From Bishop State Community College in Mobile?

I'm Todd Stacy.

Welcome to the second episode of our special series, Higher Education Matters, here on Alabama Public Television.

Over the next half hour, we will take a loo at some of the programs offered by the Alabama Community College System and the opportunities they offered to students all across the state, whether it is here at Bishop State in Mobil or one of the other 24 campuses.

Alabama's community colleges are playing a pivotal role in education and workforce development, preparing today's students for the careers of tomorrow.

Here's what's ahead on the program.

I'll sit down with ACCS Deputy Chancellor Keith Phillips, who also serves as executive director of the Alabama Technology Network, to talk about that growin workforce development component.

Randy Scott is at Northeast Alabama Community College in Rainsville, showcasin what that campus has to offer.

But first, Jeff Sanders gives us a look at the Innovation Center at Shelton Stat Community College in Tuscaloosa.

The Alabama Community College System's Innovation Center was launched to bridge the gap between education and workforce needs.

Director Julie Frizzell says the goal is to deliver practical training where it's needed most to help individuals find short term training, to bring them the skills that they need to get into jobs quickly.

Through its skills for succes program, the Innovation Center offers short hybrid courses designed for high demand jobs in industries like construction, manufacturing, health care, hospitality and commercial driving.

We are really seeking that nontraditional student, someone who's not really been engaged in any type of post-secondary education already, or maybe someone who needs to upskil in the industry that they're in.

Matt Heaton with the Innovation Center, says the training is designed directly with business input to prepare students for real jobs.

All of our courses come from an industry request, and we're just there to help justify that, that statewide need.

And so it's industry to tell u where the gaps are in industry and what needed needs to b in that course for the students to learn to get i that line of work is important.

One success story is Jackson Baker, who completed a heavy equipment operator course at Shelton State through skills for success.

Our first ever heavy equipment operator winner for the high school division.

But then when skills USA was mentioned in that competition, he jumped in.

Shelton State President Doctor Jonathan Cole says Baker's journey highlights how the program turns training into opportunity.

Having a student come through Shelton State and compete in that competition is wonderful, but to actually win the state competition is even better.

And then I think he plays like fifth or sixth at the national level.

The hands on opportunities that we provide that really refines those skills and really brings home what they learned online into a contextual format.

Industry partners like Apple Alabama say the partnership is essential for meeting workforce demands where they can come to your jobsite.

They're going to sit down with you at your office, okay, this is what we need.

They'll go out and they're going to show you a full game plan of how they're going to help.

And that's why it benefits us so much.

It's not just the little pieces of equipment here, a little piece of equipment there.

They're actually coming in and getting a full blown game plan for you.

With more than 50 courses already available and dozens more in development, the Innovation Center is helping Alabamians quickly gain practical skills that lead to employment, further education, or military service.

Employers who are looking to relocate into Alabama.

So economic development is a big part of workforce development, and they go hand in hand.

And we want to make sure that as industry comes into Alabama, that we have training programs available.

Reporting in Tuscaloosa I'm Jeff Sanders for higher education matters.

Thank you Jeff.

Randy Scott is up on the borde of Jackson and DeKalb counties.

At Northeast Alabama Community College in Gainesville.

Here's his look at what northeast has to offer.

Somebody is starting to change to fall.

And with that, a new school year is also getting started.

K through 12 schools as well as colleges are starting a new school session.

Excitement can be felt at Northeast Alabama Community College in Gainesville.

Thanks to new workforce development, programs weren't forced development?

In in just a few short words is preparing students to be successful in high wage, high demand career paths.

Kari Wright is the dea of workforce development at NAC and says the course covers a wide range of subjects.

It covers, areas that, directly put people to work in manufacturing jobs, jobs and building construction, and jobs in health care.

When you're looking at the biggest tool on the campus of Northeast Alabama Community College, this is their workforce Skills Training Center is designed to give the next workforce for this country prepared by offering them courses in dual enrollment and also giving them hands on training in thing such as heavy equipment repairs, CDL license, robotics, and even electronic repair.

It's going to get the next workforce prepared for the real world.

