All In: Student Pathways Forward
This podcast focuses on elevating community college student voices to shape inclusive higher education and workforce development policies, practice and partnerships that create economic mobility.
All In: Student Pathways Forward
Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) Center for Policy and Practice Director Steve Jurch: A discussion on transforming workforce development policy and practice to improve job quality, equity and college & industry partnerships
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This special episode features an interview with Steve Jurch, Director of Center for Policy and Practice at the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) and continues the dialogue with workforce development leaders aiming to transform policies and practice to improve job quality, equity and college and industry partnerships.
Steve highlights a number of initiatives ACCT has in place under the Center for Policy and Practice providing technical assistance to ACCT college members including a Non-credit/Credit Alignment Lab project, another assisting rural colleges and state systems in becoming SNAP E & T third-party providers to support students in completing college, and a skills based hiring initiative.
Steve elaborates on ways ACCT supports job quality with its member institutions as well as how the organization integrates student voice into their policy work. He provides additional insights from his experience as a workforce development practitioner at Community College of Baltimore County prior to joining ACCT.
The All In: Student Pathways Forwardpodcast is a part of Oregon’s participation in the National Skills Coalition SkillSPAN network.
Thanks for listening in. I'd like to welcome us to the podcast today, Steve Dirt, the director for Center for Policy and Caucus at the Association of Community College Trustees. Welcome, Steve, to the All In Student Pathways Forum podcast. Thanks for having me, Mark. It's great to be here. I appreciate you taking the time, and I wanted to start by asking you if you could share more about Association of Community College Trustees. I know it is ACCT. More about ACCT overall and how the organization has prioritized workforce and economic development and the support and advocacy you provide to colleges across the country.
SPEAKER_01Sure, I'd be happy to. And I'll approach it from a couple different angles, talking about our policy efforts, but then also a new initiative that we launched this past June. So in general, the Association of Community College Trustees is a DC-based nonprofit educational organization of governing boards, and we represent more than 6,500 elected and appointed trustees who govern over the 1200 community college, technical, and junior colleges in the country. So these trustees can be either appointed or elected, but they come from the local community. And so our mission is to foster the principles and best practices of governance while promoting high-quality and affordable higher education, cutting-edge workforce development training programs, student success. And ultimately, we really believe that anyone should have the opportunity to persist and succeed in post-secondary education. So while our members technically are the institutions, we work more with the governing boards and the presidents at those institutions. We do impact the entire college with the ultimate goal is to support the students. And so from the policy lens, each year we work to establish a joint community college legislative priorities with our sister organization, the American Association of Community Colleges. And so we create that policy agenda on behalf of both our members' interests. And so some of the current policy issues that we're prioritizing, one of them would be WIOA, strengthening WIOA, which is the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which, as you know, is a major mechanism for states to utilize workforce. So community colleges, we feel that they should be guaranteed to be part of the leadership apparatus for workforce policy at the state and local levels. A lot of times we sit on the workforce boards in the local communities, and that should just be a more solidified process. We want the system to prioritize credential attainment and streamline reporting requirements just to make that process easier so we can best utilize that system. Another policy issue that we're pushing is we'd like to see another major community college-led job training program. In the past, there was a program called TACT, which was the trade adjustment assistance community college and career training grants that went out. They funded projects that either developed or redesigned training programs that led to jobs in local communities that were aligned with the business needs in those communities. So recently they've had the next iteration of those types of projects called the Strengthening Community College Training Grants. So we'd like to see those grow in the next Wii O reauthorization. A couple more would be increasing Pell award levels, increasing career and technical education funding. And one big one that we're pushing for is the establishment of short-term PEL funding. So there's a lot of different conversations around the best way to do this. But basically, it allows increased access to training to be able to fund trainings for good jobs for a wider section of the population. And then we're always big advocates for student basic needs. So anything around providing more childcare on campus, increasing funding to SNAP employment and training programs, anything that's going to support those basic needs.
