The Future Of Work
Pasadena City College presents The Future Of Work. We are leading the conversation of how to begin closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. We’ll be talking to policy makers, business owners, educators and the students we are advocating for. We’ll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable and how to attain one of our highest goals, more internships. This conversation impacts the future of all of us.
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Transcript - Episode 116: Revisiting: Why Technical Education & Post Secondary Career Programs Will Change The Future Of Work With Jennifer Zeisler Senior Program Director Of Career Readiness At ECMC Foundation Episode 116
03/26/2024
Transcript - Episode 116: Revisiting: Why Technical Education & Post Secondary Career Programs Will Change The Future Of Work With Jennifer Zeisler Senior Program Director Of Career Readiness At ECMC Foundation Episode 116
00:00:00 Jennifer Ivy Tech, a community college system in Indiana, they developed this approach where they label a course to say that a student can take the course in one of three ways. They can do it in person in a classroom. They can do it online, in real-time, or they can take it as an asynchronous class. 00:00:16 Jennifer But they don't have to decide when they register for the class. The class is always available across those modalities. And so, what may work for a student today might be different tomorrow or next week. And so, really, just recognizing that this not only serves single mother students, but a lot of new traditional learners or adult students who are juggling families and jobs, and many other responsibilities. 00:00:45 Christina The workforce landscape is rapidly changing, and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. 00:00:57 Christina But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the future? 00:01:09 Salvatrice Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College, and host of this podcast. 00:01:18 Christina And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host of this podcast. 00:01:22 Salvatrice And we are starting the conversation about the future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals; more internships and PCC students in the workforce. 00:01:36 Salvatrice We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us. You, the employers, the policymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole. 00:01:56 Christina We believe change happens when we work together and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barsi. 00:02:03 Salvatrice And I'm Salvatrice Cummo, and this is the Future of Work. 00:02:07 Salvatrice Hi everyone, and welcome back to the future of work podcast. I am your host, Salvatrice. Today, we'll be talking about educational success and why strategic planning is important. We will also talk about the importance of technical education and post-secondary career programs within higher education, as well as what we can all do to make sure we are properly training the future of work. 00:02:30 Salvatrice With that being said, we are excited to welcome Jennifer Zeisler, Senior Program Director, career readiness at the ECMC Foundation. Jennifer oversees the strategy for a portfolio of grants committed to improving post-secondary career and tech education outcomes for students, specifically within underserved backgrounds. 00:02:51 Salvatrice She also brings experience working with university students, government officials, foundation, and business executives, not to mention university administrators and nonprofit leaders through a previous position at the Clinton Global Initiative. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us. 00:03:09 Jennifer Thanks so much for having me. 00:03:11 Salvatrice Thank you, thank you. If you don't mind, I always like to kick off all of my conversations with what led you to this work. So, share with us a little about what led you to the path of ECMC Foundation and your interest within educational success and planning. 00:03:26 Jennifer Yeah, I love this question and I just love to think about why I am passionate about education. I come from a family of educators. Actually, my grandma's mom, my great-grandma, she put herself through college in the 1920s so that she could be a better teacher. 00:03:41 Jennifer And my grandpa, same set of grandparents, his father actually left the family when he was a child and he saw how his mom struggled. And he really believed in the power of education as a means to financial stability, which is why he became an educator himself and really encouraged and maybe demanded that his children go to college. 00:04:00 Jennifer Which was to my mom, in the sixties, which was not that common for women at that time. And so, last point here is that my mom did become an educator as well. I had her for a teacher from kindergarten to 12th grade. I grew up in a very small rural community. And then my dad actually was my college professor for four years. Both of my parents were music educators, so I always was in their class. So, anyway, I guess you could say that education is in my genes. 00:04:29 Salvatrice Thank you. So, that's what led you to this work? What led you to ECMC Foundation, and what role, if you can kind of unpack a little bit, the role that you serve with this passion within educational planning, strategic planning - what role you serve there as well? 00:04:46 Jennifer Sure. So, I mean, maybe it would help if I shared a little about ECMC Foundation. We are a Los Angeles-based nationally focused foundation, committed to improving post-secondary persistence and completion for students from underserved backgrounds. 00:04:58 Jennifer And as you shared already, I oversee the grant-making strategy focused on post-secondary career and technical education or CTE, the types of programs which prepare students for middle-skill roles. And so, without moving too far away from the question, I just want to touch on that for a minute because I think that this is really a time to talk about and uplift those roles and those positions. 00:05:19 Jennifer We know that middle-skill roles, those that require some education and training beyond high school, but less than a bachelor's degree, they have not only been critical to our general functioning as a country over the last few years, but they account for more than half of the jobs in the United States. 00:05:36 Jennifer So, I really, as someone who grew up with this focus and commitment to education, really believe in the opportunity that career and technical education provides for individuals in moving into these middle-skill roles. 00:05:48 Salvatrice You gave a really nice glimpse of how this foundation serves. Might there be an example you can share about the foundation in action? 00:05:56 Jennifer Yeah, I think drawing from my own background and experience, one of the initiatives that I'm the most proud of is ECMC Foundation's commitment to single mother students. So, we know that more than 1 in 10 undergraduate students in the United States is a single mother. And among these single mothers, 90% are living at or near the poverty line. And a disproportionate amount are women of color. 00:06:18 Jennifer Nearly half are attending community colleges where they're pursuing these career and technical education programs like healthcare and information technology. And again, all of those roles that really got us through the last few years, if you think about it. 00:06:30 Salvatrice That's right. 00:06:31 Jennifer But despite getting better grades than their non-parenting peers, single mother students, they're not completing at the same rate. Only 11% of single mother students complete an associate degree on time. So, this matters and single mother students who earn an associate degree are nearly half as likely to live in poverty as those with a high school diploma. 00:06:51 Jennifer And this is why this matters to ECMC Foundation. In fact, we have doubled our commitment to support single mother students over the next five years and really working to increase the percentage of single mother students who attain an associate degree. 00:07:06 Salvatrice How does that look like at a local level? Is that a community college applying for the grant funds to then support the student? Or is that the student going directly to the foundation? What does that look like? 00:07:17 Jennifer Yeah, that's a great question. So, we're really interested in systemic change. And so, I would say the majority of our grant-making is in supporting intermediaries who are working directly with community colleges to increase their data capacity, to help them implement innovative approaches and flexible schedules, and ways that can meet single mother students where they are. 00:07:41 Jennifer We do provide some support to direct service organizations, although that is less common, and some directly to postsecondary institutions. But the majority of our grants go to intermediaries. 00:07:52 Salvatrice Is that an intermediary, for example, a workforce development agency or another foundation doing this work? 00:07:59 Jennifer So, the intermediaries that we support tend to be national organizations with some type of expertise. So, for example, one of our grantees, the Education Design Lab uses human-centered design to help a cohort of four community colleges really understand the opportunities and challenges that their single mother students are facing, and to implement innovative approaches to improve those credential attainment rates. 00:08:25 Jennifer Would it be okay if I gave you an example of one of the community colleges participating in Education Design Labs? 00:08:33 Salvatrice Absolutely. Please share, yeah. 00:08:35 Jennifer Okay. So, Ivy Tech, a community college system in Indiana, they developed this approach where they label a course to say that a student can take the course in one of three ways. They can do it in person, in a classroom. They can do it online, in real-time, or they can take it as an asynchronous class. 00:08:52 Jennifer But they don't have to decide when they register for the class. The class is always available across those modalities. And so, what may work for a student today might be different tomorrow or next week. And so, really, just recognizing that this not only serves single mother students, but a lot of new traditional learners or adult students who are juggling families and jobs and many other responsibilities. 00:09:17 Salvatrice That's a stellar example. I really like that a lot. And it made me think about as a community college system, that is an incredible example of one, but I also wonder as a system, are we truly equipped as community colleges to really help students within this post-secondary and CTE environment through your lens? 00:09:38 Salvatrice I have a bias lens. I'm going to say yes all the time. Of course, we're ready. Of course, we've got the best of the best, but it's helpful to hear it through your perspective and this perspective of others in this work. 00:09:49 Jennifer Well, I think I share your bias. So, I would say, yes, absolutely. We know that 65% of undergraduate students enroll in a community college at some point after completing high school. And community colleges offer an affordable, flexible route for millions of students to develop skills and earn credentials that they need to access, not only those middle-skill jobs, but the jobs of the future. 00:10:11 Jennifer And because of the vital role that community colleges play, and especially for students from historically underrepresented communities, more than half of ECMC foundation's grant-making has supported community colleges, and really more so, going back to my comment about intermediaries, the organizations that serve community colleges and serve the students attending community college. 00:10:32 Salvatrice Got it. Are there changes you think that need to happen to ensure that the student is getting the adequate training? Or are you saying, "Salvatrice, I think we're on the right path. Do we need to make small tweaks? Sure." But if there's a significant need that we can't see because we're in the work, I'd love to hear that. 00:10:51 Jennifer Yeah, I don't think I'm going to tell you anything you don't know, but here's what we've seen from our grantees who are doing this great work. And from where we sit at the foundation, we're at that 30,000-foot view, we see across a portfolio of great work and we are able to lift up the learnings and really see those themes and those trends. 00:11:07 Jennifer So yeah, we'd love to ensure that students have access to basic needs. And so, childcare, housing, transportation, mental health - I don't know how much we talked about that before the last couple years. 00:11:18 Jennifer Also, collecting and analyzing data. So, certainly, again, probably not a surprise, but really ensuring that decision-making centers equity, but also incorporates the perspective of the groups, the students that are most affected. The idea of student voice comes up often for us at the foundation, and I think for our grantee community. 00:11:36 Jennifer This is one I think that is really, really important. And that is building and broadcasting quite frankly, pathways from short-term credentials to longer-term academic opportunities. We just worry so much that students won't pursue those additional credentials if they stop out after a micro-credential, for example, or that the training may be terminal and that they won't have credit to continue on. 00:12:01 Jennifer And so, making sure those pathways are available and that students know about them. I think that's one of the other elements there. 00:12:07 Jennifer And then, finally developing those essential partners with community-based organizations and employers, I think both play such a significant role in supporting the learner and the student and the worker to access those better jobs and those family sustaining opportunities. 00:12:22 Salvatrice You're right. And you hit a key stakeholder, which are the employers. And I wonder if through your work, if you've seen an uptick in employer engagement, and employers being interested in upskilling their existing workforce, or are they being far removed from that. Through our work, it kind of depends on where you are, but as a national organization, I wonder if you're seeing an uptick with employer engagement. 00:12:47 Jennifer I quite frankly don't know if I have a good answer for this question, because I think pre-pandemic, we saw a real increase in employer engagement. I think we saw community colleges recognizing that employer engagement needed to go beyond advisory committee Friday morning coffee or whatever. 00:13:02 Salvatrice That's right. 00:13:03 Jennifer The stereotype is there, and we saw employers on campus and educators, inviting employers and really bridging those divides. And what I heard from a community college administrator is that we learned a lot after 2008 and we're not going back - that employers see their role in educating their workforce as much as the education community sees in providing an educated workforce, preparing an educated...
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Revisiting: Why Technical Education & Post Secondary Career Programs Will Change The Future Of Work With Jennifer Zeisler Senior Program Director Of Career Readiness At ECMC Foundation Episode 116
03/26/2024
Revisiting: Why Technical Education & Post Secondary Career Programs Will Change The Future Of Work With Jennifer Zeisler Senior Program Director Of Career Readiness At ECMC Foundation Episode 116
It is time to open up and diversify the education to career pathway! By developing and embracing new forms of learning methods, we can better serve students and families in less traditional or underserved populations. Joining us today is Jennifer Zeisler, Senior Program Director of Career Readiness at ECMC Foundation, a philanthropic fundraising service helping inspire and facilitate improvements that affect educational outcomes among underserved communities. By allocating grants and building pathways from short term credentials to longer term academic opportunities we can open up a world of possibilities to students. Discover the importance of technical education and post secondary career programs within higher education, as well as what we can all do to properly train and prepare students for the future of work. *This episode originally released on July 5th, 2022 More from Jennifer Zeisler: Visit Call: 866-336-3262 LinkedIn: Twitter: Facebook: Youtube: Find the transcript to this episode To connect with us about the podcast visit our Please be sure to subscribe, rate and review us on apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts!
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Transcript - Episode 115: Revisiting: The Key To Becoming A Lifelong Learner, With Amrit Ahluwalia Executive Director of Continuing Studies at Western University Episode 115
03/12/2024
Transcript - Episode 115: Revisiting: The Key To Becoming A Lifelong Learner, With Amrit Ahluwalia Executive Director of Continuing Studies at Western University Episode 115
00:00:00 Amrit We have a responsibility to make the college a lifelong learning engine. We have a responsibility to make higher education something that people don't just do once at the start of their career, and then never really return to, other than for football games and donations. 00:00:12 Amrit Like that can't be the relationship that we have with people after they graduate. The relationship that we have with people after they graduate has to be one that continues to be based in learning access. It has to be continued to be based in value. 00:00:28 Christina The workforce landscape is rapidly changing and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. 00:00:43 Christina But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the future? 00:00:53 Salvatrice Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College, and host of this podcast. 00:01:02 Christina And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host of this podcast. 00:01:05 Salvatrice And we are starting the conversation about the future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals; more internships and PCC students in the workforce. 00:01:19 Salvatrice We at Pasadena City College, want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us. You, the employers, the policymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole. 00:01:39 Christina We believe change happens when we work together, and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barsi. 00:01:47 Salvatrice And I'm Salvatrice Cummo, and this is the Future of Work. 00:01:50 Salvatrice Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Future of Work Podcast, I am your host, Salvatrice Cummo. Today, we will learn about The EvoLLLution, one of the best platforms for post-secondary professionals to share their insights through a non-traditional lens. 00:02:07 Salvatrice We will also talk about what topics have been the most popular since the start of the pandemic, and how other higher education professionals can really contribute to the platform. 00:02:17 Salvatrice With that said, we would like to welcome Amrit Ahluwalia the Editor-in-Chief at the EvoLLLution, a modern campus illumination. For over 11 years, Amrit has worked at The EvoLLLution, an online newspaper, exclusively published by, and for those who understand higher education. 00:02:37 Salvatrice Amrit works personally with every contributor at the EvoLLLution to produce the content that has supported the site's rise to becoming the top resource for non-traditional higher education. He regularly speaks on topics related to the change in higher education environment at conferences across Canada and the United States, and advises colleges and university leaders to help frame strategic visions for their institutions. We welcome Armrit, how are you? 00:03:07 Amrit Hey Salvatrice, I'm well, how are you? 00:03:09 Salvatrice Good. Good to chat with you again. 00:03:11 Amrit Yeah, absolutely. It was a lot of fun last time. I'm so glad we got the chance to connect again so soon. 00:03:17 Salvatrice That's right, that's right. Now, the tables have turned. I'm interviewing you, right? 00:03:21 Amrit Yeah, no kidding. Sorry, I won't ask you questions. 00:03:25 Salvatrice Well, let's get started. I know very well who you are and what The EvoLLLution is, but I always love to ask this question to our practitioners out there and those within this arena, is really share with us kind of what led you to this work and what led you in journalism, and why education, why did you pick education as a point of interest? 00:03:44 Amrit For sure. Well, I've always loved storytelling. Storytelling's always been something that's been interesting to me. And I think storytelling is the best way for us to start normalizing some of the things that may seem a little odd or might seem a little outside the norms. It's through stories that people can really start to connect and interact with ideas that are a little outside their scope. 00:04:03 Amrit So, my own story is actually not mine. It's my mom's. I'm based in Canada. Both my parents are new immigrants. I'm the first generation of my family born in Canada. And my father came over in the early eighties, late seventies/early eighties to earn his doctorate. My mom and dad got married in the mid-eighties. My mom is from India in Bombay, so she came over as well. 00:04:23 Amrit Now, she had her bachelor's in chemistry from the University of Bombay. She'd worked for five years as an air hostess with British Airways, loved math, loved science. You don't need me to tell you she's super smart, but super, super smart. So , she gets to Canada, goes to the employment office and says "This is my background. This is what I'm good at." 00:04:40 Amrit Obviously, like well-trained in crisis management, well-trained in customer engagement, customer service, like all these soft skills. Plus, she's got a technical background. And they said, "Cool, so you could probably work at a diner because you are a stewardist." 00:04:52 Amrit She was like, "Well, no, that's not a thing that's interesting to me." So, she went, she got her accounting licenses, she became a certified accountant. She eventually got a job at the Federal Government of Canada. She worked for 35 some years at various executive levels within the Canadian Federal Public Service. 00:05:10 Amrit And the entire time continued to take courses to first, to pursue her own interest, to advance her career. I actually remember she earned a graduate-level credential in accounting when I was three. And she didn't do convocation. We went to Vermont. 00:05:25 Amrit I distinctly remember that her entire life, she was a non-traditional student. As she started to approach retirement, she started doing professional photography certifications because that was something that interested her as maybe a post retirement job. 00:05:36 Amrit So, my story isn't my story. My story is how do I make life easier for people like my mom. The hurdles that she had to overcome to just do the basics are something that I think those kinds of obstacles exist for so many people. Both in Canada and the United States, these are economies that are built on immigrant communities. These are economies that are built on social mobility. 00:05:55 Amrit So, having the opportunity as I do to highlight the work of folks that work with non-traditional learners, to work with folks that develop programming and develop institutional divisions, design specifically for workforce development and socioeconomic mobility, is something that I take a lot of pride in and kind of comes back again to that idea of storytelling. 00:06:15 Amrit The more stories from people like you that we can share, the more opportunity we have for folks that might see higher education through a very specific lens to see that work through a much broader lens that can serve so many more people than the people we tend to serve. 00:06:30 Salvatrice Yeah, I really love that. Parallel stories, the first generation and I too, have an interest. I never realized that my interest in higher education was going to be so strong. I never saw myself in higher education until you just start to look at what's around you and then look, you just grow up. So, you grow up and you start to say like, "Gosh my career has taken me here." 00:06:57 Salvatrice And I'm so incredibly grateful just like you are to be in this space because I too, first gen, parents valued education because they came to the States as farmers and your parents were extremely educated coming into this country, my parents were not. And so, they said, "Look we want a better life." Both parents want a better life for their families. 