Our intent is to get more into workforce training.

And this facility permits us to do that.

It's, 55,000ft.

State of the art facility that provides training with, in jobs and programs that are needed in our area and the region.

40 years ago, Skilled Trades was leaving Alabama.

And in recent years, there has been an inflow of manufacturers from, you know, automotive, fabrication jobs.

Wright says the times are changing and those skills are once again in demand.

Everywhere you look, there' someone manufacturing a product.

And with all those manufacturing, jobs and companies comes the need for, you know, the skilled worker the machinists, the the drafter, the welder, the maintenance technicians, the carpenters, the plumbers.

He adds it's created a shortage problem.

So all these areas are being, really drawn thin because of the added number of jobs and how we're having to catch up educationally.

We're preparing students to go into to fields that are nontraditional.

Wright says they can now focus on future targets for the students they serve.

The emphasis and focus on workforce development now is to attract that group of students, that is, in searching out a field where they can g and make a living for themselves and their families, you know, for years to come.

In Gainesville, Randy Scott.

For higher education matters.

Thank you, Randy, an we'll be right back with more.

Higher education matters.

Alabama Public Television is your place for quality educational services.

Free professional development for educators and childcare providers with access to free, curriculum aligned videos, lesson plans and instructional resources with PBS Learning Media and all the PBS kids programs, parents know and trust.

Learn something new every da with Alabama Public Television.

Visit us at AP tv.org/education to learn more.

Joe Cain is regarded as the founder of Mobile's modern day Mardi Gras celebration.

In 1868, some say in defiance of the Union occupation that of mobile, Joe Kane and six others paraded through downtow in a decorated charcoal wagon.

Cain was dressed as fictional Chickasaw chieftain Flaca Bam Renee Cole along the route, Cain or the chief symbolically declared an end to mobile suffering and signaled the return of the city's parading activities.

Joe Kane Day, also know as the People's Parade, occurs on the Sunday before Fat Tuesday.

It has becom a cherished tradition in mobile since the first procession in 1967.

Joe Kane is buried in the Church Street graveyard in downtown mobile.

His granite tombstone, incised with the image of a jester, reads here lies old Joe King, the heart and soul of Mardi Gras in Mobile.

And welcome back to Higher Education Matters here on Alabama Public Television.

We're here at Bishop State Community College in Mobile.

And joining me next is Keith Phillips, vice chancellor of the Alabama Community College System and executive director o the Alabama Technology Network.

Keith, thanks for making the time.

Thank you, Todd.

Proud to be here.

Proud to have you mobile.

Absolutely.

Well this is fantastic.

We are getting an up close look at what the community college system does.

I mean, this is a classroom, but it looks like we're on the inside of the of a factory of a of a plant of some kind.

Did did not happen by accident.

By the way this is kind of how we do things from the standpoint of, you know, you'll hear me talk about having business and industry at the table when we're building out training.

This is what you know, you won't see this everywhere but oil and gas, chemical pulp and paper process technology is a big part of their, their operation, their manufacturing.

So this is a little unique.

And they were at the table helping design and make sure that this this lab was real, real scale, real world.

What they do on the job?

Absolutely.

And you can't see them now.

But they were.

It was a class going on when we first got here.

So, I mean, it really is a laboratory.

Well, look, let's back up because I want to just kind of go from the top.

Sure.

And talk about the community college system and your role in workforce development.

That's your job.

You're your deputy chancellor for workforce development.

So talk about that role that you serve in the state.

Sure.

Absolutely.

So, you know, if you think about the Alabama Community College System of Workforce development, that's what we do.

We're the largest provider workforce development in the state.

You know, our role is to make sure that we're providing training for Alabama citizens, to gain those middle skilled jobs.

You know, we're we're in every community, 24 colleges, 130 locations.

We're proven we're we're built already.

I like to talk about that a good bit.

From the standpoint of business and industry comes to us.

We do what we do here.

We've made it.

Sit down at the table, talk about what their training needs are, make sure our programs align to what those needs are.

Our students are graduatin and being employed successfully.