SPEAKER_00So that's some of the major policy issues that we've been advocating for. Thank you for sharing that. That's very comprehensive. Interestingly enough, as you talked about the TAC grants and the strengthening community colleges, at least in our state of Oregon, there's a current strengthening community college consortium with nine of our 17 colleges focused on manufacturing and cybersecurity. And we had a statewide TAC grant. This goes back years, but round one, all 17 colleges focused on career pathways, career coaches, and credit for prior learning. So if there wasn't an additional investment, that would be incredible, having seen the impact of those resources across our state in supporting students. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01I think Oregon's a model for a lot of things in higher education. It's one of those states that is very innovative in a lot of things they do. I did want to actually mention another piece that ACCT is doing to support our member institutions. Is in June of this year, we launched the Center for Policy and Practice. And so our goal with the Center is to help colleges find practical solutions to their challenges. And by doing so, we're going to create better informed policies. But on the flip side of that, we want to provide technical assistance to our member institutions as they work to implement those new policies that come down either from the federal or local levels. So there's a couple things that we have been working on to demonstrate this. We have a non-credit alignment lab project. There's 14 institutions that are participating. The idea is for them to design either new or improved pathways between non-credit programming and credit programming. There's a lot of discussion around articulation and credit for prior learning and credit by industry credential, but they're really taking an innovative approach around actually rethinking how they design pathways, being very intentional about it, actually embedding non-credit programs into credit training programs. So we're using things like making sure the student voice is incorporated to understand what challenges the students are actually having with these programs. The other thing that they're doing, as you probably know, sometimes the workforce side of the college has different systems than the for credit side of the college. So they're working to adapt those back-end infrastructures so that they support both of those transitions, things like data collection, articulation agreements, policy audits. We're also working on a new national partnership grant from USDA Food and Nutrition Services around creating more colleges that are third-party providers for SNAP ET, which, as you know, Oregon has a fantastic model. And so our focus is actually on rural institutions and then also systems or associations because we see in the rural setting that's an area of tremendous need, and SNAP ENT is a great way to support the whole student. But then also on the state system side or state association side, we're looking at that intermediary model, which is a much more efficient way to do things. And it really takes a lot of the administrative burden off individual institutions. And then most recently, we have a skills-based hiring project, which is a way to help employers and colleges recognize skills and abilities that are not obtained through bachelor's degrees. This was modeled around Maryland's project where they removed a lot of bachelor's degree requirements from state jobs. And so we've partnered with Opportunity at Work to create a more effective and efficient way for colleges and employers to work together to find what skills are required for certain jobs. Does the person have those skills? And if they don't have those skills, making sure that the college programs contain the training necessary to get the skills needed for those positions.
SPEAKER_00I feel like all three of those examples, the non-credit alignment lab project, the third-party Snap ENT provider for community colleges and Snap ENT and the skills-based hiring. We could have a whole podcast conversation on any one of those and go a lot deeper. I would just invite listeners to check out the center for policy and practice. I did want to say just staying with the non-coder line for a second. I think that's phenomenal that you've integrated student voice into that. In addition to what you've already shared, how does ACCT view colleges' roles in promoting job quality within their own institutions and then through their sector and employer partnerships?
SPEAKER_01Because we deal with the trustees from the institution, the way we would approach job quality at the institution itself would be there's a lot of training that goes into our trustee education program. And so we're really trying to push those best practices and teach that person how to be a good trustee, how to govern correctly. And so we view that the trustees are really establishing that climate for the institution. They hire the president, they want to make sure that they're creating the right environment. And then that president is implementing those best practices throughout the institution and hopefully we'll create that positive work environment. Working previously to ACCT, I was at the Community College of Baltimore County, which is three main campus, three extension center institution with 60 plus thousand students. And so there's a lot of staff and faculty that's there. And so in order to carry out our mission, we had to have the resources available to us, we had to have the systems in place, we had to have that culture at the institution that starts with the president and that starts with the board of trustees. Now, when we talk about sector and employer partnerships, part of setting that environment at the college is encouraging best practices like using program advisory boards with our employer partners, labor market information to understand where the demands are, regular evaluation of program requirements and other best practices to make sure that the employers are providing the graduates of the institution with the best possible employment opportunities. You know, a lot of the trustees have direct ties to the business community so they can help facilitate those conversations, get some direct feedback right from the business sector.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think you'll appreciate this too, with your background similar to mine of leading workforce development programs, as we in the field would engage with industry partners to understand what their training needs were beyond hiring of graduate credit, non-credit programs, and unpacking those upskilling opportunities and helping employers training their existing workforce as a retention strategy and a career mobility, career progression strategy. If that's some of the work that colleges are engaging with to help employers do that, then isn't it appropriate for the college to be doing that in a house to really own that too, and considering how they support their own workforce and career progression and training?
SPEAKER_01No, absolutely. It is advantageous for an institution to invest in their own staff as well.
SPEAKER_00I wanted to come back to an area you talked about being a priority for ACCT, and that's supporting rural colleges. What I know about Oregon is the majority of colleges in our state, similar to many others, serve rural communities. And I wanted to ask if you could speak to how ACCT supports rural community colleges and particularly as it relates to student success efforts to increase college access and retention, workforce and economic development initiatives to increase credential completion, and also connection to career pathways leading to quality jobs.
