundAdvanced applications for big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence can take us to new heights, or plunge us into a dystopian future where robots absorb jobs, unemployment soars and…
Winners in the Modern Workforce: Using the Language of Competency to Shift the Hiring Process
Richard Senese | President, Capella UniversityThe current workforce is continuing to evolve at a dramatic pace and is on track to look significantly different in 2018 than it has in the past. As such, both…
Closing the Skills Gap One MOOC at a Time: How Google is Transforming the Lifelong Learning Environment
Natalie Van Kleef Conley | Senior Program Manager of Diversity, Inclusion & Outreach, Corporate Engineering, GoogleThe skills gap is currently one of the defining features of the labor market. There are hundreds of thousands of middle-skill jobs available but few individuals with the skills and…
Going Off The Grid: Creating A Fully Online, Workforce-Focused Community College
Eloy Ortiz Oakley | Chancellor, California Community CollegesIn 2019, the California Community Colleges System will launch a fully online community college. This new, competency-based online college will focus primarily on offering sub-degree credentials and skills training that…
Stackable and Sub-Degree: How Postsecondary Institutions Can Support the Middle-Skill Economy
Matt Sigelman | Chief Executive Officer, Burning Glass TechnologiesMiddle-skilled workers have long been an overlooked segment of the learning population, but—standing 35 to 40 million strong—they pose a real opportunity for growth for continuing education divisions and for…
Apprenticeship Programming Could Reduce the Skills Gap, But Employer Investment Is Needed
Sue Griffith Smith | Vice President for Advanced Manufacturing and Applied Sciences, Ivy Tech Community CollegeApprenticeship is not new. It is a proven earn-and-learn strategy, dating as far back as the Middle Ages, used to train highly skilled craftsmen. Traditionally the term refers to a…