So it's really, you know, for all industry sector in the state, we touch, provide training for recruit students into and help them get jobs.

You know, I've talked about 24 community colleges.

We're unique in that we're a system.

A lot of states don't have systems that community colleges, they have independent community colleges.

So we're governed by board of trustee who actually come from business.

Excuse me, from business and industry.

They understand what needs to happen in the classroom and in the labs like this.

They business people, you know, our chancellor, Chancellor Jimmy Baker, has had a vision for making us the leader in workforce development.

And we are, he's had a big focus.

Not to sa that academics isn't important.

We have a lot of students who will come to us and do academic transfer to a four year degree or to a four year university, and that's fantastic.

But our specialty is what we do in workforce development.

You know, 96% of our students are from Alabama.

72% of our two year degree completers and 65% of our short term certificate Completers still live, wor and play in Alabama communities.

Without the.

I was reading about the skills for success program.

Can you describe what that is?

Because it's it's a new take on development.

So, skills for succes was a concept that was kind of, at a dinner one night with the Chancellor or some industry folks.

It was a concep that was etched out on a napkin.

And the Chancellor took that concept, and we revived it into a broader concept, an idea that was the Innovatio Center and skills for success.

The governor saw the value in it, and the legislators saw the value potential value in and they funded it.

Four years later, we're producing we've produced about 50 plus courses that are those, credentials that help individuals.

I quickly gain a skill for employment.

We've had over 50,000 students enroll in that.

We run about a 46% completion rate.

Completion.

Meaning they go through the theory and then show up and complete the lab successfully.

We've had a tremendous amount of success in it.

And really, it's, the skills for succes courses is a different approach.

The theory is built where an individual can progress through the theory with their phone or tablet or a laptop.

It kind of meeting them where they are.

They progresse through that on their own time.

Business and industry help design the course you got here.

That's the core for everything we do is making sure they have a seat at the table, but they design the course, including the lab portion where the students really can go through the theory on their phone or whatever device, and they have to prove that they're mastering the concept of theory, but they have to show up in lab and demonstrate, hey, I can really do this with hands on demonstration.

So it's a quick way to, credential individuals that maybe are on the sidelines and not in the workforce lining up with the governor's plan.

Right.

You want a lot more credentialed?

Yes.

Workers trying to get that workforce participation rate.

But, I want to get to that in a second.

But, one of your hats is executive director of the Alabama Technology Network.

Can you remind our audience about Atnt and its role in the workforce development success?

Yeah.

So, ATN, the Alabama technology network has been around since 1987.

So we're in our 30th year.

Our primary focu is helping existing businesses and the industries where they're incumbent worker training, upskill those individuals, on the job to make sure that, you know, the companies are staying productive, that we're helping them with efficiencies.

You know, we've evolved over time.

We started out as center of excellence around the state, and we quickly realized we, you know, Muscle Shoals was a center of excellence for environmental health and safety.

And we had all of our talen that did that in Muscle Shoals.

And we realized that's a need statewide.

So we've modified kind of our existence over time where we function in teams.

You know, if you look here in mobile, we, we have teams that are industrial maintenance and technology.

So those would be individuals who deliver on, robotics, pneumatics, hydraulics, motor controls.

We have teams that ar environmental health and safety.

Obviously that's OSHA trainings.

Hazmat ha has Whopper has communication.

We do some environmental work.

We have a team that is, focused on LMD leadership, management and development.

We have a tea that CI, continuous improvement.

Those would be things like lean or an ISO implementation.

And lastly, we're beginning to evolve in the food food industry in the states.

Big.

So we now instead of trying to put a location specific as a center of excellence, we have those skill sets all over the state.

We track our project.

We typically work with about 300 to 350 companies a year.

In the last ten years, we track outcomes.

Those companies obviously give economic impacts to a third party that validates that for us.

And, those companies have, collectively $4.5 billion in economic impact.

So those are things like cost savings, cost avoidance, retained sales, new sales, those type things that add up to that $4.5 billion.

And then we track jobs, new jobs and jobs retain.

And that's been over $22,000.

Excuse me, 22,000 jobs over the last ten years.