SPEAKER_01Sure. In addition to the governance training that we talked about, we actually are launching what's called ACCT Connect, which is a learning management system. So we're going to be developing a lot of resources that rural institutions are going to have access to. You know, some of the more practical supports. We participated in a project, and it was a two-part project. The first one was more of a fact-finding landscape scan and essentially dug in pretty deep around what issues rural institutions are facing, what kind of solutions do they suggest. We came up with some policy recommendations, and there's a brief on our website. The part two is just wrapping up, which was more about starting to solve some of those issues, creating a networking hub for institutions where they can access a variety of tools. So we have a lot of technical assistance opportunities on some of these things that go towards increasing college access and retention. We have a webinar series on things like mental health and how colleges can set up mental health programs within their institutions or what resources are out there, child care issues and solutions. We have one on digital equity, some new grant initiatives from the federal government, and some of the internet providers have discounted programs, just bringing awareness to a lot of solutions for those institutions. We actually have a filter, they're grant opportunities, but they're filtered specifically for rural institutions. So if you've ever tried to research what grants are available, it can be pretty daunting. And so we have some direct links to most of the major federal agencies that are already filtered specifically to rural. And so it's a much easier process. You can just click on Department of Labor, and any grant opportunity for rural institutions will come up. And they're always the most recent searches. So it saves a lot of time. We also created a peer learning network, and they typically align with the webinar topics. For instance, if there were Department of Health and Human Services grants for rural institutions, we had two institutions that had received health professions opportunity grants out of HHS. What was their experience? How do they apply? What lessons were learned? So there's a lot of resources that are available to rural institutions. We also worked really close with the Rural Community College Alliance to help one spread the word, two to make sure that we are addressing the issues that they were seeing as well, because they had their ear to the ground of where the major issues from a policy standpoint. We would love to see more federal funding streams for community colleges specific to rural economic development, particularly in ag related fields. And so I think these are broader topics that all can increase college access and workforce economic develop initiatives. So there are tools that the colleges can then use to address those different things.
SPEAKER_00That's super helpful in the multitude of resources that ACCT has for rural colleges in terms of practice, but even as you talked about, a policy perspective as well, peer learning network, and then that webinar series, the brief that's on the website. I wanted to come back to their experience working at one of the largest community colleges in Maryland, Community College of Baltimore County. And since you have that expertise on the ground at an institution, I wanted to ask you what other insights you might offer on the topic of effective industry partnerships, job quality considerations, and centering equity in that work.
SPEAKER_01Sure. I was an assistant dean on the workforce development side. So we had a lot of engagement with employer partners and industry partnerships and a lot of different shapes and a lot of different forms. And I think one thing that we learned was that we need to know what they need in their workforce so we can properly design their training programs. I think too many times higher education professionals, they're educators. So they like to teach, they like to help people, but I think sometimes you get ahead of yourself and you think you know what an employer needs before they tell you what they need. And sometimes that can challenge the relationship a little bit. So I think it's really important that you sit down and listen to the employers. What do they need and how can you best help meet those needs? And then you design the program around that. So I think an effective industry partnership has a lot to do with relationship building and communication. And the other thing I found throughout my experience was try to get ahead of the game. You know, a lot of times employers will come to you and say, I need X, Y, or Z tomorrow. And it takes a little bit of time to ramp up a program or to design or modify one. So if they can help you understand what they may need a year from now or three years from now, just get ahead of the curve a little bit. I think that's very helpful. Make sure that they're engaged in the process. We want the best outcomes. Ultimately, we're looking to benefit the students and get them into an occupation that has family sustaining wages. And so we want to make sure that we're meeting the employer's needs. So constant engagement is good as well. And I think you mentioned job quality considerations and equity. If institutions can be engaged, not just with individual employers, but larger advisory committees on different sectors, I think that's important too. I was part of an advisory committee that dealt in healthcare, particularly in the aging population. So workers dealing with the aging population. And as you know, one of the main employee types or occupation types in that industry is nursing assistant. And so there's always a demand for nursing assistant, and there's a lot of different reasons for that. But one of the issues was how do we get the employers to increase the wages to help retain staff? And, you know, as an educational institution, we're not the ones going out there and telling the employers what they should pay their staff. But I think we can be part of that conversation around helping create value around the training that's provided to encourage the employers to raise wages because they're getting such a high-quality individual. We worked with lawyers who advocated for wage changes. And so I think bringing that educational and training lens to the table to help them understand the larger picture.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a great example. And I think in those delicate conversations, potentially about wages, because you started with building that trust through relationships and communication that may allow colleges to then be able to highlight certain ways of skills, and many times there's a lot more behind wages. There's ways colleges can help employers see the importance of upskilling and career progression as we've talked about, or the benefits, or the culture, or the stable scheduling. I mean, there's a lot of elements to job quality, but I think as you were talking about CNA, it sounds like with that example, being part of that conversation about wages and demonstrating the value of the college training can help move employers to see the quality, that would be a reason why the wages should be more.