00:07:20 Salvatrice So, to share that story and for the EvoLLLution to kind of be that source of that narrative and the storytelling and how do we innovate within higher ed, how do we cater to the non-traditional student is really, really important. And I'm super happy that the EvoLLLution has really kind of taken pride around that, and saying, "Look like this needs to be our focus." 00:07:37 Salvatrice For those who don't understand what really the EvoLLLution is, tell us a little bit more about the EvoLLLution and how it kind of got started, because that'll be helpful to kind of frame this conversation a little more. 00:07:47 Amrit Yeah, it's valuable context and it's something that I'm super, super proud of. So, first of all, for those of you listening, it doesn't come across in the audio. We spell EvoLLLution with three Ls, and the Ls stand for Lifelong Learning, which is an insider- 00:07:59 Salvatrice Oh, I didn't know that. 00:08:00 Amrit Yeah, that's why we have three Ls, is for Lifelong Learning. So, we had the concept in 2011, we launched in 2012. So, I was the founding editor of the publication. Basically, we were launched by a company that's now called Modern Campus. And at the time, it was because there was no one really talking about what's happening in the continuing workforce education space. 00:08:18 Amrit If we think back to 2011, 2012, the economy was just coming out of the recession, we were in that sort of early recovery phase. So, all those students who'd come into higher education because they'd lost their jobs, because they were in a challenging economic period, all of a sudden, the job market was opening up, they were going back to work. 00:08:35 Amrit But at the same time, the state appropriations that had been cut drastically over the course of the recession hadn't recovered yet. So, you had this period where sort of higher educations call it magic carpets started to descend a little bit because during that period where state appropriations were declining, enrollments were growing so that the tuition and the fees kind of made up that delta. 00:08:55 Amrit So, 2011, folks are going back to work. And we had this concept that we wanted to give people a space outside of conferences to talk about the things that they found interesting in the continuing ed world. You know, those conversations that you have in the hallways and interesting ideas for programming, interesting ideas for support and student services. So, we wanted to make that a 24/7 conversation. 00:09:15 Amrit I distinctly remember this; about five months after we launched, we thought it would be a good idea if we knew who our subscribers were. So, we'd been running for about five months, we were still a very fledging publication. We were fortunate in that a lot of people who really could have published their work anywhere decided to trust us. 00:09:34 Amrit We're talking folks like Kathy Sandin, who at the time was the Dean of Extension at UCLA. Folks like Adi Beda from UC San Diego, Wayne Smutz, who at the time was the Dean of World Campus at Penn State. We had some phenomenal people share their perspectives. 00:09:48 Amrit So, we looked at our subscriber base, we thought it would be folks from the continuing ed world, and as it turned out, we were serving largely provosts and CIOs and presidents. And we thought that was kind of weird. 00:09:58 Amrit So, we started to look into it and realized, well, at a time when higher education institutions were struggling for operating expenses, were struggling to generate enrollments, were starting for the first time in the industry's history to recognize the concept of competition - we were publishing articles by continuing ed leaders talking about what it looked like to compete for enrollments, how student-centricity can be a differentiator, why programming needs to be relevant to student needs, why workforce outcomes are valuable to academic programming. 00:10:26 Amrit And I think what crystallized for me at that moment and what's kind of driven our editorial philosophy since then, is that the higher education industry can operate like a business while still benefiting the learners it serves. We've always looked at that as a dichotomy, as a binary. Either you're a business or you're serving learners, but you can't be a business that serves learners. 00:10:45 Amrit And if you look at most businesses, it is in their best interest to treat their consumers with respect. It's in their best interest to serve the needs of their consumers. And then there's benefit to that in terms of revenue and lifetime value of engaging that customer for long-term. And there's no reason why those principles shouldn't work in higher education as well. 00:11:02 Amrit So, that idea really started to take root at that time when we were looking at our subscriber base, because we realized that those are the exact people who were starting to pay attention to the publication. It wasn't just other continuing ed leaders who wanted to know about continuing ed. It was senior executives who were trying to understand how they could change their mindset about what the institution could be. 00:11:22 Salvatrice What a beautiful way to kind of pivot into something that you weren't really anticipating. 00:11:27 Amrit It's so funny because you mentioned yourself, you didn't see your career leading to continuing ed or to higher ed. I certainly didn't as well. That was a surprising twist. It was a twist of fate. And I think if you talk to almost anyone in continuing education, they wouldn't say that "Well, when I was five-years-old and someone asked me what I wanted to do and I wanted to be a Dean of Continuing Education," like that's not a thing. 00:11:47 Amrit Most of us found our way here by circumstance. But then when we landed and when we found our spot, it's impossible not to fall in love with this sector. 00:11:57 Salvatrice Right. And it feels like home because we can relate. 00:12:00 Amrit Yeah. It's very human. It is kind of interesting as you start to think about like how folks wind up in this space, how folks build a passion for this work. And that's really a lot of what we're doing right now. In fact, we're on our podcast, we're about to launch a series with institutional presidents who came out of continuing education. 00:12:17 Salvatrice Fantastic. 00:12:17 Amrit And the idea there is basically looking at this exact concept of why is higher education starting to pivot to becoming more like a massive continuing ed...
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Revisiting: The Key To Becoming A Lifelong Learner, With Amrit Ahluwalia Executive Director of Continuing Studies at Western University Episode 115
03/12/2024
Revisiting: The Key To Becoming A Lifelong Learner, With Amrit Ahluwalia Executive Director of Continuing Studies at Western University Episode 115
When was the last time you learned something new? Today I’m joined today by Amrit Ahluwalia, Executive Director of Continuing Studies at Western University. You’ll learn how support students and advocates for lifelong learning through detailed publications and access to a community of industry professionals. We’ll cover what topics have been the most popular since the start of the pandemic and how other professionals can contribute. Most importantly, discover what trends we’re seeing in education, and how we can pave the way to become lifelong learners! *This episode was originally published on September 27th, 2022. As we revisit the projections made in this episode during the time of release, what correlations do see now regarding what Amrit and our host Salvatrice explored around digital learning and the potential for AI, for example? More from Amrit Ahluwalia: Visit Email: LinkedIn: Facebook: Twitter: Find the transcript to this episode To connect with us about the podcast visit our Please be sure to subscribe, rate and review us on apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts!
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Transcript- Episode 114: The Intersection of Education and Incarceration: Addressing the School to Prison Pipeline Episode 114
02/27/2024
Transcript- Episode 114: The Intersection of Education and Incarceration: Addressing the School to Prison Pipeline Episode 114
00:00:00 Leslie I think we do have a responsibility to that segment of the workforce because a lot of those individuals are going to be reentering to our communities and may find themselves in community college without our help. They may just find their way here and we're prepared to help them. 00:00:12 Leslie Does it have to be that difficult? Can they get credit for prior learning for what they've done in their either courses they've taken or work they've performed towards maybe you're in there developing a certain skillset that dovetails quite nicely into a CTE program that we have. Can we give you credit for prior learning so that you can apply that, get through a program of study even quicker and get into a good job? 00:00:39 Christina The workforce landscape is rapidly changing, and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the future? 00:01:04 Salvatrice Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and host of this podcast. 00:01:12 Christina And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host of this podcast. 00:01:16 Salvatrice And we are starting the conversation about the Future of Work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals, more internships and PCC students in the workforce. 00:01:30 Salvatrice We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us, you, the employers, the policy makers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole. 00:01:50 Christina We believe change happens when we work together, and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barsi. 00:01:58 Salvatrice And I'm Salvatrice Cummo, and this is the Future of Work. Welcome back to our Future of Work Podcast. This is Salvatrice, your host, and I am joined today by my friend and colleague in Economic and Workforce Development, Ms. Leslie Thompson. Hey, Leslie. 00:02:12 Leslie Hey, Salvatrice. 00:02:14 Salvatrice Good to have you back. Our conversations are always, I wouldn't say intense, but definitely action-packed. And we have an action-packed topic today for sure. Our topic today is around a conversation that you and I had basically in the hallway about a segment of the workforce prison labor and the fact that we don't necessarily, as practitioners within the academic space talk about prison labor and all of the inequities and services offered or not offered, et cetera, et cetera. 00:02:49 Salvatrice But what we discovered in our conversation is that there's more to it. And in order for us to really do a deep dive within that segment of the population prison labor, we needed to understand one of the root causes so that we can properly address that topic as well as maybe understand where some interventions as community colleges, where can we intervene, where can we intersect, and where could we maybe help address and mitigate. And so, what we discovered was that we really needed to acknowledge and talk about the school to prison pipeline. 00:03:24 Leslie I think that's an excellent place to start, for sure. Both conceptually and then just kind of linearly it makes sense that we would start with those early years for these individuals is opportunities for intervention. Just kind of to identify where some of this stuff takes hold. 00:03:42 Salvatrice For sure. And you know what was really scary, and also I'm really kind of embarrassed by it, if I can be honest here on this call with you, is at no time during my professional career has professionals within this space of economic and workforce development has ever mentioned the issue of school to prison pipeline, honestly. 00:04:06 Salvatrice I mean, within these walls, within these academic walls, I have never ever heard anyone within our space of, I'm going to say it again, of economic and workforce development professionals really talk about that. And to go back to some of the things that you and I have shared is like, and you always say this all the time, we're in the people business. Like we can't talk about workforce without talking about some of the social justice issues that arise. And the school to prison pipeline is one of them. 00:04:33 Salvatrice So, I think it might be a good idea for us to kind of broadly discuss and acknowledge that issue before we kind of go into what we really wanted to do a deep dive or unpack, which was that segment of the population, the prison workforce. 00:04:48 Leslie Well, I think to kick it off with broad definitions, we talk about school to prison pipeline. It's not a new term. I know it's new maybe in workforce development in this instance here but it's not a new topic. It's not a new ... some folks are talking about it outside. I would agree with you that I think it's problematic that it's not a topic that's addressed broadly and loudly in our world, but it is on the college campus. 00:05:14 Leslie There is an awareness in the college campus, it's not that PCC's not aware, it's that the work of economic and workforce development has not yet kind of delved into it, but broadly so the school to prison pipeline refers to systemic patterns where students are kind of pushed out of schools and into the criminal justice system most often, always marginalized communities, people of color and there's a whole host of contributing factors. 00:05:41 Leslie And I don't think that anybody starts out and says, "Hey, we're going to create this school that's going to be particularly about churning out future inmates." That's not that. It's behaviors and its culture and its systemic patterns that happen that contribute to the perfect kind of recipe or whatever for this pipeline to take root in . 00:06:06 Leslie I don't think that it's intentional. Like there's no school that calls itself that, but it's certainly rooted in bias. It's certainly rooted in systemic oppression, which is intentional if you're not doing anything to change it. So, that's definitely worth talking about. 00:06:23 Leslie There are opportunities for community colleges to intervene, I think in those spaces early on. We know that at this level we have partnerships with K through 12. We know that we need to get in there and offer dual enrollment. 00:06:38 Leslie We know that we want to get students from K through 12 right into community college, that's intentional. And we do that all day long, I don't know. And can't speak to what is being done to really target the most vulnerable of that segment. People that are clearly on a path to a life of incarceration or just down that road. 00:07:01 Leslie Where is the kind of entry point for community colleges to get in there and say, "You know what, take this route because we're offering all these things over here. You can get credit now. You can start taking classes now. Come right in. We have all these wraparound services when you get here, we're going to get you through a system. We're going to get you through a system that's not going to hurt you." And so, that's where my interest lies in identifying that early piece and how I think community colleges can kind of mitigate that. 00:07:27 Leslie We probably should have started with, and I think it's fair to say we're not experts on this. This is not our wheelhouse prison systems, incarcerate or any of this. But we are charged with, by virtue of our roles, we are charged with considering workforce development issues. And so, that's how we kind of got here was looking at this idea that there's this population of this workforce that this imprisoned workforce that's being exploited. That the skills that are being learned aren't being maximized post-release. 00:08:02 Leslie And then there's another opportunity for community colleges to kind of jump in and say, "Hey, we missed you at this point, but we're going to jump in here while you're here and we're going to offer training, certification maybe degrees and then when you get out, you are going to come right back to us. We're going to get you again. Or we're going to get you for the first time, depending on what programs exist. And we're going to give you services to help you navigate skill development, reentry, navigating the community college system, transferring, if that's what you want to do, helping you get jobs, internships, work-based learning experiences, apprenticeships. 00:08:39 Leslie All the things that we do for all of our students. We can be intentional about providing those particular students those services as well but it has to be intentional. And our job as workforce development is to work with employers to get them to understand the importance of diversity and how this is also part of your diversity initiative by the way. 00:09:00 Salvatrice But I mean, I want to go back to what you said earlier, which was, how do we intervene earlier? It's not to say that we shouldn't have all the support services and programs to assist during their time in a correctional facility, but after. Like those exist and I think that you're right there's so much more to unpack there. 00:09:26 Salvatrice What do we do in the upfront while we were discussing this, you drew a little map. And y ou said it's like if we were to intervene with these schools that intentionally/unintentionally are basically cultivating a population into the prison system or into the criminal justice system, I should say. If there was a way for us to intervene to say that community college is your choice. It's either community college or you go here, but then explain that part. 00:09:57 Salvatrice Because you explained it really well. You said Salvatrice it's like a fork. It's like a flicking if we can intervene at this entry point from the school to the community college, and then there's another entry point where they're wandering around, they're doing all these things and it's like, okay, now we need another entry point. Could you explain that? Because that's really important. Because I think that there's two very clear opportunities for community colleges. 00:10:18 Leslie There's a trajectory for any student, for any student, but in particular for students who are at risk. High school students who are at risk. I'm talking K-12 again. And they're either going to go right into the workforce in some capacity, some entry level job. We are trying to get in there. 00:10:35 Leslie Community colleges are trying to get in there and be like start taking some credit classes, start taking some classes while you're in high school. Because then when you come over, it's going to be so much easier and we're going to get you transferred out or we're going to get you into the workforce, and that's our thing. And that we're trying to boost enrollment. Let's be honest, we're trying to boost enrollment now. 00:10:50 Salvatrice Now we're doing more than just boost enrollment. 00:10:53 Leslie We are, because we believe that an educated populace is a ... no. I'm a big fan of community college, you know that. So, we're trying to boost enrollment. We're trying to get students in from the high schools right into matriculate to the college broadly. We'll agree that it's just broadly. 00:11:08 Leslie But there are students in those high schools and other schools, other kind of alternative schools, and in every school probably that are on a different trajectory, that if they aren't giving intentional support services, intentional efforts are not made to attract those students this way they're going to go off on a different path. 00:11:32 Leslie They have disproportionate discipline in their environment. They have security officers, police presence on the campus. It creates a culture. You're essentially indoctrinating these people into thinking that you're supposed to be someplace where there are police. You're supposed to be someplace heavily monitored and disciplined and zero tolerance for any minor infraction, even just being a kid, you know what I mean? So, that's a process. You're creating a mindset there. 00:12:01 Leslie So, we have to be intentional to get in at that level too, and those instances and say, "No, come over here. Take some classes, learn some stuff, take advantage of these things." And then maybe we get you in here and get him in a first year program like we have. 00:12:13 Leslie So, that entry point is somewhere, and again, it was just a doodle, but it's somewhere along this trajectory. And then the fork happens when either you graduate school or you don't. I mean, not everybody graduates. No shame in that. 00:12:26 Leslie I was actually one of those kind of iffy kids. So, I was doing other stuff. But you either go this way to decide you're going to go to school and you're going to do something different, or you continue down this path that you've been kind of programmed to think is kind of normal. 00:12:41 Leslie You live in a police environment and heavily regulated and people don't trust you. And you're told that you're bad, inherently bad, and you're primed for the system. And you go right into survival crimes or petty crimes. Or maybe you're already in the foster care system and you don't have a support network, there's lots of things. I'm oversimplifying, but there are lots of complex issues that contribute to this. 00:13:07 Leslie And for whatever reason, these individuals find themselves incarcerated. We've missed our opportunity to get them before that fork in the road. Now we have to be intentional about, is there an opportunity for us to get them inside while they're serving their time, paying their debt to society. However you want to look at it. Whether wrongfully accused or not, we don't know why anybody's in there. 00:13:29 Leslie I'm going to say earlier, the community colleges take the top 100%. We don't judge. We don't judge, you come to us, it doesn't matter to us if you're coming to us from high school or prison, it shouldn't matter, we provide services equally. We have to adjust our services so that they're relevant. 00:13:46 Leslie So, anyway, we try to get them when they're inside, if we can offer them training programs, certificates, whatever, some sort of educational benefit or skills building benefit. And if we can't do that or we don't have the partnerships yet, then we have to be prepared for when they are reentering. We want to give them a space to reenter here. 00:14:03 Leslie And PCC, we do that. We have core on campus, what stands for community overcoming recidivism through education, which is great. And they offer services around skill development, career prepping, helping them navigate the community college system. And so, we have that reentry kind of welcome space. So, that's where community colleges can come in at a different point. 00:14:23 Leslie So, all that to say, I think there's three vital points for us to interject and to have the most impact, we should get it early. We should get it early. That's how it came into this whole well, let's talk about the school to prison pipeline. It's a whole thing. It exists. 00:14:37 Leslie Well, if we get there early, then we can kind of mitigate that. Offer resources and support and just different pathways. Get these students into community college or into the workforce anywhere but in prison. But then we went on this whole other tangent because this is a huge broad topic. 00:14:55 Salvatrice It sure is. It sure is. 00:14:56 Leslie So, why I say we're just trying to get enrollment, that's our goal. But that's not a bad goal because our getting enrollment helps people. Our getting enrollment builds better communities. It's not a bad thing when I say that. Prison, however, and those who benefit from prison labor corporations who exploit that whole system, that whole network, they're never going to be interested in changing it. They're never going to be interested in mitigating the school to prison pipeline is literally their pipeline. 00:15:28 Salvatrice Their workforce pipeline, that's right. 00:15:29 Leslie That's right. So, I'm like, "Well, we're just trying to get students. Well, yeah and there's nothing wrong with that. It's to everyone's benefit." They're trying to get bodies too . So, if you just think about people, we're trying to get people, they're trying to get people. Our system doesn't hurt anybody. 00:15:43 Leslie And if it has unintentionally hurt anyone , I believe that our system is working to correct that through our DEI efforts, through our other conversations. Are we...
