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Leadership Abstract - Leading the Way to Connect Community to the College


Leading the Way to Connect Community to the College - At Johnson County
Community College (KS), the Certification Audit Project has helped build an
educational bridge for delivery of workplace skills needed in the community.
Read about this exciting project in the September Leadership Abstract.

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Leading the Way to Connect Community to the College
Charles J. Carlsen (<mailto:ccarlsen@jccc.net>)
President of Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kansas

Recent reading on a futurist listserve on the Web reveals, "(E)mployers are
increasingly frustrated by workers' deficiencies in fundamental reading,
writing, and math skills. The labor shortage is complicated by the difficulty
in finding people who are qualified to work...or at least trainable.
Insufficient basic education makes training considerably more challenging."
Lifelong learning is no longer a choice for people in the 21st century. It's a
necessity. And because that learning must take place constantly and
continuously, it has to occur both in and out of the traditional classroom. The
format may change, or the schedule, or the location. Moreover, the focus may be
different - in addition to degrees, students will be looking for certification
or other documentation of skills training.
Community college leadership that focuses on the many facets of lifelong
learning includes not only the requisite knowledge but also passion and
commitment. At Johnson County Community College (JCCC), the passion and
commitment were there, but some questions about 21st century workforce
education remained unanswered. Early in 2001, JCCC initiated a campuswide audit
of externally validated certification programs, along with an informal survey
of Kansas City area CEOs, to identify the needs of local employers in terms of
workforce and economic development. At about the same time, the League for
Innovation in the Community College extended an invitation to community college
presidents to attend colloquia addressing the complexities of multiple
workforce certification and licensure programs.
The Certification Audit Project
The result of these colloquia - the Certification Audit Project (CAP) - is a
joint project of the League and The Chauncey Group International, a division of
Educational Testing Service (ETS). CAP's goal is to create a searchable
certification database, updated by individual institutions of higher education,
that will provide a current view of what institutions are providing for
students and an environmental scan of the workforce needs in their local
service areas. Not only will CAP identify certification programming currently
being offered to business and industry, it will also look for the gaps in such
programming. The result will be a quantitative and qualitative approach that
will cross the borders of credit and continuing education to build an effective
educational bridge for delivery of workplace skills needed in the community.
Businesses are increasingly turning to community colleges for skill-specific
certification and licensure programs. CAP's thorough exploration of these
programs seeks to pinpoint the correlation between local service area workforce
needs and level of activity; in the process, CAP will be providing community
colleges with benchmark information, a powerful planning tool with which to
make long-range and strategic decisions.
CAP has three primary features:
A thorough analysis and cataloguing of all curricular offerings, both credit
and noncredit, leading toward externally-validated certification or licensure
Completion of a survey instrument specifically developed for this project for
each such curricular offering
Creation of an amendable database of the survey data to build benchmark
information

CAP activities have identified three different types of licensure and
certification that are currently offered either through business or through
educational institutions:
Licenses for occupations that risk harming consumers, such as healthcare,
construction, or cosmetology. Licenses generally are required to demonstrate
minimal competencies necessary to protect consumers.
Statutory certifications for occupations that give consumers information that
may increase their satisfaction. Examples of affected occupations include
healthcare, childcare, home inspection, and massage therapy.
Voluntary certifications for occupations that give employers information about
levels of proficiency and the base knowledge required for jobs. Voluntary
certification may also provide a gauge employers can use to determine the need
for formal or informal on-the-job training and includes such certification as
Work Keys, Microsoft certification, or Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)
certification.