SPEAKER_01Right. And I think getting back to the employer involvement in the program, and there's a lot of employers. If they come to you and say we need EC10, whatever it is, it's a lot easier to stand up a program or modify a program if we know that there's going to be job opportunities at the end of it. If we can say, okay, you're either going to pay for the training or you're going to guarantee some type of employment or at least the opportunity for employment. I think that goes a long way, but I think you're right in that that doesn't just happen overnight. That has to be that established relationship where the employer knows. That the graduates of your program are high quality. And so they're willing to put in some skin in the game to facilitate their own business needs. So it's going to pay off for them. But if they don't think you're putting out a quality product, they're not going to invest in you. And so I think that having that relationship is important.
SPEAKER_00Totally. Thanks for sharing that example from your C C B C days. I did want to come back to our students again and ask how ACCT has been able to center students in the organization's policy and advocacy work, including adult students that may not always have the bandwidth to participate in traditional student government roles at their colleges.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So from the policy side of things, all of our institutions have student trustees. And while that is a more traditional student government role, it does provide an opportunity for students to be involved with the trustees. So they actually come into the board and bring that student perspective and help the board understand what's actually happening on the ground. From that, ACCT as an organization has a student trustee advisory committee. And so they advise and inform the ACCT board of issues that are happening at their campuses, bringing that student voice even to the national level. And our National Legislative Summit, which is our large advocacy event where we bring in all of our trustees and encourage them to meet with their members of Congress. They are also encouraged to bring not only their student trustees, but also students from their campuses to help share their stories with their legislative members. You know, a lot of times up here in DC, you're removed from what's happening on the ground and maybe a small community college in rural Oregon, bringing that student and having them sit down and talk to a staffer about this is what's happening to me and how can you create a policy that helps me, I think is very powerful. And I think from a practical standpoint, we talked about bringing in the student voice in the non-credit alignment lab project. But that's one of my goals is to bring that lens into every single one of our projects that we have moving forward. So it's not some policy or program that was designed in a vacuum, which ultimately is ineffective. We're really making a concerted effort to always have that student lens built into our projects.
SPEAKER_00That's fantastic. Weaving that student voice into any and all of your upcoming initiatives, understanding the power and importance of centering students and all of this work as decisions are made daily that impact students both in practice and policy. I know having students face to face or even virtually about the modality is ideal. And I would just add a point plug that at times we've been able to use this podcast as a way to share a student interview. If a student's not able to travel or participate, and then it's a conversation with a student hearing, not just their incredible stories and the students articulating what's working for them, what their needs are, but I think most importantly as well as their recommendations. It's eye-opening.
SPEAKER_01The experiences of either the staff or the member of Congress are vastly different than community college students on the ground. And so it's really beneficial to see that light bulb go off in that staff person or a member of Congress. You know, I had no idea that was happening. And thank you for bringing it to my attention. And here's what we can do.
SPEAKER_00Well said. I want to ask a final question, and that's if there's anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up.
SPEAKER_01I know we mentioned earlier the importance of community colleges in higher education, like what role they serve, particularly for adults. Community colleges have been around for a long time. I guess they've had a renaissance or a rebirth, and there's a new focus on community colleges in recent years. And it's because of the way they're structured and what function they serve. And a very common statement that we hear, I know you've heard it in the community college world, is life happens or life gets in the way. And what that highlights for me is that not everyone's educational pathway is as smooth as you might think it is, and that it's important to have a system that allows for all these twists and turns and on-ramps and off-ramps. I think this whole conversation really highlights that the reality of where that workforce is coming from and how they're getting those skills they need is changing. We're shifting away from that traditional pathway of high school, four-year degree, master's degree, and jobs. It's not like that anymore. Employers are also recognizing that just because you have a degree doesn't mean you have the skills they need for their jobs. And so they're really embracing community colleges and community colleges have embraced that landscape and they're filling that role. They're now viewed as a valuable partner for both employees, but also that pipeline for the workforce. I think that these conversations and the podcasts that you do to bring attention to that, the work that we're doing at the center and ACCT is just it's really exciting. And I'm very happy to be part of the community college landscape.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for sharing that. And just to echo what you were saying. The pace of change in the workplace in terms of technology advances and beyond is so rapid. It really is lifelong learning and continued skill development. And there's not a better system out there than community colleges that have been able to be responsive and innovative in building programs and trainings to meet those needs. I just appreciate you taking the time. I learned a lot more in detail about the efforts underway at ACCT from a lens in economic and workforce development and the Center for Healthy and Practice. Glad to have the chance to chat with you and appreciate your leadership and offering us so much about the work that the organization has involved. Well, I was glad to be here and thank you for giving me the opportunity to share. That'll do it for the special All-Mine Student Pathway Sports Podcast episode. This is the host, Mark Goldberg, and I wanted to thank you for listening in. We'll be back next month for a great episode featuring a student at Collapse Community College on the Oregon coast. Hope to see you then.