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The Intersection of Education and Incarceration: Addressing the School to Prison Pipeline Episode 114
02/27/2024
The Intersection of Education and Incarceration: Addressing the School to Prison Pipeline Episode 114
Could community college be a pattern disruptor for K-12 students primed for the prison pipeline? In this episode, host Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and Leslie Thompson, the Director of Operations, tackle the complex and often overlooked issue of the school-to-prison pipeline. Their conversation delves into the systemic patterns that push students out of schools and into the criminal justice system, particularly affecting marginalized communities and people of color. As they explore the impacts on the workforce and the process of reentry, they discuss interventions and opportunities for community colleges to support individuals at various points along this trajectory. This episode will challenge you to consider the ethical implications of prison labor as we explore the potential role a community college might play as a provider of meaningful education and employment opportunities for individuals affected by this issue. Join Salvatrice and Leslie as they open up a thought-provoking dialogue and invite listeners to engage in this important conversation about the future of work. Engage with us: , & : @PasadenaCityCollegeEWD Join our newsletter for more on this topic: Visit: More from Salvatrice & Leslie: LinkedIn: LinkedIn: Partner with us! Contact our host Salvatrice Cummo directly: Want to be a guest on the show? Click to inquire about booking Find the transcript to this episode
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Transcript- Episode 113: Revisiting: How To Tackle Workforce Inequity with Kome Ajise Episode 113
02/13/2024
Transcript- Episode 113: Revisiting: How To Tackle Workforce Inequity with Kome Ajise Episode 113
00:00:00 Kome But the issue, I think, that compels maybe an even more in-depth conversation is to what extent is that equitable? Do we all have access to being able to work at home? And so, the digital divide, I think, is the bigger issue here in the conversation about the future of the workplace. 00:00:22 Christina The workforce landscape is rapidly changing and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. 00:00:35 Christina But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the future? 00:00:47 Salvatrice Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College, and host of this podcast. 00:00:55 Christina And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host of this podcast. 00:00:59 Salvatrice And we are starting the conversation about the future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals; more internships, and PCC students in the workforce. 00:01:13 Salvatrice We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us. You, the employers, the policymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole. 00:01:33 Christina We believe change happens when we work together, and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barsi. 00:01:41 Salvatrice And I'm Salvatrice Cummo, and this is the Future of Work. 00:01:44 Salvatrice Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Future of Work Podcast, I am your host Salvatrice Cummo. Today, we'll be talking about the Southern California Association of Governments and what they are doing to encourage a more sustainable Southern California. We will also talk about SCAG's partnership and how we as a community college can get involved. 00:02:05 Salvatrice With that, we want to welcome Executive Director of the Southern California Association of Governments, Kome Ajise. Mr. Ajise brings over three decades of experience in regional planning and transportation. He has served in his Executive Director role since 2019, and we are lucky to have him here with us today. Kome, welcome. 00:02:26 Kome Thank you, Salvatrice. Glad to be here. Thanks for having us. 00:02:29 Salvatrice Thank you. Let's dive right on in if that's okay with you. 00:02:32 Kome Sure. 00:02:32 Salvatrice Excellent. For our listeners, can you please share with us what led you in this path of work in regional planning and transportation, and why it's something that you continue to work in? 00:02:45 Kome Well, thank you. Great question. You never know what you're going to end up doing in life as a career, but you have aspirations. I growing up always wanted to be an architect because I have this sense of just being enamored with spatial references and how the spaces around us are formed and conceived. 00:03:02 Kome Didn't quite have enough chops to get into architectural schools, so I became a planner. I think it's the way the story would go. And I'd worked in planning for the last couple of decades, mostly on the transportation side, always wanted to be a city and regional planner because that's what I have a graduate degree in. 00:03:19 Kome And the opportunity at SCAG came along in 2017 to be back to planning. And so, it was really welcomed, grace that I had to be able to come back to planning, especially in the largest metropolitan region in the entire country. So, it's been almost like a gift to be back where I really wanted to be as a professional. 00:03:40 Kome And at the regional planning level, we are a little bit removed from local planning. At the same time, we have strong interaction with local planning to conceive of the vision for a region. So, that continues to sustain my drive and my passion for wanting to again, see about how our environment is formed and shaped and conceived of. 00:04:03 Salvatrice That's great. Thank you so much for sharing that. And in this work, in this role since 2019, have there been opportunities where SCAG is partnering with employers or community colleges in workforce initiatives, programming, really anything of those matters? 00:04:19 Kome Yeah, we don't directly engage in workforce training other than our employees, and we again, strive to be an employer of choice. And so, we focus on that for our employees. However, we are engaged in a program that's funded by the state. There's a 3.5 million inclusive economic recovery strategy program that we came up with coming out of the recession, and we're fortunate to get a grant from the state of California. 00:04:45 Kome And so, we're using that to engage our economic partners and our local agencies. And indirectly, there will be some workforce training element in that strategy, in the spending of the 3.5 million over time. 00:05:00 Kome Now, through our diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, we also make sure that we are living up to the tenants of the policy that adapted on equity. And so, we try to bring in a diverse group of employees, and especially, interns with respect to colleges. We have a very inclusive internship program that affords students around our region to be able to spend time working with us. 00:05:28 Kome We also participate in fellowships like the CivicSpark's Fellowship, where we bring in both current students and recent graduates back to spend a year or two with us, gaining that initial experience before they then find their way in the profession. Those two initiatives; the internship program and the fellowships have been very, very productive, both ways. 00:05:49 Kome For us, tremendous amount of work was done, but we also feel like the participants have gained a lot, and all of them have gone on to gainful endeavors beyond SCAG. Many of them stay with us where we have openings. So, to answer your question, that's the extent to which I think we would see ourselves in workforce training. 00:06:09 Salvatrice That's a lot. It may sound simple, just one or two things as the internships and the fellowship, but the mobility that SCAG is offering those participants in those two capacities is forever within their career journey. It's not wasted. You've created some significant impact for those individuals that are able to participate with SCAG within these two vehicles. So, thank you. Thank you for doing that. 00:06:33 Kome Yeah, it's just a matter of when people go to seek employment, the employers are always looking for experience. And if they never get a chance to work, how would they get the experience? So, the internship and fellowship programs, I think they're rich for that. And when somebody's a fellow with us for two years, postgraduate, that's a strong experience to take anywhere. 00:06:54 Kome And we just had three fellows leave us this last month. And two of them have gone onto really significant employment in planning. And I think one's probably pursuing further education, getting their graduate degree. We feel very blessed to have had them on because they did work for us that continues to be sustained to help us get what we need to get done, done. 00:07:15 Salvatrice Thank you so much. Are you finding that maybe perhaps the fellows, are you finding that they're helping raise awareness around trends, around policy trends within planning, development? Or is that something separate one of your team members is doing on really seeking the trends around policy design as it relates to planning and development? 00:07:38 Kome Oh, absolutely. They are assigned real work - real and current work. In fact, I think the three fellows that I just referenced, work on an emerging area of housing, accessory dwelling units, ADUs. These are relatively new in concept. This used to be the granny flats that you would have in the back of houses, and they have now been formalized as a matter of policy in the state. 00:08:02 Kome And so, the question is how do they fit in the strategy for increasing housing supply in our region, and they did some really good work, groundbreaking work for us in identifying the barriers and constraints, and the opportunities for ADUs, accessory dwelling units in our region. So, they've left us with that gift. So, they spend a good amount of their time on it. 00:08:24 Kome And that's really one of the ... employers should take note of that. That's one of the benefits of having these young, bright minds be given meaty tasks, focus on it, get you a well-done product and they leave you with work. That may be your full staff just wouldn't have time for because there's all the other stuff that's going on in the agency. So, that was a real benefit and a good example, and we had them present it to our board last week and it was well-received. 00:08:53 Salvatrice Fantastic. 00:08:54 Kome And it was gratifying to see them accomplish what they did. 00:08:57 Salvatrice And that's really speaking to Southern California's sustainability, and to have them really develop this product that you can then implement, expand, amplify, all those good things. To your point, you're right. Most organizations don't have the bandwidth to do everything else that is needed outside of the daily functions of that organization. 00:09:18 Salvatrice And I wonder just kind of like along that same thread, is there room or space for community colleges to partner with SCAG, or if you're seeing other entities partnering with community colleges that can support the intentionality of making Southern California more sustainable? 00:09:39 Kome Oh, absolutely. I'm a fan of interns coming into an organization. And I say that selfishly, because I started working as an intern with the Department of Transportation, Caltrans many, many years ago, and that led to a full-time job with Caltrans. And I spent most of my career working at Caltrans. 00:09:58 Kome So, coming in as an intern, one, it's really helping the prospective employee at the time as an intern, understand what that agency is; if it's a good fit for them or otherwise, they get some experience to go somewhere else that's a good fit. So, at SCAG, we are available - not just we would be - we're available to work with colleges. 00:10:18 Kome One of the things to note in our region is we're rich with higher education population. And there's just a really deep talent pool in our region. So, we always look to bring those talents to our organization, to the extent that they're interested in the mission of SCAG. 00:10:35 Salvatrice Fantastic. And just to switch gears a little bit - related kind of unrelated, SCAG; what could we look forward to in the near future? Are there any new projects that you and your team are working on that you'd like to bring to light or share with us today? 00:10:50 Kome There are a lot of things going on. We have a very dynamic region. Our region is the 16th largest economy in the world, if it were a country by itself. So, if you stop to think about 193 or so countries in the world, if you take their economies, we would fit right there in the top 20, just for the sixth county area. So, it's a very vibrant economic region, probably the most vibrant in the country. 00:11:12 Kome So, we have this need to continue to maintain that vitality economically. But on top of that, under the adage of walking and chewing gum at the same time, while we are so focused on the vitality, we must also not forget what makes this region attractive to people. It's the environment. And so, preserving that environment, it's not an either-or, it's and, it's both. 00:11:35 Kome So, our work is really vitally engaged in making those connections between assuring that we maintain our economic vitality, but also, maintain our environmental consciousness while at the same time, making sure it works for everybody. So, that equity overlay that we've been talking about over the last couple of years, more so, becomes very important. 00:11:55 Kome So, to your question about what are the things we're working on, there are just a number of things. One is having come out of the racial reckoning that we had over the last couple of years and strongly making a statement by a board on equity, we're guided very, very much so on ensuring that there's an equity lens across the programs that we operate. And so, that's one major initiative where we're always focused on making sure that what we're doing affects everybody equally and also, bring capacities and opportunities to everybody equally. 00:12:27 Kome So, on that note, one major initiative we just launched in February is the regional data platform. One of the assets we have at SCAG, at the Southern California Association of Governments (we always call ourselves SCAG) is the Regional Data Platform, the RDP. What that is, is we are a repository of a lot of data. So, it takes this data that is about each one of our member agencies, the cities, the 191 cities, and six counties that make up SCAG. 00:12:54 Kome Each one of them have characteristics and data that we have, and being able to have that data available to each city at a very sophisticated two-level using geographic information systems, the GIS system, such that any one city can participate at the world-class level in terms of planning. So, I say that, and it doesn't sound like much, but when you stop to think about the fact that out of 191 cities, about, I'd say, almost 70% of them are a hundred thousand population or less. 00:13:24 Kome So, they're not necessarily the big cities, that's 70% of them. So, majority of our cities have a population of a hundred thousand or less, and clearly, about 20% or so of them are even smaller than that, maybe 20,000 population. 00:13:34 Kome So, these are not communities that have a lot of resources available to them to be able to play at the sophisticated level of regional planning and even local planning with the tools that the RDP brings to them. So, being able to launch the RDP was a very major initiative for us. 00:13:51 Kome And so, it allows each one of our cities to have access, and that goes to equity when all cities have access to the same tools, to be able to do the same level of GIS work, to be able to have data-driven decision-making available to their policymakers because the RDP affords them that, but also, the RDP affords us to engage our communities. 00:14:14 Kome So, it gives them the capacity to do civic engagement through this same tool where everybody's online now, but you need that capacity to be able to engage folks online. So, through the RDP, we have that. And then also, finally, have the planners in each one of these cities have access to capacities that are only available to maybe the richest of communities. 00:14:33...
