Community College Journal - December 2010/January 2011

...VIEWPOINT
Career Connections
Colleges, workforce groups offer assistance for dislocated workers

BY ROY CHURCH

Improving educational attainment is a goal shared by many— particularly those in higher education and workforce development. Increasing the number of students who complete degrees, certificates, and other credentials with value in the workplace is vital to our collec- tive economic prosperity. At Ohio’s Lorain County Community College (LCCC), in accordance with mandates from the Ohio Board of Regents Strategic Plan for Higher Education to graduate more students, we place a high priority on this urgent mission and recognize that we cannot realize our full potential as an institution if we work in isolation.

Roy Church

It is imperative that we enter into and sustain deep and authentic partnerships, particularly with our community’s workforce systems.

In many communities
across the country, this
seems a daunting task. The
mission of higher educa-
tion and local workforce
investment boards is not
always congruent and, until
reauthorization of the federal Workforce
Investment Act (WIA), will never be rec-
ognized as such by our nation’s leaders.

There is misunderstanding— animosity, even—between our workforce and educational systems. One-Stop workforce training centers often see higher education as interested only in getting Individual Training Accounts for prospective WIA or Trade Assistance Act-eligible college enrollees. Community colleges and adult career technical education centers often put in place career and job placement services that work parallel to, but independent of, the existing One-Stop system. In the policy realm, interests are competing rather than mutually supportive. Compounding matters, colleges and workforce systems are subject to near-annual budget cuts, despite increased demand for their services.