CAEL’s annual conference, its 51st, will open in Memphis in less than two months. From Nov. 11 to 14, thought leaders from all corners of the education-employment ecosystem will gather at the historic Peabody Memphis. More than 200 speakers will highlight more than 180 sessions, including a keynote presentation by Jessica Gibson, Senior Director of Adult Learner Initiatives at the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. Jessica’s keynote will focus on the heart of CAEL’s mission: cross-sector collaboration that nurtures education-employment ecosystems. She will explore how partnerships across workforce development, education, community organizations, government and employers are essential to building systems that truly serve adult learners.
If you’re like me, you are always eager for insight on how to bring sectors together to scale impact. Below, Jessica has answered a few questions in advance on this topic and other pressing topics in education and employment. I hope you’ll join me to hear more during her keynote. It’s not too late to register!
In one or two sentences, can you share a sneak peek of what you’ll be discussing at the conference?
When education, workforce and social services operate in parallel, not in partnership, adult learners are left stitching together their own support networks while navigating fragmented systems. To be successful, adult learners need systems that are aligned, and I am going to share some ways we can work toward that alignment, even when the conditions aren’t perfect.
Why are adult learners a priority for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission?
When Tennessee formally identified adults as a priority for higher education for our Drive to 55 effort, we recognized that, even if every high school student in Tennessee graduated from high school, attended college and graduated from college, we would be short several hundred thousand degrees to meet our goal. Understanding that Tennessee jobs would increasingly require education and training beyond high school, an intentional focus on reaching out to and supporting adults into postsecondary education became essential. Over the past ten years, we have integrated striving for adult learner success into our higher education funding formula and our state higher education master plan. It has become part of the ethos of Tennessee’s approach to student access overall.
Why is de-siloing so important for the individual and collective success of postsecondary education institutions committed to supporting adult learners?
The adult learners we work with are pursuing education and training toward a credential, yes. They also have full lives. In the pie chart of an adult learner’s life, the postsecondary slice is a fragment of the whole. What do the other slices represent? Career, family, struggles, joys, income, connection to community, health, you name it. Postsecondary institutions can’t be expected to directly provide resources for all the slices, but focusing only on the college slice and hoping the other slices will be attended to doesn’t move an adult closer to the finish line or to a career that is fulfilling. Understanding the adult learner’s pie chart and connecting them to resources is essential. Reaching out and building partnerships in other sectors for warm handoffs, resource referrals and more efficient pathways to individual goals is one way to ensure that their students finish and are successful. We’re also seeing program cuts and uncertainty about access to resources across the board, so partnering across sectors is one way to leverage the resources that do exist for common cross-sector goals.
Helping adult learners connect—and reconnect—with rewarding education-employment pathways is central to CAEL’s mission. The Tennessee Higher Education Commission’s highly successful Navigate Reconnect program has been on our radar for the impact it’s delivering for Comebackers through coaching and advising. Given that your keynote will focus on the benefits cross-sector partnerships can create for adult learners, how important is it to include navigational support for adult learners in such frameworks, especially as complexity often increases with the opportunities these powerful partnerships create?
Navigational support is absolutely essential. Complexity is a hallmark of the silos in which the programs exist but also of the space between the silos. Imagine you were dropped on an unfamiliar island and told to find your way to its center in two days but given no maps or supplies—something akin to choosing a college and a program that aligns with your career goals, submitting a college application and figuring out how to pay for it. Then imagine being told that you had to reach five more neighboring islands and do the same thing, but you had no boat—you are food insecure, you need help with childcare and transportation and you don’t know the first thing about online classes or student portals. A navigator is your GPS system, your guide, your cheerleader, your boat captain and bridge builder.
What’s one piece of advice you would give to an adult who needs to upskill or reskill but is uncertain of where to begin?
In Tennessee, I would tell them to fill out our Reconnect interest form and talk to a navigator. We can talk through their goals and aspirations, connect them to career exploration tools, connect them with a local AJC and help them find the right program and college for them.
Besides viewing your presentation, what’s the number one reason someone should attend CAEL’s annual conference?
CAEL is the place to meet people in the field of adult learning. If you want ideas about new and innovative practices that you can implement, don’t reinvent the wheel. Come to the CAEL conference. If you want to improve or enhance the work you already do, find someone at the conference who is already doing phenomenal work and brainstorm over coffee. The people that attend are change makers and more than willing to connect and share ideas.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
If the postsecondary education enterprise is going to remain relevant, it has to change. We will either be dragged along by external forces toward this change, or we will be bold and lead a reimagining of education that aligns with the aspirations of today’s learners while maintaining our values of learning and understanding. Forging deep partnerships with workforce leaders and basic needs providers can allow us to build a new ecosystem—one that empowers every student to pursue meaningful goals, cultivate fulfilling and self-sustaining livelihoods, and become catalysts for community progress. This is our opportunity to design a future where education is not just a pathway but a launchpad for human potential and collective well-being.
You Might Also Like