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Revisiting: How To Tackle Workforce Inequity with Kome Ajise Episode 113
02/13/2024
Revisiting: How To Tackle Workforce Inequity with Kome Ajise Episode 113
How can we actively work towards equalizing educational opportunities for all students? The goal of Kome Ajise, the Director at the Southern California Association of Governments, is to level the playing field for EVERYONE. Kome will share with us how SCAG is encouraging a more sustainable Southern California, and what their partnerships within the community look like. Through budgeting strategies, developing policies, and internship and fellowships programs, they are offering students more hands-on learning and the opportunity to explore new career possibilities. If we can provide all students with the space and time they need to succeed, then we decrease the barriers to financial stability for many. Tune in to discover how we can provide equitable access to work spaces and transportation to help students reach their goals! Engage with us: , & : @PasadenaCityCollegeEWD Join our newsletter for more on this topic: Visit: More from Kome Ajise: Visit Email: LinkedIn: Twitter: Instagram: Facebook: Partner with us! Contact our host Salvatrice Cummo directly: Want to be a guest on the show? Click to inquire about booking Find the transcript to this episode
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Transcript- Episode 112: What You Need To Know about Workforce Training Episode 112
01/30/2024
Transcript- Episode 112: What You Need To Know about Workforce Training Episode 112
00:00:00 Leslie It is not just about getting the employees to be skilled so they can do more work, it's about getting them to be skilled so they can earn more money, so that they can have a better quality of life - so that the positions that you're training for are making a living wage, are increasing their wage, and then you're impacting generations, you're impacting families, you're impacting communities. 00:00:23 Christina The workforce landscape is rapidly changing and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. 00:00:36 Christina But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the future? 00:00:48 Salvatrice Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and host of this podcast. 00:00:57 Christina And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host of this podcast. 00:01:00 Salvatrice And we are starting the conversation about the future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals: more internships and PCC students in the workforce. 00:01:14 Salvatrice We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us. You, the employers, the policymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole. 00:01:34 Christina We believe change happens when we work together, and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barsi. 00:01:42 Salvatrice And I'm Salvatrice Cummo, and this is the Future of Work. 00:01:47 Salvatrice Welcome back. This is Salvatrice, your host, and I'm joined today by my friend and colleague in our division of Economic and Workforce Development, Ms. Leslie Thompson. How are you? 00:01:58 Leslie Hi Salvatrice, good to be back. How are you? 00:02:00 Salvatrice Good. Just a reminder to our listeners that Leslie is our Director of Operations for Economic and Workforce Development, and plays a very important role in the implementation of our programs and a lot of the initiatives that are pushed through here at the Office of Economic Workforce Development. 00:02:17 Salvatrice Thank you again. I get excited about these solo records because it gives us a chance to share with the listener what we're thinking about, what's on our mind, what kind of keeps us up at night, and it also leaves room for you and I to just dig deep on some stuff. It's allocated time, so I really, really appreciate it. 00:02:38 Leslie So do I. I think this is a good opportunity to talk things through again and again. 00:02:43 Salvatrice Again and again. Well, today, our favorite topic: workforce training. So, where do we start? Like what's the best way to start about this? Because it can go so many different directions. 00:02:54 Leslie Well, why don't we start with the kind of overview of what workforce training is. I'll start with our definition here at PCC. We provide specialized, customized, training delivered to businesses and their unique trainings for those businesses. 00:03:07 Leslie We do it by leveraging ETP money. We also offer it through our extension program, and also, in partnership with both credit and non-credit sides of the house. So, we can put together a customized training program to fit any employer's needs. And that's the same for many community colleges. 00:03:28 Salvatrice Well, for those who don't know what ETP is, let's just share that a little bit because we like all the acronyms here in academia. 00:03:36 Leslie Sure. So, ETP stands for Employment Training Panel, it's a California Program. It's an agency that provides funding to employers for training and retraining their employees. It is funded through an employment training tax that employers pay into, but often have a hard time accessing themselves. 00:03:53 Leslie And so, as institutes of higher education, community colleges can navigate the application process and get those funds and leverage those dollars for training to minimize the cost to employers. So, it's a really great program that has some limitations and restrictions in terms of how you qualify and the competition for the funding and these kinds of things. 00:04:14 Leslie But aside from the eligibility requirements and program requirements and the application process, which is hard for employers to navigate, it's beneficial for the colleges to do it because then we can receive those funds, and administer those funds by delivering training. So, it's a pretty great program, but that's not the only way that we fund. 00:04:32 Leslie We also do fee-based training. We also do, again, like I said, credit and non-credit partnerships. So, depending on which courses or programs we're taking, there would be fees or no fees associated with that. And then we do regular custom training that we charge to deliver as a revenue generating service. 00:04:52 Salvatrice Now, you're making it sound really easy. 00:04:54 Leslie It's not. 00:04:55 Salvatrice So, this is kind of what I think that we should really talk through, is workforce training is needed, the upskilling is needed for our employers. That exact same skill that they're looking to upskill their existing workforce, they are hoping that the new workforce already has. 00:05:16 Salvatrice So, there's two hiccups that we're experiencing, I think with the workforce training piece, is yes, it's needed and the speed and all the hiccups that come along with it makes it a little unappealing (I'm going tojust say it that way) to the employer. Not to us, because this is our work, this is what we like, this is what we want to do. But it makes it a little unappealing to the employer. 00:05:43 Salvatrice So, I want to kind of live there for a minute and talk through that, because I think it's important for us to share what that looks like to the employer, and why the employers tend to want to leverage community colleges thinking that ... fill in the blank. 00:06:01 Salvatrice Like they're filling some kind of void for that employer, whether it's access to curricula, whether it's speed of which we do it, which is not necessarily always the best speed for some. Like let's unpack that for a minute. 00:06:15 Leslie So, there are certain barriers to each delivery option. So, with ETP, there are barriers around funding limitations, eligibility requirements, program requirements in the application process. So, that's why employers don't want to do it themselves. Those are also limitations for us that we have to navigate to get to the point that we have those funds. 00:06:30 Leslie With contract education, there are other barriers as well, like resource constraints, limited expertise. The competition like community colleges are in competition with private training facilities and other delivery options. And there's a lot of regulations around contract ed that community colleges have to adhere to that private training organizations don't have to. 00:06:52 Leslie And then there's institutional priorities. And just in some cases, the institutional priorities are focusing on other things like enrollment or retention or graduation rates. And they don't necessarily see the value or the potential in ramping up contract ed efforts as a way to drive enrollment and kind of increase completion rates if we broaden the definition of completion. 00:07:16 Leslie So, those are kind of some barriers that exist. Like when employers come to us, those are the kind of things that keep us from delivering as quickly as we might want to, that might make it more appealing for employers to either turn to private training facilities or more than likely, to create their own in-house training centers. 00:07:35 Salvatrice And we're seeing more and more of that. We're seeing companies all around us, even here in Pasadena where they're developing their own academies. 00:07:45 Leslie We do see that, and there are a number of benefits to that, and I totally get it, like why they'd want to. They have the customization capabilities, they have the relevance, they have the industry specific expertise. They can control the quality and consistency of the training, confidentiality, and proprietary information. They can protect all that. 00:08:03 Leslie And then there's like rapid adaptation to change. They're there, they're in it, they can change it up as necessary. There's no third party to negotiate, there's no external training provider to deal with. They can control the costs if they ... there's just a lot of benefits to employers implementing their own in-house training solutions. 00:08:22 Leslie But not everyone can afford it. Not everyone has the capabilities to deliver or the time to deliver because it takes time to develop customized trainings. And I would say time is money. Some people are willing to pay for it. And there are lots of examples of companies that are doing it that way. 00:08:41 Leslie Toyota has one, McDonald's, Starbucks - these are big, big entities that have it. Hyatt Hotels, IBM, Marriott International, all of these companies have their own in-house training that focuses on specific skills and really drives home like the internal cultural values of the companies, and really gets them in. And they're the experts. 00:09:04 Leslie And so, anything that community colleges or any private providers would bring to the table would be all external. And you can pick the topic and we can create customized trainings about it all day long. But what we can't do is replicate that internal culture and internal values, and really drive that home the way that a company can do for themselves. But most local companies are not Toyota, Starbucks, IBM, so there's that. 00:09:33 Salvatrice There's that, I know. The employer for us, as we're developing our own workforce training programs, the employer now has a different role with us. So, typically, we've looked at employers as partners, which we do and we do really great at. 00:09:53 Salvatrice But there's now an element in the arena where the employer is our competitor as well. Because all the reasons why you mentioned just moments ago why they feel the need to develop their own academies - I'm going to call them academies, but trainings, universities, whatever you want to call it. 00:10:14 Salvatrice But they're filling that gap on their own because of the barriers that you mentioned. So, now, our employers are partners and competitors, and it's a really unique dynamic. It's not bad. I want to make it very clear, it's not bad. It's actually going to, I think, trigger a movement, a momentum within higher education on how we leverage the existing talent of the employers. 00:10:44 Salvatrice So, typically, we were going to the employers and saying, "We have the talent, and we're going to come in and upskill your existing workforce and train your new ones too, by the way." 00:10:56 Salvatrice Now, we need to explore how does the employer teach us, how do we leverage their existing (I'm going to use our language) curricula, their content, their relevant up-to-speed content. How are we now embedding that work and that intel into our institution? Like how are we flipping that? 00:11:21 Salvatrice And I think that that's something that we really haven't explored. I mean, maybe a little bit with some of the larger entities, but I think there's so much room there for the employer to be able to teach us versus we teach them. I don't know how that could work out. I don't know. Especially with ... I'm going to go down a tangent super quick. 00:11:44 Salvatrice Especially thinking about enrollments. And we have traditionally not looked at employers as the pipeline to community colleges. We haven't looked at that workforce, the existing workforce as pipeline. We say it, but we haven't quite seen intentionality around outreaching to the existing workforce, specifically creating MOUs with employers to start creating these pipelines of students into our institutions, serving both the need of the student and the need of the employer. So, we haven't quite done that. 00:12:20 Salvatrice But how do we change that model? Like how do we change our approach on what we are, and how we're serving the employers, and asking them to really be a different type of partner with us. 00:12:34 Leslie I like the fact that you said to be better partners with us, or a different type of partner with us. Because I don't view them as competitors in terms of training. I view the necessity for some companies to develop their own in-house training centers. It's a need, and they're filling a need. 00:12:48 Leslie I'm looking at it more as an opportunity for partnership. There are some things they do really well. Again, communicating the internal culture and values. And they certainly have a lot to contribute to content when it comes to very specific trainings. But curriculum development is our wheelhouse, course delivery is our wheelhouse, training delivery is our wheelhouse. 00:13:11 Leslie And I say "we," I mean, community colleges, the emphasis for us should be placed on partnerships, not just selling a service. Because in some cases, the community college option may be more cost-effective for their employer. 00:13:22 Leslie Because there's a lot that goes into developing curriculum, there's a lot that goes into developing training. And we already have courses, we already have things ready. For me, it's not just about the customizable programs that we can deliver through workforce training, which is we call it here, our area of workforce training, but it's also in partnership with non-credit and with credit, and with extension and courses and things that are already exist. 00:13:43 Leslie And so, it's an easier process for employers to partner with us and get those trainings. So, outside of the customized training, there's opportunity for industry partnerships. We have a lot of partnerships, this could create more flexibility and delivery. We have the capability to deliver content in different ways. 00:14:00 Leslie And also, certification and credentials. We can offer certification and credentials. And those credentials are going to have more weight than probably a certificate of achievement from an employer to an employee. These are credentials that you can take with you everywhere. 00:14:16 Leslie If you go through a credit program and you get a certificate or a degree, that's something that you have forever, and there's value there. And that's something that we can provide. And again, I don't see it as a competition, I see it as an opportunity for partnership. 00:14:30 Leslie And you're right, they have a lot to offer and a lot to contribute. And what we can do to be better partners is to learn how to understand what they're trying to give, take it in and incorporate it into what we already have. We have all the tools and all the courses, and all the things necessary to deliver. It's just that we're having a hard time making that connection. And I don't think it's because most of them are doing it themselves. 00:14:56 Leslie I think it's because they're not, and that's the problem. I think it's because the training isn't being delivered. That the workforce isn't being upskilled at a quick enough pace to keep pace with what's needed. And so, we worry about attracting skilled workforce and retaining them, but how are you going to upskill the existing unit? People that have been in the industry for many years and things are changing and they need to upskill. 00:15:18 Leslie And part of that's regular PD, and part of that's ongoing training. But there may be opportunities for more robust PD and more robust training that these folks wouldn't ordinarily find themselves back in the classroom. But they could if we partnered with the right employers. 00:15:33 Salvatrice For both the employee and the employer, I mean, there's a cost associated. So, cost for the employer to, as you mentioned earlier, to build their own academies is very capital intensive. And like you said, they're cultivating their teams, and they're building in the culture as part of this training. ...
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What You Need To Know about Workforce Training Episode 112
01/30/2024
What You Need To Know about Workforce Training Episode 112
How do we help students earn more money and raise their quality of life? To start, it’s about teaching them the skills they need to increase their wages and create generational wealth for them and their families. The key is workforce training. Host Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and Leslie Thompson, the Director of Operations come together to share their views on the future of workforce training, and how we can leverage existing programs to improve the training outcomes. They’ll define what workforce training really is, how to customize it, and what it takes to fund and develop these programs. It’s time to learn about all the different types of training, what they entail, and which ones are best for specific kinds of students. Engage with us: , & : @PasadenaCityCollegeEWD Join our newsletter for more on this topic: Visit: More from Leslie: LinkedIn: Partner with us! Contact our host Salvatrice Cummo directly: Want to be a guest on the show? Click to inquire about booking Find the transcript to this episode
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Transcript- Episode 111: Unveiling the True Voice of the Future Workforce Episode 111
01/16/2024
Transcript- Episode 111: Unveiling the True Voice of the Future Workforce Episode 111
00:00:00 Leslie How do we have different conversations going forward? How do we start changing the conversation a bit? How do we start digging a little deeper? How do we start changing the language we use or approach we take? 00:00:10 Leslie I think one way that we can do it is to create opportunities for dialogue in more intimate settings rather than one big annual event. Maybe we do smaller events. Maybe we'd invite more people to the podcast, bigger conversations here. 00:00:26 Christina The workforce landscape is rapidly changing and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the future? 00:00:51 Salvatrice Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and host of this podcast. 00:01:00 Christina And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host of this podcast. 00:01:03 Salvatrice And we are starting the conversation about the future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals, more internships and PCC students in the workforce. 00:01:17 Salvatrice We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us, you the employers, the policymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole. 00:01:37 Christina We believe change happens when we work together and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barsi. 00:01:45 Salvatrice And I'm Salvatrice Cummo, and this is the Future of Work. 00:01:48 Salvatrice Welcome back, this is Dr. Salvatrice Cummo, your host, and I'm joined today by my friend and colleague here at EWD, Ms. Leslie Thompson. Leslie, how are you? 00:02:00 Leslie I'm great. How are you today? 00:02:02 Salvatrice Very good, very good. I just want to remind our listener that Leslie spearheads our operations here at EWD. She's a director of operations and really oversees a lot of the newer initiatives and newer build-outs of verticals under economic and workforce development, and sees that we are truly in front of some of the emerging trends and conversations and all that good stuff. 00:02:27 Salvatrice So, with that, Leslie, this is our first episode for 2024. We learned a lot in 2023, and I thought that now would be a really good time for us to do a quick mini-reflection and really set the tone for the rest of the year and what we anticipate that to look like. 00:02:46 Leslie That sounds great, and I can't believe it's 2024 already. We did learn a lot of things last year, wrapping up with our big event in October, the Future of Work Conference, and we had some good learning there and some good opportunities to reflect there. And I think now's a good time for us to kind of explore what's next for us with the Future of Work Initiative. 00:03:05 Salvatrice That's right. So, I want to ask you first, because I have my response, but I'm going to ask you based on the activities, the conversations, the programming that we implemented, some of the newer programs that we are overseeing, like the California Apprenticeship Initiatives and those funds and management of programs, what was kind of an overarching recap theme for you for 2023? 00:03:32 Leslie For me, what I noticed a lot of is either we're jumping in just in time or we're trying to catch up, or in those rare instances when we're ahead of the curve, those are the things that I always try to look for. 00:03:43 Leslie With the California Apprenticeship Initiative, I feel like we're just in time, I feel like everyone's starting to talk about apprenticeships. It's nothing new, but everyone's talking about apprenticeships and the need to increase those efforts across the state. The chancellor's office is making it a priority with these planning grants. 00:03:59 Leslie And then there's going to be the implementation grants, which we're going to go for. PCC, got five of those grants. And what we're looking to EWD to do this year is to create an apprenticeship hub. We don't do the programming. We're not doing the programming, that falls under instruction. And we have some really great partners across campus for that work. 00:04:16 Leslie But in terms of managing these grant funds and overseeing the administrative tasks related to implementation and all the things, just kind of clearing a path for faculty to do what they need to do to create these programs, that's what this apprenticeship hub will basically be about. So, I'm really excited about that. And I think that my big takeaway from last year was it's time and I'm excited about it. 00:04:39 Salvatrice So, for me, when I look at the annual report that we put out, and I look at the successes, I do want to toot our own horn. We did really great things and we measure, we measure everything that we do, which is important. It's important for a number of reasons. It's important for accountability purposes for ourselves, it's important to demonstrate the work, et cetera. 00:05:04 Salvatrice But what it shared with me specifically, not only through the report, through our programming and some of the verticals, is that we pay a high concentration on the preparation and the development of the workforce. So, we spent a lot of time there. 00:05:22 Salvatrice The last few years has been around making sure that we are connected with the industry. So, the industry influences our program and curriculum. We pay high concentration on career development, career exploration, career preparedness, workforce readiness for the incoming workforce, we spend a lot of time there. 00:05:43 Salvatrice We spend a lot of time, I think on the talent side and the development of the talent side, which is important, it's important work. But we didn't spend ... and not because we didn't want to but simply because that's the need, that has been the need thus far. 00:06:00 Salvatrice But I feel like now is a time for us to flip that a little bit and focus our attention on just as we prepare the new workforce going into the workforce. We prepare the new talent going into the workforce, but we start preparing the workplace for the new talent. 00:06:20 Salvatrice And how are organizations and employers, companies, et cetera, however you want to say it, how are they preparing themselves for this next generation of workforce? And how are they playing a role in the further development of their existing workforce? 00:06:39 Salvatrice I think that there's a moment for us to delve deep into that for a number of different reasons that we talked about before. About employee benefits, employee rates, the environments that they work in, you and I spoke not too long ago about our unemployment rates are really, really low right now, it's a good thing. But we're also hearing, "We can't fill jobs." We're hearing those two things, well, why? 00:07:08 Leslie I think there's a number of factors for that. But one of the other things that we hear aside from we can't fill it, is that well, people don't want to work. Well, they don't want to work your hours. They don't want to work in the office every week. They don't want to work for your pay. They don't want to sacrifice their personal lives anymore for just any job. 00:07:27 Leslie And so, when we talk about preparing the workplace, I think we're on the right track when we think about kind of flipping some of our attention to, obviously we're going to pay attention and devote resources to student development. Because again, a reminder, EWD exists at the Pasadena City College campus, we serve students first and foremost. Developing those students is our job, right? 00:07:51 Salvatrice That's right. 00:07:52 Leslie But when we expand our scope to employers, industry, workplace, whatever you want to call it, primarily in the past it's been about relationship building, to get opportunities for students, to develop partnerships for all sorts of endeavors and initiatives, and we still need to continue doing that. 00:08:10 Leslie But if we switch it to pay some attention to workplace, then we have to create opportunities to address those gaps in ways that frame it from the perspective of the worker, the person, the talent that we call. Why aren't they applying? Why aren't they staying? What are those issues that are going on? Because we are trying to prepare students again for the workforce of tomorrow. 00:08:34 Leslie Well, I mean, the workforce of today has changed quite a bit and we need to change too. The whole world has changed. And we keep hearing people talk about post-pandemic, we all got PTSD from the pandemic. But it's true, there's been a lot of changes in the world. Certainly, reports that were run pre-pandemic, conversations that were had pre-pandemic, they're almost, I don't want to say irrelevant but they're absolutely dated. 00:09:02 Leslie What we experienced in that period of time was historical in terms of the upset it caused, the shifts, the changes in everything related to working and living because people were taken off the job, you were at home. Once you learned that you could do what you do and you didn't have to put on shoes, forget it. Game changer, massive game changer. 00:09:24 Leslie I can do this in my jammies, I'm doing it in my jammies. That's a big deal. And that shifted a lot of people's minds. And I think that that's something we need to create space to discuss and address when we're vetting for opportunities. 00:09:38 Leslie It's not just, I mean, working conditions in the sense that we obviously we're not interested in partnering with anybody who has substandard working conditions or in violation of Cal/OSHA or anything like that. But beyond that, what are the real benefits of working for your company? 00:09:54 Leslie This work-life balance we hear about now, we've always heard about it, but it's not until recently that people are, they mean it can, they work from home. What kind of compensation are you offering? And that's why people aren't flocking to some of these jobs. So, I think it's a good way to turn to kind of start creating spaces to have those conversations with employers and with actual employees too. 00:10:17 Salvatrice That's right. I think that's the other part of it too, is we've listened to the voices of industry to help us in program formation and implementation. We've listened to the voices of our students and what they need in preparations to the workforce. But you hit on something, we haven't quite heard the voice of the existing employees, the existing workforce out there. I think there's ways for us to explore that. 00:10:44 Leslie And we can get into that in a minute. The initiatives we're proposing for the new year in terms of creating opportunities for conversation, addressing things that are important to employees, obviously, like health and wellness, being a top priority for everyone. 00:11:00 Leslie And again, to go back to this kind of life altering moment in history for us, people were dying, a lot of people were dying. And that puts a lot of things into perspective for people. They're like , if this thing can happen and wipe out hundreds of people, in our lifetime, this was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. This was major and we all know somebody who didn't survive it maybe. A lot of us know somebody that didn't survive it. A lot of us know more than one person that didn't survive it. 00:11:29 Leslie Even if it's peripherally, they're in our network somehow. So, almost nobody got away unscathed. That shifts things. Now all of a sudden my health is more important. Now all of a sudden, I'm not going to kill myself for the job. We're of the generation where you leave it all on the field. 00:11:43 Leslie We go out, we play full out, we leave it all on the field, we call in when we're, call in dead, but not anymore. People aren't doing that anymore. Now they're like, "No, I'm not. I'm not. I got to have a little left for me." I think that's important 00:11:55 Salvatrice For sure. And I will also suspect that what we'll hear in talking with the existing workforce and really sharing their perspective and light on many different variables surrounding the workplace and the industry and the needs is this personal alignment. This alignment with what they do with who they are. 00:12:16 Salvatrice We have been conditioned and trained that what we do is not exactly who we are. I've said it a thousand times, well, this is what I do and I'm really great at it, but it's not exactly who I am. But the more I say that, the more it becomes a little blurred for me because I do have a personal interest in this work. I do put my heart and soul in the work. 00:12:40 Salvatrice And so, as much as we've been conditioned to say, this is what you do, it's not who you are. I think the incoming, as well as the existing workforce is saying no more. There needs to be a synergy between what we do and who we are and the workplace is going to create that nexus for us. Just to underscore what you said, it's like, well, there's possibilities, there's options. And so, why would I choose one over the other? Well, I'll choose one over the other because it aligns with me personally. 00:13:16 Leslie You can't overstate the importance of values alignment. I mean, we have that conversation here all the time. Why does this matter? Why does it matter? If it's just about a paycheck, you're not going to give it your all, you're not. You are going to do the bare minimum, do the job, get paid. 00:13:29 Leslie There has to be a values alignment, particularly because there are some sacrifices we make, we have to make them. I think it's great to have this kind of wishlist for what our ideal job or career is going to look like and we're going to get all these things from it. 00:13:42 Leslie But the reality is, working full-time at this level requires a personal sacrifice and a commitment at some level, at some point to some degree. So, you have to make sure that what you're making that sacrifice for aligns with your personal values. Yes, you want it to be like, what I am not what I do. But that's the first thing when you meet somebody, "What do you do? Not who are you, what do you do?" 00:14:08 Salvatrice You know what I also want to explore more of, it came up in a conversation, in a past episode conversation I had with Dennis Rodriguez from Black and Veatch corporation, he mentioned that every employee is an owner, has a stake in the business. 00:14:26 Salvatrice And I thought to myself, well every employee is part owner of this hundred-year-old organization. And he underscored the commitment that the employees have to the company because it aligns with their passion and what they like and what they want to do, but they also have an investment in it. 00:14:50 Salvatrice And so, there's the level of care, there's just a different level of interest in the direction of the company and the vitality and the health of the company along with the health and vitality of the employees. And so, I wonder in the next year, if we create platforms in which we start to uncover a few things. 00:15:11 Salvatrice We uncover or we discover, I should say, we discover the voice of the existing workforce. And talk about variables that are affecting either their growth or their satisfaction or their excitement about the work that they do and how they're doing that integration of what they do and who they are. 00:15:30 Salvatrice But also really discovering different models, different business models that companies adopted or shifted to or evolved to because of the mind shift of the workforce. And so, for all the reasons that you just mentioned about the pandemic allowing us to reexamine how we conduct business, those are two really big things, massive things Leslie, right? 00:15:59 Leslie I'm going to get right on those. 00:16:01 Salvatrice For sure. What would be the best way you think, let's explore what is possible for us to do some more discovery around that? Look, we talked about this a couple of episodes ago or a few episodes ago where we said it's kind of like this teeter-totter with the relationship with the employers because employers are an asset to this work. 00:16:22 Salvatrice They are...