You know, we've got a group of 60 folks statewide.

And it's growing.

We're expanding.

We go to where the work is.

And that's a little unique for us that a lot of folks think about training where you have to go to, a college or go to a center somewhere.

We send our people out every day where some work training in different companie all around the state every day.

And, yeah, we found that to be real effective because we're actually training on their equipment, training on their floor, working side by side.

Our folks got over a thousand years of manufacturing experience.

And that's that's our specialt is helping manufacturing.

Well, and what better way to learn than right there on the job?

I'm thinking if I'm a company wondering where to locate, right where to locate or expand, it might help to have tha support network, from the state, investing in the workforce, investing in their potential employees is that do you get that feedbac when it comes to job recruitment and new companies locating here?

Do you get that feedback?

Yes, we do.

We you know, I feel strongly that if dollars are going to be allocated toward workforce development, then the community college system as a whole, which includes the Innovation Center, skills for success, ATN and all of our colleges were a proven model.

I think we were at the table with business and industry, and we have standing relationships.

We've got over 50, 300 companies that we work with as a system in the state, and that's growing.

So I think we're definitely at the table.

And the return on investment for what we do, is measured by those relationships and how often those companies keep coming back to us.

Again, you know, it's a partnership.

We talk about i being an education institution.

It's really a partnership an collaboration with the industry.

I'm wonderin about how you make those choices because as you mentioned, going back to the 80s, I mean, just it evolved quite a bit, right?

This business community industry has evolved quite a bit.

So how do you go about making programmatic choices and letting those evolve in terms of, okay what programs need to be offered at which colleges based on what industries are demanding from their workforce?

Because I'm I'm guessing that's an ongoing, evolving process.

It is an ongoing process.

You know, we're going to use data, we use like gas, which is a labor market information database that does job projections.

You know, we'll look at that.

But that's that's one piece of it, obviously.

Again, I go back to what's in this room.

We look at what businesses and industries here.

We actually want them at the table telling us what they need.

Listen, data is one part of the solution, but having those voices here are the voice of the customer telling you what you need is critical.

And then we use that information, you know, we'll look and see what projections are on that.

You know, technologies change.

And one thing that you'll see here, and it's a result of what's going to happen in mobile with the maritime expansion, industries told us, hey, in the building, building giants building ships and submarines here, additive manufacturing is going to be huge.

And it's the different type of an additive manufacturing than nylon print 3D printers.

This is metal additive manufacturing.

So we've actually Bishop is under for the process of taking their CNC machines and adding a robotic arm to a five axis C and C machine that will do powder metal additive manufacturing actually be able to to actually build a metal component.

So that and that all comes from the industry being at the table.

Would we have seen that looking at labor market data?

No, we would have seen the job for C and C, but the specialty of being able to do additive that came from industry.

Right.

And that's exciting to think about.

And that is you know, years down the line.

But you all have a runway here to prepare for it.

And so that that is exciting to think about.

A lot of talk in the stat about workforce participation.

It's interestin because we always used to work look at the unemployment rate, right.

That was that was the thing is.

And so if we're under, you know, 4 or 3 that, hey, we're doing okay.

But that began to change, you know, 4 or 5 years ago.

And I thought it was interesting that the governor kind of acknowledged that, in fact, one of their press release that they always sent out, it really doesn't highlight unemployment right anymore.

It highlights workforce development or workforce participation rather.

Yes.

And that rate, that's what we're trying to get.

You know, more people participating in the workforce talk about y'alls role there because there are people on the sidelines.

There are barriers to the workforce.

Maybe people feel like they can't participate for one reason or another.

Credentials are a big part of that.

Yes.

Talk about the community college system and how you all are trying to play that role in getting people off the sidelines.

Yep.

It's a great question.

It's a big challenge.

And actually, I think we the state has had a little bit of improvemen in the labor force, participate.

And right, I think it was poste a few weeks ago a little uptick.

And you see that sometimes it's seasonal, seasonal jobs folks who will take CS.

So that's normal.

But I think we're we've been focused.