Community Connections
To give a community focus to employer needs, JCCC asked area businesses, in
surveys and in focus groups, what they looked for in their employees. In
contrast to the educational emphasis on transcripts, employers did not list the
information from transcripts as the primary criterion for hiring, nor did they
include transcripts themselves among the criteria. This exclusion of transcript
information is in keeping with the Carnevale and Desrochers (2000) finding that
although educators continue to value transcripts and grades, "employers
increasingly value performance-based certifications and community college
certificates as indication of more specialized skill."
The employers in the JCCC survey included the following essential skills:
Listening
Personal Responsibility/Ethics
Workplace Responsibility
Teamwork/Leadership
Reading
Decision Making
Observation
Ability to Manage Self

In addition to programming and content, CAP also examined delivery modalities.
In 2001-2002, JCCC conducted a self study of its delivery modalities to assist
with future program development, which could consist of the traditional
classroom, nontraditional learning sites, business sites, Web-based delivery,
self study, the use of CD-ROMs, or any combination of these.
As performance-based certification in response to community needs becomes a
primary focus of educational programming in the 21st century, community
colleges are perfectly placed to respond. Individuals as well as business and
industry have compelling reasons for turning to community colleges for
training, including flexibility, affordable cost, quality, and accessibility.
Community colleges play a vital role in workforce training as it relates to the
skills employees need to be successful in a rapidly changing environment.
Continuing Connections
As CAP proceeds, JCCC will continue to solicit input from focus groups and
advisory councils that interface with both credit and continuing education
programming and to prepare to border-cross in deployment to meet community
needs. It is imperative for business and industry partners to know that
community colleges are capable of helping their employees gain the skills and
competencies affirmed by these certifications. Toward that end, JCCC will
develop an outcomes-based curriculum defined by the community workforce as area
employers assist in identifying the core competencies their employees need in
order to be successful.
JCCC's goal of agility of educational delivery reinforces to its community that
the college is accessible and that it offers quality training and
certification. One way to achieve this goal is through partnerships with other
community colleges, the business community, the local K-12 school districts,
area baccalaureate colleges and universities, the Kansas Board of Regents, and
community volunteers. JCCC continues to develop new programs to keep up with
the community's emerging needs, including biotechnology, power plant
technology, and bio-informatics. In a recently developed partnership, the
college's biotechnology program was developed in consultation with Stowers
Institute, Children's Mercy Hospital, and University of Kansas Medical School
personnel. JCCC collaborated with these groups to establish curriculum and
internship positions that would meet the demand for trained biotechnology
personnel in the area workforce.
Parallel to its efforts with CAP, the college initiated a second dialogue
regarding a proposed facility that would provide demonstration and classroom
spaces to showcase emerging technologies. As an innovative focus on technology,
the building would house state-of-the-art computer labs and facilities shared
by JCCC's continuing education and credit programs. This facility not only
would meet the emerging needs in local workforce training, but also would allow
JCCC to assume a leadership role. In this economy, an innovative center for
technology and the arts will provide welcome expanded services to area
businesses, professionals, and artists in our community workforce.
Ultimately, the goal is to equip all individuals with the knowledge, skills,
and desire for lifelong learning in order to meet the challenges in the world
of work both now and in the future. The importance of such certifications
continues to be reinforced on a national level. The initial report of the
Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS), What Work
Requires of Schools (1991), states:
A high-performance workplace requires workers who have a solid foundation in
the basic literacy and computational skills, in the thinking skills necessary
to put the knowledge to work, and in the personal qualities that make workers
dedicated and trustworthy.
High-performance workplaces also require other competencies: the ability to
manage resources, to work amicably and productively with others, to acquire and
use information, to master complex systems, and to work with a variety of
technologies.

The report also focuses on five workplace competencies - resources,
interpersonal, information, systems, and technology - and three foundational
skills - basic skills, thinking skills, and personal skills.
Strong relationships with business and industry are an important ongoing
dynamic as education meets community need in tandem with new and existing
partnerships. CAP is one of many initiatives designed to improve economic
development for the community while meeting the individual needs of students.

** To view the web version of this abstract, in printer friendly layout, go
to <https://www.league.org/publication/abstracts/leadership/labs0902.html> **
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directly, subscribe today at <mailto:subscribe@league.org>. Please include
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Dr. Susan Salvador
Office for Student Services
10/03/2002