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Unveiling the True Voice of the Future Workforce Episode 111
01/16/2024
Unveiling the True Voice of the Future Workforce Episode 111
How do we start changing the conversation around the future of work so more students can get jobs? To best adjust the current landscape, we need to create more safe spaces that open up the dialogue around what organizations and students need in order to reach their goals. Host Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and Leslie Thompson, the Director of Operations come together to prepare and set the tone for the year ahead by recapping themes from the past year, and reflecting on what they want to shift moving forward. Diving deep into the evolving needs of both the existing and incoming workforce, they’ll share which areas need the most development and what opportunities will best address those gaps or barriers to students. Discover how to set the stage for the engaging conversations you’ll need in order to resonate with the future of work. Engage with us: , & : @PasadenaCityCollegeEWD Join our newsletter for more on this topic: Visit: More from Leslie: LinkedIn: Partner with us! Contact our host Salvatrice Cummo directly: Want to be a guest on the show? Click to inquire about booking Find the transcript to this episode
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Transcript- Episode 110: Confronting the Uncomfortable Truth: Why Students Are Struggling to Find Work in 2024 Episode 110
01/02/2024
Transcript- Episode 110: Confronting the Uncomfortable Truth: Why Students Are Struggling to Find Work in 2024 Episode 110
00:00:00 Salvatrice At the end of the day - and we say this all the time, why are we here? Why is anyone that does this work here? We're here for the student, we're here to prepare them, we're here to enrich them with the skills that they need, both personally and professionally. 00:00:18 Christina The workforce landscape is rapidly changing, and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. 00:00:31 Christina But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the future? 00:00:43 Salvatrice Hi, I'm Salvatrice Kummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College, and host of this podcast. 00:00:52 Christina And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host of this podcast. 00:00:56 Salvatrice And we are starting the conversation about the future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals: more internships and PCC students in the workforce. 00:01:09 Salvatrice We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us. You, the employers, the policymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole. 00:01:29 Christina We believe change happens when we work together, and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barsi ... 00:01:37 Salvatrice And I'm Salvatrice Kummo, and this is the Future of Work. Welcome back. This is Salvatrice, your host, and I am joined today again, by my friend and dear colleague in our Department of Economic and Workforce Development, Ms. Leslie Thompson. Leslie, how are you? 00:01:54 Leslie I'm great. How are you? 00:01:55 Salvatrice Pretty good. I have to tell you, I'm going to keep repeating myself. I really enjoy these talks that you and I have because we get to unpack some of the things that are in our brain and even some of the experiences that we've had like the day of. 00:02:07 Leslie It's a great way to reflect for sure, and keep us honest. 00:02:11 Salvatrice For sure. And thinking about reflection - you used a trigger term for me in a good way. 00:02:17 Leslie You're triggered 00:02:19 Salvatrice We've been doing some reflection for sure in this office, and thinking about 2023, what we were able to accomplish, what were some of the opportunities that we perhaps didn't seize correctly, or ... we always do this right? Like at the end of every year. 00:02:37 Leslie We start looking back, we try to wrap up the year. 00:02:39 Salvatrice That's right, that's right. And I have to tell you, like just based on our meeting today - so for those listening in just a little background story: Leslie and I had an opportunity to meet with an external organization and help develop their strategic plan, and what it did for us ... I'm going to say us because we talked about it. 00:03:03 Salvatrice What it did for us is it kind of brought out some aha moments about this work that we do, and it underscores some of the feelings that we've had as well. And I thought as a reflection episode, like let's really think that through. Let's think through like what this morning's meeting helped us identify, and really how it's going to position us for the upcoming years that we can continue to do more and better for our students. 00:03:32 Salvatrice Okay. So, I'm going to share one of mine. I'm going to share one of my moments, and then you share one of yours. One of the moments I had was based on the conversation that funding sources drive programming, versus need driving the programming. 00:03:53 Salvatrice And although we knew that, it was really underscored this morning because we were making decisions based on funding sources as an external organization. As a community college, we do follow the lead of the chancellor's office, we do follow the lead of our funding sources, but it's always tied to students. It's always tied to students. 00:04:19 Salvatrice In this particular instance where we're part of an organization that is tied to workforce development externally, and the fact that we were trying to frame our work around funding sources versus the need, it really just kind of hit home for me. We may want to just pause and reexamine not only their work, but our work, and the meaning that we find in our work. 00:04:43 Leslie Yeah, I like that idea because someone had made the comment during part of the meeting that there's a lot of people coming to this work now because there's a lot of investment in this work, and so you're getting a lot of new people and a lot of things are changing, but it's all about the same thing. It's all about chasing the money, which is ... that's the way things work. That's the way of the world, like I get that. 00:05:04 Leslie But that doesn't leave a lot of room for kind of higher-order thinking or taking time to really understand the best interest of whoever the client is. 00:05:11 Leslie So, for us, at a community college level, yes, we do take the lead of the chancellor's office. Yes, we do seek these funding sources, but we also do our due diligence in understanding what the student needs and barriers are ahead of time. And then we leverage those resources to address those needs and barriers. That's the work of community colleges, that's what we do. 00:05:31 Leslie And so, the fact that PCC EWD is part of a community college, like it's super important for us to orient our work around the values of the college while we go out and get that money, while we chase that money, as they say. But for me, I guess, like kind of it's like a personal thing. Like this whole idea of getting into this line of work just for the money or chasing down money, like that's an age-old problem. 00:05:52 Leslie We can't do the work without the money, but the work is meaningless if you don't spend the time reflecting and considering the larger issues. You got to make sure that you're not continuing barriers or creating unintentional barriers, or just promoting some systemic issues that if you don't take time to just look at it. 00:06:11 Leslie We do that in community college. We do that in all of higher education, and that's something that I think that outside agencies could do more of. And I think that that's the value of partnering with education aside from this. so-called talent pipeline that we all like to call it, which is another issue for me. But I think that's the value in partnering with education, is we're supposed to raise those questions. We're supposed to bring those things up. 00:06:35 Salvatrice It goes back to what we were talking about earlier in the meeting. Well, you and I were talking about it. We didn't really bring this up because of all the things that you just said. Like naturally, in our work or in our environment of community colleges, we take the time to do that. 00:06:49 Salvatrice We take the time to unpack all of the variables that surround - I'm going to use the term putting talent into jobs, or developing talent into career pathways, whichever term you want to use. Then there lies really kind of the issue, is that this work becomes ... unless you're within a community college, and even sometimes within community colleges, it becomes very transactional. Why? Because the funding is driving the work. And in order to receive more funding, that's driven by metrics. 00:07:23 Leslie We have to deliver 00:07:24 Salvatrice What we deliver, but then we're not pausing, I think as a system - I'm not talking about community college. As a system of workforce development agencies, partners, et cetera, we're not pausing to say, "Well, what are the true barriers to this work? What really drives this work?" 00:07:42 Salvatrice At the end of the day, we're in the people business, I'm going to use your phrase - we're in the people business here. Like what are we doing for human impact and human development? That's what you were talking about earlier. And I want to explore that more. 00:07:55 Salvatrice You mentioned the word "commodity" in our conversation earlier this morning, share a little bit about that. 00:08:02 Leslie Sometimes I feel that the terms that we use and the way we describe, we use a blanket term of workforce instead of people or students, or we use this blanket term of workforce or the talent pipeline, and we're trying to get talent to and from. We treat people as if they're commodities in a sense, and we're just trying to fill a void, and we're just trying to sell you ... for community colleges, we have a talent pipeline that we're trying to sell. 00:08:26 Leslie That's the language we use - we sell the pipeline. That's what we do when we hit the streets, because community college students are a great resource for labor and everything else. They're coming out of these systems, educated, skilled, talented, eager, all the things you look for in prepared ... all the things you look for in an employee. 00:08:44 Leslie But for me, it's a fine line between preparation and speaking on behalf of that pool, treating them like a commodity just to get deliverables, to get metrics, to get more money. To me, the jobs are the commodity. Why should these students, why should these people go work for your company? What's in it for them? 00:09:05 Leslie Like they're asking these questions themselves. They're like, "What's the value prop of coming to work for your organization? What are your ethical considerations? What's your mission statement? What good are you doing in the world? You want, what, 40-plus hours of work from me for what? 00:09:20 Leslie They need more - increasingly we're seeing that people need more than a paycheck to show up, and they don't want to come in by the way, they want to do it from home. Like there's a lot of things that are shifting and changing. 00:09:31 Leslie So, one of the big kind of ... I had two kind of aha moments this morning at this meeting, and one of them was that, in my mind, this thing was flipped. And I'm like, no, we shouldn't be selling the pipeline. We should be selling the industry, because you got to look at it differently. 00:09:46 Leslie But to go back to the earlier point that we're talking about people, and my concern or my question rather, is like how are we developing people throughout their lifespan? How are we contributing to their ongoing development? We're not doing job placement, we're not an agency, we're not an employment agency here. Those places exist, and those places have their own missions, and their own goals and their own metrics. 00:10:08 Leslie But I keep coming back to this idea about like what do we do at the community college level as practitioners in this workforce development ecosystem that's different than everyone else? 00:10:20 Salvatrice That's the million-dollar question. Like what are we doing that's different than everyone else in this space? I think that's our journey. I mean, let me rephrase that. I think our journey has led us to this point where we're saying, "Okay, we did it the traditional way. We've proceeded traditionally. Now, it's time to, I'm not saying go against the grain here, but maybe just try things a little bit differently." 00:10:44 Salvatrice I mean, you just said it right now. You said we need to be selling the industry, not selling the talent. Because to your point, the community colleges do a wonderful job in my humble opinion. And this is just my opinion, and I might have some bias around it, but community colleges do a brilliant job. 00:11:01 Salvatrice Our faculty do brilliant work around preparing our students for those careers for that job. But we, as a system, workforce system, we continue to try to sell the talent as if the talent is not being trained or educated, or just ... do you see where I'm going here? 00:11:28 Leslie I do, and I want to kind of acknowledge that, but also acknowledge that that part of our role too, in fairness, is to gauge the needs of industry. If the students are coming out, if the output isn't what the industry needs, then our job and our role here on a community college is to come back and inform curriculum, and to come back and inform the college. 00:11:46 Leslie Like, "Hey, they're needing these things, we need to update our programming. We need to update our curriculum. We need to keep up with the changing times." In that sense, we do need to make sure that we're plugged into that and kind of feed that back to the college. 00:11:57 Leslie But yes, by and large they're coming out with these good baseline skills, like the faculty are doing a phenomenal job. To your point, our role is also just to kind of ... not to remind you, but just to kind of, for the sake of conversation, our role is also to inform instruction in that way, or to inform college in that way. 00:12:14 Leslie That's our outward-facing, turning back in kind of lens, but I agree. Another kind of thing that came up was ... and it's come up at other meetings too. Today was the second time in a row with the same group actually, that I heard a comment to the effect that we have this need in this particular industry, and it was two different industries. 00:12:34 Leslie And what we are having a hard time is getting people to understand that it's more than nurses, for example, in healthcare; we need more than nurses and frontline workers. We need accountants, we need lawyers, we need graphic artists, we need communications people, we need all these things. 00:12:49 Leslie And it came up again today in a different industry. And I'm like that's what we should be focusing on, is getting students to see the options. There's so many options. They want options, they're demanding options, and there's so many, and so maybe we just flip it a little bit like we're selling this, look at all these things that you can do with this, that, and the other if you get this degree or you get that certificate, or you follow this pathway, you're going to, you know ... 00:13:13 Salvatrice Yeah, I think that goes back to what you said earlier about selling the industry. It's like traditionally we think of the traditional roles within healthcare, but there's so much more. Could we be better at showcasing those options as demonstrating the cross-discipline work? Yes, we could do better at that. But then that goes back to what you said, selling the industry. 00:13:36 Salvatrice It's both hand in hand. It informs curriculum, that cross-discipline, curriculum design is really important. We know that. But it's also sharing that there are some non-traditional pathways within a very traditional sector. Especially now with like this influx of AI. I mean, AI has always been here. We talked about this at previous episodes, but AI has always been around, but it certainly has informed the genetic makeup of our newer occupations, like it's shifted that. 00:14:09 Salvatrice And so, there's so much more possibility. But I kind of see our work kind of going into the next year is just that, underscoring the value and the meaning of what workforce development is about human development and this almost like non-transactional narrative. That there's so much more to this work than just bridging the gap between industry and talent. Like there's so much more and everything in between. 00:14:41 Leslie There's so much that happens in that gap. 00:14:43 Salvatrice For sure. 100%, there is, there's quite a bit that happens. We could sit here for hours talking about that, and addressing, again, those barriers and opportunities, but also simultaneously thinking about how we approach the career possibilities with our students. 00:15:03 Salvatrice There's a lot of room for growth in those two areas for us, because at the end of the day - and we say this all the time, why are we here? Why is anyone that does this work here? We're here for the student, we're here to prepare them. We're here to enrich them with the skills that they need, both personally and professionally to grow. 00:15:24 Salvatrice And we have to do our job to ensuring that we also address some of those system issues, or system barriers, or system problems, whatever you want to call it - that we address those...