I posted on my LinkedIn profile, there was a speaker that, I was fortunate enough to hear a few weeks ago said at any one time, 38 million a year and 80% of that, 38 million are male who are online gaming 24 seven.

And of that group, 13.6 million are Neet in E t, not in education, not employed and not in training.

It's going to take something different to reac that that group of individuals.

It's going to have to be nontraditional.

How we how we train them how we recruit them for training because their learning model has changed.

So I think that's the one thing we've times we've adapted to, to learning modality from individuals a year who, I'll go back to skills for success.

That learning model has built around a tick learning, if you will.

And hey, I had to admit social media has shortened my attention span.

But it's it's you take an hour's worth of theory and there's probably 10 to 15 minutes of relevance in that theory.

It's all good, good, good, important hour.

But can you get it dow to tick tock moment of learning so that the the student can absorb that what's most important in a short amount of time and then move on through an exercise that makes them prove, hey, I got this and then go to the next ten minutes worth of important theory.

So condensing that down, we've done a lot there.

And I still gotta go to the lab.

Yes.

Yeah, the lab is the vital piece because that's the that' the signal to industry is hey, I can learn this material, but I can also demonstrate that I can use this and these together to actually do to do what's in the lab, to do what's required of the job.

You know, we've done a lot of work based learning, work based learning.

And that's, you know, some folks will call that apprenticeships.

It's broader than apprenticeships.

It's work based learning where we're individuals who need to work to come to school.

We're partner with business and industries.

They employ them 2 to 3 day a week, and they come to school 2 to 3 days a week.

So it's the earn and learn model.

We we're being very fortunate.

There's a famed program here, Federation of Advanced Manufacturing Education, where the students here specialize.

And process technology is the only, finding program in the country that's driven by process technology.

But that's the nee that's here in this community.

We're almost out of time, but I wanted to ask you this.

There may be people watching that want to get off the sidelines, maybe don't know how, folks, maybe they're unemployed, underemployed, want a different career.

Where can they go?

Where?

How can they learn more about the opportunities offered through the community college system?

First, let me say this.

Our doors are open and a lot of people think that, hey, I've got to take some special test or come up with some criteria before I can be a college student.

It's not true.

You know where our doors are open.

The best thing I can tell you is go to the x.edu website or go to your local community college's website.

Put an interest for me in.

Someone will reach out to, take that first step.

I'll use an example of an individual here.

Mobile quint, as I call his last name.

But, our skills for success course, he was working a job.

It was, it was in a packing facility.

And in his words, he hated it.

If working shift work, didn't have time with his family, and he said I took a chance.

I signed up for, skills fo success CDL course, six weeks.

He had a CDL.

He had a job driving a cement mixer truck.

And in his words, he said a double my salary.

He said, I go to work at six in the morning.

I get off about two.

I have time with my family in the afternoon.

So he talked about improving his salary, talked about taking a chance and he talked about quality of life.

That's what it's about for us.

We can provide that for Alabama citizens.

What a great success story is.

What it's all about.

Well, again, thanks for your time.

Thanks for inviting us to Bishop.

Status has been a fascinating look.

And, again, thank you for all your wor at the community college system and explaining it to ou audience.

It's important work.

Well, we appreciate the opportunity to thank you.

We'll be right back.

Montgomery native Katherine C Thornton is a physicist and former NASA astronaut.

A veteran of four spaceflights, Thornton has logged over 975 hours in space, including more than 21 hours of extravehicular activity.

During her time with NASA.

She served on the crew of 649, the maiden flight of Space Shuttle Endeavor, and helped prepare the Hubble Space Telescope and conducted microgravity experiments in Space Lab.

Alabama Public Television is your place for quality educational services.

Free professional development for educators and childcare providers with access to free, curriculum aligned videos, lesson plans and instructional resources with PBS Learning Media and all the PBS kids programs, parents know and trust.

Learn something new every da with Alabama Public Television.

Visit us at AP tv.org/education to learn more.

And that's all the time we have for this episode of Higher Education Matters.

A special thank you to our hosts here at Bishop State Community College in Mobil for Alabama Public Television.

I'm Todd Stacey.

We'll see you next time.

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