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Confronting the Uncomfortable Truth: Why Students Are Struggling to Find Work in 2024 Episode 110
01/02/2024
Confronting the Uncomfortable Truth: Why Students Are Struggling to Find Work in 2024 Episode 110
How can we do a better job at providing students with opportunities that fulfill them both personally and professionally in 2024? It all begins by selecting program funding intentionally and choosing partners and projects that make a real impact on a student’s future and career path. Host Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and Leslie Thompson, the Director of Operations, reflect on the year as a whole: what worked and what needs to change. They’ll cover everything from what drives the programming decisions, how they locate funding sources, and why it’s time to go against traditional techniques and try selling the industry as a whole- not just the talent. Together we can challenge the notion of students as mere commodities and expand the evolving landscape of education and workforce development. Engage with us: , & : @PasadenaCityCollegeEWD Join our newsletter for more on this topic: Visit: More from Leslie: LinkedIn: Partner with us! Contact our host Salvatrice Cummo directly: Want to be a guest on the show? Click to inquire about booking Find the transcript to this episode
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Transcript- Episode 109: The Number One Reason People Are Facing Homelessness Episode 109
12/19/2023
Transcript- Episode 109: The Number One Reason People Are Facing Homelessness Episode 109
00:00:00 Anne So, we need to focus on our young people. So, how are we going to do that? Again, it's by working together. It's bringing all of our expertise to the table. And this is not just for those experiencing homelessness, but it's good for our communities, our society. 00:00:15 Anne It's good for our employers, it's a great opportunity for our educational institutions, and it certainly is good for social service agencies who struggle to help these people back on their feet. But we can and we do. We see lives transformed. 00:00:36 Christina The workforce landscape is rapidly changing and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. 00:00:49 Christina But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the future? 00:01:01 Salvatrice Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College, and host of this podcast. 00:01:09 Christina And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host of this podcast. 00:01:13 Salvatrice And we are starting the conversation about the future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals: more internships and PCC students in the workforce. 00:01:27 Salvatrice We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us. You, the employers, the policymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole. 00:01:47 Christina We believe change happens when we work together, and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barsi. 00:01:55 Salvatrice And I'm Salvatrice Cummo, and this is the Future of Work. 00:01:58 Salvatrice Hi, welcome back, this is Salvatrice Cummo, your host for the Future of Work Podcast. And in this episode today, I'm excited to share our closing keynote speaker from our 5th Annual Future of Work Conference. We missed capturing my introduction for our amazing speaker in the recording, therefore, I'd like to share a little about her background and who she is before we begin. 00:02:23 Salvatrice Our closing keynote speaker for the 5th Annual Future of Work Conference was Anne Miskey, President and Chief Executive Officer of Union Station Homeless Services. With her extensive experience and expertise, Anne is widely recognized as a national expert in developing innovative and effective strategies to end homelessness. 00:02:46 Salvatrice Anne is deeply committed to advocating for, and empowering the most vulnerable members of society, and she has a proven track record of creating long-term positive change and building strong support systems for those experiencing poverty, violence, racism, and homelessness. 00:03:10 Salvatrice Prior to joining Union Station Homeless Services, Anne was the CEO of the Downtown Women's Center and the first ever Executive Director of Funders Together to End Homelessness. Throughout her career, Anne has worked closely with government agencies such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Labor to champion and support for vulnerable individuals and families in the areas of housing, health, and employment. 00:03:45 Salvatrice In addition to her work at Union Station Homeless Services, Anne is a sought after speaker and community leader who fosters conversations about the systemic issues that drive homelessness and works to debunk myths about those experiencing homelessness. 00:04:03 Salvatrice We are so thankful to have her as our closing keynote speaker to discuss her work and our chance to create a path for the most vulnerable, enjoy. 00:04:19 Salvatrice We are very thankful to have you here today Anne, please let's give Anne a welcome. 00:04:30 Anne Whenever I hear my bio, I go, "Oh, my gosh, can I live up to that? I'm not sure." It's such a pleasure to be here today. Homelessness is one of the major crises of our times. You can't go anywhere without seeing people living in tents or RVs or on the street, and I think it's in the news every single day. 00:04:50 Anne Now, if you were to ask most people what is the cause of the homelessness we're seeing in Los Angeles? The majority of people would say, "Oh, it's mental illness and addiction." The fact of the matter, it is neither of those things. 00:05:08 Anne It is true that those things may make you more vulnerable to experiencing homelessness, but they're more often symptoms of homelessness rather than causes. So, if it's not those things, what is it? What is the cause of the homelessness we see here in Los Angeles County, and sadly, growing throughout the western world? 00:05:31 Anne Well, there is one reason and one reason only, and that is economic. People cannot afford to live in our society. They cannot afford housing. The cost of housing is the number one issue that people experience homelessness. To give you an example, here in California, to rent a one-bedroom apartment and a modest one-bedroom apartment, you need a salary of $70,000 a year or more. 00:06:05 Anne If you are living on minimum wage, you need to work 88 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom. Now, this is a California average. If we look at here in Pasadena, a one-bedroom average is $3,200 a month. 00:06:21 Anne Now, think if you're a family and you struggle by with a two-bedroom apartment, modest - you need to make over $90,000 a year or work 110 hours a week. And sadly, many of the people we know work just about that much to try to keep a roof over their heads. 00:06:44 Anne So, what do we do about this crisis? Well, there are two things we can do. One, and we work really hard at this, is we try to create more affordable housing for people, but the need is so great, we can't keep up. And there's such huge backlash in communities: "No, no, no, no. We don't want those people (families, individuals, seniors, youth) living in our community." But we keep trying and we do as much as we can. 00:07:10 Anne The other solution is increasing people's income. They make more money, they can afford to live. Exactly. So, again, how do we increase people's income? Well, you can decide that you're going to win the Powerball. Okay, that might work. 00:07:30 Anne Maybe you have a rich uncle that you can knock off. You know, those are possible. But realistically, how do we increase people's income? It is through employment - decent livable wage, career path jobs are what people need just to afford the basics of life; food, clothing, housing. 00:07:58 Anne By the way, has anybody gone to a grocery store recently and seen the cost of food? Sticker shock? This is putting so many families and individuals under pressure. We deal with people who have literally fallen into homelessness. 00:08:11 Anne They estimate there are over 2 million people in California who are living on the edge, and often, it takes one thing for them to fall over. Their car breaks down and they have a choice. Do they pay for car repairs so they can drive to their job or do they pay rent? Do they lose their housing or do they lose their job? Those are the choices people have. 00:08:37 Anne Now, I work in the homeless sector, and our focus has always been housing, getting people housed and providing the support they need to be stable. And we do a damn good job of it. Union Station, I'm going to brag a little, has one of the highest housing retention rates of any organization in the country. 00:09:04 Anne 97% of the people that we get housed do not become homeless again. But we know how to keep people housed, we know what it takes. What we do, we do outreach, we go out into encampments where people are, we build relationships, we get them supportive services, we get them into housing as quickly as we can, and we surround them with the support they need to stay housed. 00:09:25 Anne But right now, we are seeing people fall into homelessness at rates we have never seen in this country ever and again, why? The cost of housing, the cost of living. And for many of those people, what they need is to get a job that pays the rent. 00:09:48 Anne We struggled for a long time because our clients, our sector, often couldn't get the help and the support they needed to get back into the workforce. Our job centers, our employment centers weren't created to help this vulnerable population. They weren't funded for it, they weren't incentivized for it, they weren't rewarded for it. 00:10:10 Anne Their purpose is to get as many people employed as possible, and you're dealing with a very vulnerable, often hard to serve population. So, what happened is the social service sector said, "Okay, nobody else is doing it, we're going to do it." 00:10:23 Anne So, we started an employment program, and I'm not going to say it hasn't done good work. Our employees are so dedicated, but we focus on things like preparing your resume, doing mock interviews, making sure you have the clothing that you need for your interview. And then yes, we have some connections to employers. So, we do an okay job, but it is not enough. 00:10:49 Anne And frankly, we don't have the expertise that we need to adequately serve this group of people. So, what is the solution? The solution is we need to work together. Our communities need to come together because more and more people are falling into economic hardship. And yet, we have employers and sectors who are desperately in need of employees. 00:11:18 Anne We heard them just talking about some of the jobs that are there and there's no people filling those jobs. So, there is incredible opportunity. Opportunities for partnerships. It's a foundation of partnership and collaboration with a little tidbit of ingenuity, a dash of innovation, and wrapping that around with the philosophy that everybody deserves a good job. 00:11:51 Anne But the reality is there are also barriers, and we have to be real about what those barriers are. I mentioned our employment centers, our job centers not being set up for this, but they have made changes. We work with a number of them. They are understanding that this is a need. So, how do we work more with those job centers to create pathways for people? 00:12:16 Anne One of the biggest issues we faced frankly, is mindset. People feel that if you're homeless, really the kind of job ... will get you a food service job that pays minimum wage, that that's kind of all they deserve or all they can do. We have to change that mindset. We have to understand that people need opportunity, they need a pathway, a career pathway. 00:12:38 Anne Then we have the barriers of the people themselves. If you've been homeless, you are experiencing extreme trauma on a daily basis. You are living in fight or flight mode, survival mode. And a lot of people experience PTSD, so they need support. 00:12:59 Anne We work with landlords when we're trying to get people housed. We work with our clients to wrap them around with supportive services to help get them back on the pathway. Eventually, they don't need it, but at the beginning they may. The barriers that are out there for these people. 00:13:18 Anne Then there are things that's not just our clients, but things like transportation, childcare, which are huge barriers. The majority of our families who fall into homelessness are single-parent families, especially women with young children. Childcare is a huge, huge barrier. 00:13:35 Anne And then one of the things that I think we're in the right place to talk about is education and training. The homeless population in general has lower levels of education than the general population. Often, it is because they come from families of poverty, intergenerational poverty. 00:13:53 Anne Racism is a huge issue with our population, is one of the major causes that we see. Lack of opportunity and also people can't afford. If you're a person living in poverty, unless you get a scholarship, you can't afford to go back. And if you're providing for a family to take time and go to a four-year or even a two-year college program can be impossible. 00:14:17 Anne So, these are all barriers that we deal with and that we as a society have to look at, and deal with. And how do we come together to create models that create success for people that lift people up? Well, here are some things that I think we can do. 00:14:34 Anne One of the first things we can do, and I'm looking at myself and the social service sector, but also ask help from those who are working more on the economic development side, is how do we connect with employers who need people to work at jobs that, again, pay livable wages in our career path job? Let us learn kind of where we can send people. We don't want people just to work at a fast food place. 00:15:01 Anne So, we need to make connections with employers and meet their needs so they can meet the needs of the people we work with. Then create pathways for education and training. Things that connect people to jobs but that are fast track, that don't require two years for them, but may require six months. 00:15:23 Anne And during that time, we as an agency can help support them financially, get them through their training, get them into jobs, give them some time to get established and then wish them all the best in the world. We need to work with colleges, and I will say PCC (and they didn't pay me to say this) is a wonderful, wonderful partner. 00:15:50 Anne I will say that PCC is a jewel in the crown of not just this community, but of this country. And I am so proud to be here today with you. 00:16:05 Anne One of the things we often forget as we're getting folks employed is I mentioned that we work with landlords when we get people housed. We work directly with the landlords and we say, "Here is our phone number, and the moment you have trouble with your tenant, you call us and we are there." "Joe didn't pay his rent, Joe's being noisy," they will call us up and we will fix the problem. That is another reason we have almost a hundred percent retention rate. 00:16:30 Anne Landlords tell us, "We wish we had you with all of our tenants." We need to do the same for employers. We need to support employers. If they're willing to hire our clients, we want to say, "We're going to be there for you. We're going to be there to help you and assist you and make sure that this works for you." 00:16:48 Anne Let me give you an actual example. We had a lady who had fled domestic violence, and she got housed and got a really good job at a manufacturing company. It was a union job, so she had good wages, good benefits. But all of a sudden, she started to implode. Things weren't going well. ...
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The Number One Reason People Are Facing Homelessness Episode 109
12/19/2023
The Number One Reason People Are Facing Homelessness Episode 109
What can we do to support the most vulnerable members in our society? In order to ensure the success of everyone, even students without a home, we must debunk the myths of what actually causes homelessness here in Los Angeles and throughout the entire world. We need to bring together the community, both employers and educators, to focus on jobs, childcare, transportation and other barriers that will transform the lives of the younger generation. Host Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development at Pasadena City College introduces the closing keynote speaker for the 5th annual Future Of Work Conference, Anne Miskey, the President and CEO of Union Station Homeless Services. Anne sheds light on the root causes of homelessness, and underscores how we can provide transformative impactful employment opportunities that support the most at-risk members of society. Don't miss next year's Future of Work conference as we continue to drive meaningful conversations and actionable initiatives towards a more equitable and prosperous future for all. Engage with us: , & : @PasadenaCityCollegeEWD Join our newsletter for more on this topic: Visit: More from Anne: Visit: LinkedIn: Instagram: & : @Union Station Homeless Services Partner with us! Contact our host Salvatrice Cummo directly: Want to be a guest on the show? Click to inquire about booking Find the transcript to this episode
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Transcript- Episode 108: The Synergy of Learning & Earning: A New Vision for Workforce Education Episode 108
12/05/2023
Transcript- Episode 108: The Synergy of Learning & Earning: A New Vision for Workforce Education Episode 108
Francisco (00:00): We have to just be mindful who benefits from this. And it can't simply be seen as something to increase our profit margins, but indeed, something as a tool to increase the human condition. And education has its place and its role to indeed do that, because through education, we believe it puts people on the pathway to prosperity. Christina (00:21): The workforce landscape is rapidly changing, and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. Christina (00:33): But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the future? Salvatrice (00:46): Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College, and host of this podcast. Christina (00:54): And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host of this podcast. Salvatrice (00:58): And we are starting the conversation about the future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals: more internships and PCC students in the workforce. Salvatrice (01:12): We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning, and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us; you, the employers, the policymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole. Christina (01:32): We believe change happens when we work together, and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barsi. Salvatrice (01:40): And I'm Salvatrice Cummo. And this is the Future of Work. Salvatrice (01:45): This panel is called Innovation in Driving Student Focus System Change. Joined with me here today are a few of my closest friends of Pasadena College, all of whom are doing exciting work in either infrastructure sector or higher education. Salvatrice (01:59): And definitely, all of them are playing a significant role in developing pathways of success for students and workers to high-demand occupations. Please help me welcome our second round of panelists. Panelists come on up. Salvatrice (02:17): As they take their seats, for our panel discussion, we are going to be getting a little more granular on what it takes to align industry needs and workforce programs, and steps we can take to improve our strategies and tactics for the benefit of students and the workers we serve. Salvatrice (02:35): And before we get started, I think it might be a good idea that we get everyone to know who you are. So, if you can each please share your name, title, a little bit about your organization for our audience. Dennis (02:48): Good morning, I think still. My name is Dennis Rodriguez. I am happy to be here. I work for a firm called Black & Veatch, which is widely known as an engineering firm. We also do construction. In fact, last year, I think from a business activity perspective, we surpassed the amount of construction we do versus engineering. So, last year, was the first time that we actually did more construction of infrastructure work. Dennis (03:10): We focus on three big sections of infrastructure: so, telecommunication, power, and water, are the three sectors that we kind of focus on. I lead up our business development for design build for our water sector. So, happy to be here and happy to kind of talk about the private sector perspective. Salvatrice (03:26): Thank you, Dennis. Kelly (03:27): Hi, good morning, everyone. I'm Kelly Mackey and I'm the State Director of Strategic Partnerships with the Apprenticeship and Workforce Innovation Unit. This is a relatively new unit that was established about five years ago as a part of the division that I work for, the division of apprenticeship standards. Kelly (03:44): It was designed with a goal of expanding the footprint of registered apprenticeship to include what we call non-traditional sectors or new and modern sectors. I'm going to talk about that today. I'm privileged to work alongside a great team, some of whom are in the audience today. Kelly (04:02): They are consultants that provide end-to-end service in helping stakeholders put together modern apprenticeship programs. I was excited to see Ernesto come. If you feel like you're getting a hard sell today on registered apprenticeship, there's a good reason for that. It is the gold standard model for work-based learning. Kelly (04:22): And I'm really excited to share with you about how these new modern apprenticeships are really building on the momentum that has been optimized by the building and construction industry for a better part of a century, and how you can get involved and help contribute to your community more broadly. Nicole (04:41): I'm Nicole Feenstra, I'm the CEO and founder of the DNA Agency. And we are a digital agency that is very focused on workforce development. And I think the reason I'm here is because we have had a lot of experience in workforce development, specifically in residential construction. Nicole (04:56): And some of the findings we have are probably parallel to the same situations that we would see in infrastructure. So, we focus very much on the message that people hear — we've talked a lot today about programs and systems and opportunities. And what we see is that there's a gap between the opportunities and people seeing it. Nicole (05:19): And where does digital media come in to make sure that they see it? So, we know historically, advertising takes 21 times for somebody to see something before they'll do something. So, you could have an amazing program, and nobody knows about it. Nicole (05:33): And so, that's where we're finding stories, the messages that Mayor Gorder talked about with why he became what he became and his interest, and so those are the things that we're really interested in, are the human stories. We like to say that we focus on life development as opposed to workforce development. Francisco (05:50): Well, good morning, everybody. Francisco Rodriguez, and if you grab my guitar, sing a little song. I'm not a singer, I'm the chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District. Happy to be here. Thank you, Dr. Cummo, Dr. Gomez for the very kind invitation. Francisco (06:04): Wanted to make sure that I recognized my boss, member of the board of trustees for LAC city trustee, Andrew Hoffman, who's here. Thank you for joining us. I know you're wearing your Glendale hat today, but you're wearing multiple hats also as the President of California Community College Trustees. So, thank you for being here. Francisco (06:20): We're a two-year college. We're one of 73 community college districts in the state of California. And we are nine of the 116 community colleges that serves about 200,000 students on an annual basis through our nine colleges in LA County. Francisco (06:35): We touch about 36 cities and about 900 or so square miles and offer degrees and certificates in a couple thousand areas. So, it's a very large comprehensive urban and suburban community college. And PCC is our sister college, as well as many of others of you who are here representing other of our schools who make up LA County. Francisco (06:55): LA County has 19 two-year colleges serving hundreds of thousands of students. So, we are in some cases, sometimes hiding in plain sight. But today, we shift that narrative to move and pivot community colleges to the center workforce development. So, we're very happy to be here. Salvatrice (07:10): Thank you. Thank you very much. In fact, since you were the last, I'm going to be the first to ask you this question. Salvatrice (07:15): Let's just start here, Chancellor Rodriguez, Los Angeles Community College District, one of the largest, as you mentioned in the nation, serving a diverse student population across many campuses, not just one. Each one of your campuses are incredibly diverse. Salvatrice (07:30): Given this vastness, what steps have been taken to create a culture within LACCD to drive and scale student-focused innovations across the district, but mostly, to ensure consistent and impactful experiences for our students? Francisco (07:45): Yes, thank you for kicking us off with this question. Culture is everything. You've heard that it eats strategy for lunch. True, culture is everything. So, at LACCD, I'm going to just give you a little bit of a composite. And none of these strategies or attempts or work that we do is shocking, or even in some cases, remarkable. Francisco (08:03): The difference is that we do all these things together. We do all these things in synergy. We do all these things sometimes in conflict with one another, knowing that some of the outcomes may not be exactly what we want, but we pursue it anyway. So, that's a little bit of our secret sauce. Francisco (08:19): So, I'll just give you nine kind of quick things. First of all, leadership matters. It matters who's in charge. It sets the tone for the organization. Our board of trustees empower their chancellor, I empower our college presidents and so on and so forth. And then resource them, have very clear goals and visions about what we'd like to do. Francisco (08:37): So, leadership matters through our college presidents, to our academic senates, to the unions that we work with, to our incredible classified and professional staff — who we hire matters. We try to get folks who are expert in their craft, but also are comfort with their ambiguity, comfort with the ambiguity of the work itself. We may have to make very precise decisions with imprecise information, and not everyone can do that. So, that's the type of people that we look for. Francisco (09:04): Where DEIA is at the center of everything we do, where we're student centric, equity-minded, community-oriented, where we're problem solvers. We want to hire doers. Remember that word "doers?" People will actually do the work; not talk about the work, but actually do it. So, who we hire, leadership matters. Francisco (09:20): In fact, we are now hiring in one of our largest full-time faculty 10-year track cores that we've ever had in my 10 years as chancellor. We're hiring 222 10-year track faculty in a variety of areas this academic year. Including non-credit, including CTE, including transfer, the whole gamut — ethnic studies, because we want to invest and front load in the person that has the most interface with our students, and that's the faculty member. Francisco (09:49): So, we're going to do that with intention and with trying to hire folks that mirror the rich, vast, wonderful diversity of our students. We've invested in facilities development and infrastructure improvements through Measure CC and Measure LA over the last couple of years that has infused for us close to $8 billion of construction resources that we have. Francisco (10:11): We have a 10-year project, labor agreement with the Building and Trades Council. So, building lots of jobs. Tens of thousands of jobs are created with a very strong local hire preference and very strong interest in hiring small, local emerging and disabled veterans of businesses. Over 50% of who we hire is in that particular space. So, we're very, very pleased about that. Francisco (10:32): We innovate and develop curriculum, ask our faculty — innovate, innovate, innovate. Now, LACCD, we now offer four baccalaureate of science degrees in workforce education. Four: the Dental Hygiene Program and Avionics at West LA, the new Respiratory Therapy Program at LA Valley College and recently, approved Biomanufacturing Program at LA Mission College. Francisco (10:55): So, innovation of faculty. We engage with business and industry to inform the directions and decisions with many of the groups that are responsible here. We partner with our higher education and P12 partners ecosystem. We know that those students will become our students. We don't point the finger, we work together. Francisco (11:12): The College Promise Program was one example of how our district said through policy, through legislation, every Californian should deserve and be eligible for two years of tuition-free education. It was our board of trustees who led us in that effort, and we were very happy to get that signed by two different governors, so that now, every California including here, UC California Community Colleges, two years, tuition-free. And that's any program, any particular major. Francisco (11:37): And then the last thing I'd mention is that we engage in pretty hard strategic legislative advocacy sponsoring or supporting legislation like the tuition-free education. I just came from the Climate Center Summit over at West Los Angeles College, the only two-year climate center in the state of California. Francisco (11:53): We do a lot of work with former justice involved individuals. And just recently, we passed a law and sponsored an author law with Mr. Mike Fung that now allows courses (credit and non-credit) to be taught in language, in native language without the accompanying ESL — that's right. So, now, it's permissive. Francisco (12:13): We've got tremendous linguistic communities here in Los Angeles that's value, that's capital wealth, that's linguistic support. So, why not teach courses in native language where some individuals in Los Angeles come with degrees and certificates that we frankly don't recognize in the state. Francisco (12:31): So, this way, we're building up human capital. The most important infrastructure that we can build is the human infrastructure for California. And community colleges are well-poised to do that. Education, make no mistake, is the greatest accelerant for economic and social mobility. Francisco (12:47): So, the ability to be representing a system, a two-year system that accepts 100% of the graduating class, no one is left behind. Every person who applies is admitted. And we feel very good about that. So, we thank you all for your support. Salvatrice (13:02): Excellent, thank you. I love that you mentioned infrastructure and human infrastructure, and what creates that infrastructure is our ability to build the programming, not only that you mentioned at a local regional level, but at a state level as well. Salvatrice (13:18): So, I'm going to direct my next question to Kelly about the apprenticeship programs, and how those have (speaking of human infrastructure) building that bridge between education and workforce, especially in industries that require hands-on experience. Salvatrice (13:33): That said, what is the state doing around apprenticeship programs to better align with the diverse needs, aspirations and backgrounds of today's students just as Chancellor Rodriguez mentioned? Kelly (13:44): Yeah, I talked a little bit about it in my opening introduction. So, we know that today, students want a variety of different options to move into career pathways. And that includes in the area of registered apprenticeship, and these modern inclusive registered apprenticeship programs that I talked about, these sort of new-collar apprenticeships are really a great win-win proposition. Kelly (14:07): The resolution that provides opportunities for not only students but employers, and quite frankly, communities. It contributes more broadly to building a thriving, inclusive economy in California. And it's because we're giving students a lot of different options and pathways. Kelly (14:25): It's why our governor has so heavily invested in registered apprenticeships, both on the traditional side, including our modern apprenticeships as well, that includes financial investments, it also includes associated policies to create those on-ramps. This is all really designed to help supporting that ecosystem of practitioners that are building these new programs. Kelly (14:50): That includes obviously, our employer partners, industry associations, our valued local education agency partners, including the K through 12 system, the community colleges, adult schools, county offices of education, our UCs, CSUs — our longstanding, perhaps probably most intentional partners are community colleges who have been a vital part of registered apprenticeship for a very, very long time. Kelly (15:16): But also, there are other types of partnerships. And that's what we're finding with these sort of modern inclusive apprenticeship programs, is that stakeholders need to come together, whether they be NGOs, community-based organizations, technical assistance providers, something that we call regional and sectoral intermediaries who run these apprenticeship programs, that sort of end-to-end programmatic support, outreach, recruitment assessment, mentorship, backend compliance. Kelly (15:42): These funding mechanisms that the governor is investing in are helping to support the development and deployment of these programs. They include dollars that are coming from state grants, sector specific targeted strategies, billions of dollars over the last couple of fiscal years, like our secretary talked about, to invest and help prepare the next generation of healthcare workers, climate roles, IT, and cybersecurity. These are really going to help build out these programs. Kelly (16:12): We also know that we're seeing a strong infusion from philanthropic organizations who are recognizing that this time-tested model is pure magic. And we are partnering with the Gates Foundation, the Irvine Foundation, the Eli Broad Foundation, Silver Giving, and others who are heavily investing to help compliment some of the public funding that we're seeing coming in, not only from our state, but also from the federal government. Kelly (16:39): The U.S. Department of Labor has invested millions of dollars to help these programs be developed and to grow. We know that registered apprenticeship is going to help individuals students who are in our community colleges, CSUs and UCs, and the K through 12 system, find a way to bridge the gap to industry. Kelly (16:59): And that's where registered apprenticeship programs come in. There's sort of that glue, if you will, that helps to create that alignment. It's a two-pronged approach of theoretical instruction that comes from the classroom, and then it's complimented by real-time technologically forward competencies that are learned. The truth is that technology in many cases is outpacing the knowledge, skills, and abilities of our workers. And that's where registered apprenticeship can come in and bring that very specific relief to that murky issue. Kelly (17:31): We have also always known that internships and training programs can be a mechanism for individuals to learn skills in a work-based learning strategy. The problem with those programs in many cases is that it's denying a large segment of our population from getting involved. And that's largely because internships, for example, are either oftentimes unpaid, or they're compensated through a stipend. Kelly (18:00): And that is disproportionately impacting a lot of underserved populations. Individuals, students who have that desire, that aptitude for learning want to move into these types of internships, but in many cases, are forced to work full-time to support themselves and sometimes, their families. And they can't afford to go into these internship programs. Kelly (18:22): And so, we're seeing the wealthy and the well-connected, and other people that are taking advantage of these programs. Registered apprenticeship is an on-ramp to those types of solutions. It's why companies like … the partnerships that we've created with Amazon and Tesla, Sony, CVS, Netflix, some of our industry healthcare giants like Kaiser, Dignity Health, and Sutter, IBM, Lockheed Martin, soon Johnson &...
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The Synergy of Learning & Earning: A New Vision for Workforce Education Episode 108
12/05/2023
The Synergy of Learning & Earning: A New Vision for Workforce Education Episode 108
How do we really put more students on the pathway to prosperity and success? It all begins by developing infrastructure that can bridge the gap between industry and education. Listen in as Host, Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development at Pasadena City College shares a panel recap from this year's Future Of Work Conference. The panelists discuss how to develop pathways to high demand occupations and which steps they recommend taking to drive student focused innovation. From the rise of technology and AI in the workplace to the significant changes in adult education and labor markets spurred by the pandemic, our panelists tackle the crucial role of leadership, diversity, and policy in shaping a resilient and inclusive future. Tune in and discover the plan of action we can all take to improve our strategies for the benefit of students and the workers we serve. Engage with us: , & : @PasadenaCityCollegeEWD Join our newsletter for more on this topic: Visit: Speakers featured on this panel: Nicole Feenstra, Founder, The DNA Agency Dennis Rodriguez, Director of Business Development, Black & Veatch Kelly Mackey, State Director of Strategic Apprenticeships, State of California Apprenticeship and Workforce Innovation Unit, CA Department of Industrial Relations Dr. Francisco Rodriguez, Chancellor, Los Angeles Community College District Partner with us! Contact our host Salvatrice Cummo directly: Want to be a guest on the show? Click to inquire about booking Find the transcript to this episode
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Transcript- Episode 107: The Future of Work Conference: Bridging the Gap Between Education and Employment Episode 107
11/21/2023
Transcript- Episode 107: The Future of Work Conference: Bridging the Gap Between Education and Employment Episode 107
V2_FOW_Keynote Recap_11_9_2023 00:00:00 Stewart The colleges have good connections with the employers, and we have really good connections with employers. How do we become that placement arm for those community college systems so that those folks are actually making that placement at hand in time? 00:00:10 Stewart And I was just talking to our labor friends today, that's the kind of work that we want to see - is like hand off the hard hat as soon as we finish the community college system so that they're able to go to work. 00:00:22 Christina The workforce landscape is rapidly changing, and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. 00:00:35 Christina But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the future? 00:00:47 Salvatrice Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and host of this podcast. 00:00:56 Christina And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host of this podcast. 00:00:59 Salvatrice And we are starting the conversation about the future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals: more internships and PCC students in the workforce. 00:01:13 Salvatrice We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us. You the employers, the policymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole. 00:01:33 Christina We believe change happens when we work together and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Bari. 00:01:41 Salvatrice And I'm Salvatrice Cummo, and this is the Future of Work. 00:01:44 Salvatrice Welcome to our 2023 Future of Work Conference located on this beautiful campus of Pasadena City College, it's a pleasure to work here. I enjoy my time here very, very much. 00:01:56 Salvatrice All of us are friends here in this space and it's also a pleasure to see recognized faces, new friends, old friends, but most importantly, it's just a really another great day of insightful conversations, amazing speakers, and of course, the networking that we were just doing moments ago. 00:02:15 Salvatrice This year we really wanted to bring together academia, industry, and for the first time labor and trade representation to our conference to really talk about how our systems collaborate or need to collaborate to effectively drive student and work success. Particularly, when it comes to key industry sector of infrastructure. 00:02:35 Salvatrice So, we're going to keep that in mind as we go throughout the day. Think about how we interpret and how we view, and how we contribute to infrastructure. 00:02:44 Salvatrice Although little did we know that this would be a year of significant activity that we've seen for labor movement with this past summer now being labeled as the Summer of Strikes. Providing once again that our future of work conference has its finger right on the pulse of key workforce issues impacting our region. 00:03:02 Salvatrice Our goal this year is to continue this evolving discussion. We started this conversation in 2019, with the important question of how do we better serve our students, our regional employers, and our community as we consider the future of work. 00:03:17 Salvatrice We are so grateful to have you and our esteemed speakers here with us today for this very, very important conversation. 00:03:24 Salvatrice Now, it is my distinct pleasure to be able to welcome another great friend to Pasadena College to the podium, Stewart Knox, our Secretary of California Labor & Workforce Development Agency, come on up. That's right. 00:03:40 Salvatrice Secretary Knox assumed the role in December, 2022. His impressive career includes pivotal roles such as under Secretary of the Labor & Workforce Development Agency, and senior Vice President of Calbright Community College. 00:03:53 Salvatrice Throughout his tenure, Secretary Knox has demonstrated a remarkable ability to transform workforce development entities into productive, performance-driven and accountable organizations. And we are grateful for the many times that he has taken our calls (my calls particularly) to talk through workforce issues and offer his guidance. 00:04:14 Salvatrice Please join me in saying a warm welcome to Secretary Knox. 00:04:24 Stewart Thank you so much for having me today and I appreciate the time. I see we have our division of apprenticeship standards folks here, our labor friends are here, community colleges, our workforce boards are here as well. So, it's good to see that we are all connecting, which is I think the main point of my conversation today on the future of work. 00:04:40 Stewart But just thinking about how our work has changed in the last three years and just thinking ahead of what AI is going to do for the future of work for us as well, but also, how it's going to change people's jobs and lives. 00:04:52 Stewart But I think one of the things I want to talk a little bit about is the workforce development system as a whole and how the community college partnership is so key to that. I should also mention I did work for a community college for seven years prior to working for Calbright. 00:05:05 Stewart I worked for Yuba Community College and I ran the workforce development programs and their economic development programs with contract education. And so, I think also adding in contract debt is a key component of the work that I think from the workforce boards, how we see how valuable the education system is for us. 00:05:21 Stewart So, here's some stats, the other day, I'm sure we've all heard these before and it's probably going to change from week to week - but a high school student that graduates this year will change jobs 10 plus times in their career in their lifetime ahead. 00:05:32 Stewart So, I think thinking about that as what the future of work is going to look like, and we have what we call the cradle-to-career programs at the state level as well. And we have these conversations around how important it is the people continue their education in their lifespan because it's going to be an ever-evolving change in the way we do work. 00:05:51 Stewart I've changed careers seven times in my 29 years of doing workforce development in one way or another, going from a community college system to a workforce board to a health and human services agency director, running the employment training panel for Governor Brown and then for the Newsom administration. 00:06:05 Stewart So, while it's all streamed around workforce development, for the most part, it's just how key it is for us in the workforce development world to know that these jobs are going to be ever-evolving and changing. AI is going to affect us probably tremendously for many ways and many years to come. 00:06:21 Stewart And I think one of the things the governor's put out an executive order on is for the state agencies to look at not only how it change its business, but also how it's going to change state operations, how it's going to affect people's lives and work and how we also (I hate to use the word contain it) think about how we do contain it to some level. Because it also isn't always a positive thing as we see transitions in life. 00:06:43 U_UKN I talk about this often about how I started my career, which was really working with dislocated workers in education component of teaching GED to workers who had lost their jobs. We call this just transition and our labor friends we know this world too well of like there is no real just transition. As we start to see economies evolve and change, we realize that people that have to have these education moves in their life, it's going to be ever-evolving. 00:07:08 Stewart And so, when I started my career, I worked with timber industry traditionally, and what they did was we saw this spotted ally ... I don't know if anybody remembers this, the Northwest Economic Adjustment Initiative back in the 90s where it just decimated the timber industry in the North State. Policy decision? Probably the right decision, maybe, don't know - thousands of jobs were lost. And so, how did we take those leaders within those communities and regain those jobs back. 00:07:32 Stewart We're going to see this in the oil industry. We already have 40-plus million dollars we've put out just recently to actually see those transitions as we start to move people out of those jobs into new green jobs. So, a little bit of our work and a look at our workforce boards and friends is thinking about how we have the funding at this point in time. 00:07:54 Stewart And this governor with our legislature has been amazing in terms of, he mentioned $5.4 billion has been pumped into the workforce development system in the last three years. A lot of it, actually almost $200 million to the division of apprenticeship standards on apprenticeship training programs. 00:08:09 Stewart How do we start to think about how this is connecting to the community college systems? And so, while the college system is massive and huge, 116 community colleges and 73 districts through the state of California, we have 45 local workforce boards. We want to see that integration. I know it's happening in many areas in the state of California, we want to see it more. 00:08:29 Stewart Our system is much more focused obviously, on underserved populations, populations that typically haven't had the opportunity to go to community college or to any college. So, how do we start to actually have a case management system for which we run on our side to be better connected to our community college systems. Career centers within the community college system, how do we actually have career centers that we may even operate within your campuses? 00:08:53 Stewart As a matter of fact, when they came to me and said, "We want you to run our career center at the campus," I said, "Oh, I don't want to run your career center at the campus." It felt like it was just keeping students through the two-year cycle, but they weren't really focusing on actual careers at the end. 00:09:07 Stewart And they said, "Yeah, you're right, we want to change that." So, I said, "Sure, we can come in and we run your career center." So, we ran the career center, we were also helped by the college, it was a little bit easier. But we ran the career center as a part of the program. And so, we really focused on those CTE programs. 00:09:21 Stewart So, what we did is we actually embedded our career counselors into those CTE programs in the beginning, into the fall, and in the spring semesters as they started to exit. So, what kind of support services could be provided to folks that may need support services. 00:09:37 Stewart If they were in post-academy, did they need to close? If they were in the RN training, what did they need? And we could provide those support services to them. So, these are kind of the hands-on examples that we could actually do better I think within our system to work with our community colleges and partner with them. 00:09:54 Stewart Then for the placement services, the colleges have good connections with the employers and we have really good connections with employers. How do we become that placement arm for those community college systems so that those folks are actually making that placement hand in time? 00:10:06 Stewart And I was just talking to our labor friends today, that's the kind of work that we want to see, is like hand off the hard hat as soon as we finish the community college system so that they're able to go to work. 00:10:15 Stewart Talk a little bit about the apprenticeship training programs, I think one of the core components of apprenticeship that we see is these are good-paying jobs. These are typically union-led jobs, these are good-paying jobs. We have worker voice. And so, the three main components of the Labor Agency is worker voice and protections are unemployment and UI and SDI and workers' comp benefit programs, and our workforce development programs. 00:10:38 Stewart And so, how do we start to align even within our own house, because we have four different workforce development programs under the Labor Agency. We have the employment training panel, division of apprenticeship standards, workforce development board, and a workforce services branch, which is part of EDD, which runs the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act Funds, lots of acronyms. And so, those are our four programs. 00:10:58 Stewart We've started to put together those four entities in a much broader way for the state of California. The governor is really all in on trying to make sure that our data inputs match our data outputs. Also, same issue with the community colleges. How do we actually have the data that the community colleges need? 00:11:13 Stewart And when I say that is we also run off of the unemployment insurance is what we call the base wage file. So, the base wage file is how we connect back to how did the student do? Were they successful? Did we actually have earnings increases? Were they employed in the second and fourth quarter? After employment, did they actually get wage gains? 00:11:31 Stewart We can do some of that through division of apprenticeship standards, especially with our union partners to make sure that happens. But we also can do it through the base wage file. So, I think there's a lot of complexities here that I'm talking about that are actually fairly detailed. But these are the things that the state needs to make sure that we're connecting to our community colleges, and foster that relationship so that your community colleges also know how you're doing. 00:11:52 Stewart We do that bits and pieces throughout the state now, and it's very complicated and we're trying to streamline that into one comprehensive system. 00:11:59 Stewart So, for the future of work, I think one of the main components that we really want to just propose I think today, is really thinking about how it's a lifelong journey. I know the community colleges know this really well. How do we get students in, back into the classrooms because I know we've lost a little bit of the population during COVID. 00:12:16 Stewart I would say look to our system to do that. Our system is ramped back up. It's fully online again. And so, now, we've seen the increase has already started on our side. We had a dip in enrollments as well, just like everybody else did during COVID. Those numbers have increased widely. The apprenticeship training programs, those numbers have increased greatly to hit the goal of 500,000 for the governor. 00:12:38 Stewart We've gone from about 90 plus thousand per year, we're at 154, 157. This is with traditional and non-traditional under the division of apprenticeship standards. So, we want to continue to grow those. Those jobs need to be the well-paying jobs. And so, that's one of the key components I think that the education plays in this, is those certifications for credit piece is important as is non-credit. 00:13:02 Stewart And then looking at the non-credit piece, also, of how do we make the non-credit work that is transferable. So, what I'm talking about here is credit for prior learning. And so, from our system, we really look at credit for prior learning as one of the key components that employers look at and say, "How does the work that they've done in the past apply to the work that they're moving towards now? How do we do that in the education system? How does CPL start to work into the education system?" And so, competency-based education is the way to go with this. 00:13:28 Stewart Now, it's not easy. I understand that, we get that. I work with academic senates in my career as well. And so, we need to make sure that we engage with our academic senates as well, that we're moving folks into these careers and these CTE programs that have credits because as we are going to see cradle-to-career work, they're going to have to have those credits move up. 00:13:51 Stewart And so, if you're getting non-credit, what's the value add? It is the certification, good paying job, that's great. What happens when that job goes away potentially? And so, this is the stuff that we were thinking about at the state level of how do we make this happen....
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The Future of Work Conference: Bridging the Gap Between Education and Employment Episode 107
11/21/2023
The Future of Work Conference: Bridging the Gap Between Education and Employment Episode 107
How can educators join forces with employers to better shape the opportunities available for the future workforce? Tune in as Host, Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development at Pasadena City College introduces the keynote speaker from this year's Future of Work Conference as he tackles that very question. Guest speaker Stewart Knox, the Secretary of California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, shares how our systems are currently working and where change needs to happen. Discover how to view and contribute to the infrastructure around you in order to drive student success and help them reach their goals beyond graduation. Engage with us: , & : @PasadenaCityCollegeEWD Join our newsletter for more on this topic: Visit: More from Stewart Knox: Website: LinkedIn: Partner with us! Contact our host Salvatrice Cummo directly: Want to be a guest on the show? Click to inquire about booking Find the transcript to this episode
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Transcript- Episode 106: Bettering Our Cities for the Future Workforce With Alfred Fraijo Jr. The Founder and Partner of the SOMOS Group Episode 106
11/07/2023
Transcript- Episode 106: Bettering Our Cities for the Future Workforce With Alfred Fraijo Jr. The Founder and Partner of the SOMOS Group Episode 106
00:00:00 Alfred That's a piece that I think is really critical, is to better understand what your ultimate mission and value is. If you are really focused on imagining a universe where that student that comes to your campus is the most prepared to absorb information and be successful as a student. And that student has issues around housing, challenges, or housing insecurity, then your obligation may be to begin to tackle that. Particularly if you're a landowner, a property owner. 00:00:34 Christina The workforce landscape is rapidly changing, and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. 00:00:47 Christina But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the future? 00:00:58 Salvatrice Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and host of this podcast. 00:01:06 Christina And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host of this podcast. 00:01:10 Salvatrice And we are starting the conversation about the future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals: more internships and PCC students in the workforce. 00:01:25 Salvatrice We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us: you, the employers, the policymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole. 00:01:44 Christina We believe change happens when we work together, and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barsi. 00:01:52 Salvatrice And I'm Salvatrice Cummo, and this is the Future of Work. 00:01:56 Salvatrice Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Future of Work Podcast. I am your host, Salvatrice Cummo. Today, we'll be talking about how land use law affects educational institutions and the communities around us. We will also learn about what it's like to go from working at a big firm to starting your own and creating change in the field. 00:02:18 Salvatrice With that said, I'm very excited to welcome Alfred Fraijo Jr, founder and partner of the Somos Group. Alfred secures and negotiates land use entitlements for complex housing, infrastructure and mixed use development projects throughout California. 00:02:35 Salvatrice He provides legal advice to clients pursuing innovative, urban renewal projects in the inner city and other sectors with emerging markets. Alfred's real estate and land use expertise and problem-solving extends to structuring and overseeing public-private partnerships and permitting multi-family, housing, commercial, mixed-use, green energy facilities, and college university master plan developments. 00:03:05 Salvatrice Wow, Alfred. Hi, good morning. 00:03:10 Alfred Good morning. Great to be with you. 00:03:12 Salvatrice Good to be with you too. I am so excited to dive deep in some of these questions about what led you here, how you source talent, what's new. So, thank you for sharing your morning with us. 00:03:25 Alfred Absolutely. I'm excited to talk about land use in particular, Salvatrice, because it's an area of work that growing up and even as a college student I was not aware of. So, to the extent that we can get other folks engaged and informed about this important industry, I'm thrilled to be able to share that. 00:03:46 Salvatrice How about we start with my famous question that I'd love to ask all the time, because it's an interest to me, not only to our listener, but to me too, is what led you here? Tell us about your career journey. What led you to the wonderful world of land use attorney? 00:04:00 Alfred Awesome. Happy to do that. Really the answer to that question starts with my growing up in Boyle Heights. I grew up in the east side of LA, raised by immigrant parents. And really, growing up in a community that has a legacy of historic disinvestment, I would say, and also a legacy around particular land use decisions that historically, didn't factor communities of color. 00:04:27 Alfred So, Boyle Heights has a disproportionate amount of industrial areas. The typical that we know about are freeways and also a lack of green space. But growing up and being involved in community projects, for me was an important element of my awareness around civic engagement. 00:04:46 Alfred So, civic engagement was really important to me. I was really fortunate to get involved in a youth leadership program that was organized by our then council member, Richard Alatorre. And council member Alatorre had this youth group, it really opened my eyes to activism and the work in politics. 00:05:05 Alfred So, I decided to go to college and be involved in the political process and in government. I focused on government and I thought if I want to go into and be a civil servant and be in government, I need to understand how laws are made, and how they're enforced. And so, I decided to go to law school. 00:05:24 Alfred I went to law school with an idea that I would be a civil rights attorney. That I would be involved in working to protect the underrepresented in our judicial system. And my first summer Salvatrice in law school, I was really fortunate to be able to intern with a non-profit called the Greenlining Institute. 00:05:46 Alfred The Greenlining Institute is based in San Francisco at the time, it's now in Oakland. And it was founded on the premise of combating historic redlining. So, systemic disinvestment by financial institutions in communities of color. So, there were literal maps that guided bankers on where to lend money and where not to lend money. 00:06:12 Salvatrice Oh. 00:06:12 Alfred And those maps really informed access to home ownership, access to small loans for businesses, communities of color were within those red areas. Those were the areas where banks really avoided investment. 00:06:24 Alfred And the organization was designed to ensure that these banking institutions that are regulated by the federal government did a better job at investing in communities of color. And so, it was an advocacy group. 00:06:39 Alfred It was also a civil rights group. It challenged these large institutions around their community reinvestment act obligations, and ultimately, created an important reform around investment in community development by these large institutions. 00:06:54 Alfred And so, I joined the non-profit and my awareness around the issue as it relates to real estate investment, particularly in low-income minority communities, was a huge educational opportunity for me. 00:07:09 Alfred And I understood that lawyers could really influence the way local government, the way developers identify projects and opportunities for investment. And I could advise them around the investment in these low-income minority communities. 00:07:24 Alfred And so, I found my calling. I saw this nexus between the law and advocacy, community organizing, and social justice. From that moment until today, my practice as a lawyer has been really centered around community development. So, it's been a great journey. 00:07:42 Salvatrice That's amazing. That's an amazing story. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that. I too took it down some notes about what you were sharing. For those who are listening who may not truly have an understanding about land use law and both the negative and positive effects it has on a community as respects to development, can you share a little bit more about what exactly land use law, when does it come into play? What does it look like and how does it negatively or positively affect a community? 00:08:15 Alfred Absolutely. Happy to do that. So, let me first try to provide some background on it. So, land use law is really a branch within the practice of real estate law. And real estate law in California is really oriented around transactions or business agreements that relate to the use of real estate. 00:08:36 Alfred So, the very typical transactions that would be within the real estate law umbrella would be purchase and sale agreements, round lease agreements, license agreements. Anything that touches dirt, I like to say, has to do ... those particular contracts lawyers will be involved. And a branch within that area is the actual opportunity to use the property based on local laws and regulations. 00:09:06 Salvatrice Okay. 00:09:06 Alfred And that's what we refer to as the use component. There are laws that govern the kinds of uses that could occupy real estate in California. The general structure around that is written into the California Constitution, which says that local government, meaning cities and counties, have the power to govern the uses on real estate no matter where that property is located. 00:09:33 Alfred So, you can imagine, for example, commercial corridors, industrial corridors, single-family residential areas, et cetera. All of those are shaped by the rules that dictate how much you can build, what type of housing you can build, or commercial uses you can build, etc. 00:09:54 Alfred And all of that is written into local land use rules. That, as I mentioned, are typically dictated by either counties or cities. And those are found in the zoning code of the local municipal code. And that's really the area of law I would say that we operate under. 00:10:16 Alfred We take those sets of rules and help our clients navigate how both to use them and whether or not they need particular modifications to achieve their business objectives. It might be building a hotel or building a new residential tower, or building office and what we refer to as mixed-use development, which is a combination of different uses. And that's really a growing area. 00:10:41 Alfred Now, I would say that most anything that's built on real estate has some nexus to these particular rules. And so, historically, as you can imagine, those rules were written in the ivory tower or city hall chambers. And only certain influential individuals had the power or had the authority to really affect how these rules were written. 00:11:08 Alfred And I mention that because my work has really been about democratizing that process, about including a diversity of voices on how land use laws should be both written and enforced. And really, fundamentally, it's about the future of cities. 00:11:28 Alfred How do we imagine growth in cities? How do we think about investment in our infrastructure, whether it's transportation or public spaces and green spaces, whether it is imagining commercial corridors that perhaps may be designed in a way that serve small businesses or ensure walkability and safe streets and sidewalks. All of those things - how those ultimately developments happen, have some connection to the work that I do as a land use attorney. 00:12:04 Alfred And so, for me, it was really not only an important area, because it really dictates the future of cities, but I found myself having a unique role in being able to connect my clients to those decision-makers in city hall. 00:12:20 Alfred And what I found was that the more voices you have at the table to be able to articulate the needs of communities, local government is better informed, and therefore, better policies are proposed and adopted that support those communities. 00:12:35 Salvatrice Right. 00:12:36 Alfred One example Salvatrice that I'll mention is the work that I'm doing with institutions that are focused on education. So, as you know similar to the institution you work for, there's a number of educational organizations, nonprofits and universities and colleges that have a large footprint, a real estate footprint. 00:12:56 Alfred And so, we've been advising those large institutions about how they can grow within their real estate footprint in a way that both meets their need, whether it's growing student population or the need to build housing for faculty and students. 00:13:12 Alfred And as a plan, their development and growth, one component that's been really important is their partnerships with those local governments that have a say in how that growth should happen and where. And so, I'm often negotiating those types of both relationships and agreements between these larger institutions and those stakeholders, call them government, neighborhood associations, homeowners associations, et cetera. 00:13:40 Salvatrice Got it. I mean, working for a public entity like ours, and maybe this might be getting too much into the weeds, but what hurdles are we faced with as a public entity who's looking to reimagine their existing footprint and or expanding it? 00:13:57 Salvatrice I think that there are a lot of public institutions that are in a position right now where they have a footprint that is either underutilized or is currently being reimagined. And I guess what I'm trying to ask is like the level of difficulty or the level of feasibility around a client who might be in the private sector, a private university versus a public entity like ours. 00:14:23 Salvatrice Is it similar? Are you finding that public entities have more flexibility even though it's a highly bureaucratic environment and high policy-driven environment? 00:14:36 Alfred I love that question because it really touches on the work that I do on a day-to-day basis. And the way that I think we can think about that is there's both opportunities and challenges with public institutions like you mentioned. The challenge, I think, is that you have to operate within the structure of what's authorized under state law as a public institution. 00:14:58 Alfred And so, that's really the starting point. That can be, I would say, highly regulated and bureaucratic. And so, I talked to my colleagues about it, and it's like job security for me because it gives me a chance to be an advisor on how to think about those rules. But ultimately, I think it results in better projects. 00:15:19 Alfred But here's, I think, on the other side where the opportunity exists. And I think that that opportunity starts with the conversation with the decision-makers in each campus to really think (and this is the important part) what is their obligation as a stakeholder in the community? 00:15:36 Salvatrice I like that. 00:15:37 Alfred What is their role? 00:15:39 Salvatrice Yeah. 00:15:40 Alfred Oftentimes, public institutions are really, as they should be, really focused on educating that student. And they don't think of themselves as a property owner. They don't think of themselves as an anchor institute in a larger ecosystem that really impacts the way communities are either healthy or not healthy. 00:16:00 Alfred So, I think of real estate as a tool for bettering communities from that standpoint. So, one example of that is the way that the campus is designed. Is it designed to be a fortress, to be exclusionary from its neighbors? And we can think of local institutions that are designed that way. Or is it designed with an eye of inclusivity? 00:16:24 Alfred How are the public streets and roadways designed so that they are inclusive? How's the open space created so that we can be inclusive of perhaps the kids that live in the neighborhood? Is there an opportunity to think about facilities that could be used by local neighborhood groups in addition to faculty and students? 00:16:45 Alfred And so when you start those conversations, you think about really those opportunities of elevating that institution as a stakeholder and a generator of benefit in a larger way. 00:16:59 Salvatrice Got it. 00:17:00 Alfred The other piece that I think is important is the issue of sustainability. When we think about growth on campus, we really need to be aware and cognizant of climate change and climate adaptation. And fortunately, larger institutions, because they have the academic background, are highly informed of the existential challenges that climate change has presented for organizations in California and throughout the world. 00:17:25 Alfred And so, thinking about future growth and campus planning with an eye towards environmental sustainability is really critical. That means thinking about resource use, thinking about how we allocate sustainability targets for efficiencies for each individual buildings, how we think about water reclamation and water recycling, how we think about the green space and how that potentially leads to better air quality, not just for the students, but also for the residents in the area. 00:17:55 Alfred So, all those things are what we incorporate into a strategic plan and a strategic focus for that institution. The last thing I'll mention is that all of that doesn't happen in a vacuum. 00:18:09 Salvatrice Right. 00:18:09 Alfred There are other laws, both local and state that mandate the study of how new development impacts the environment. So, we think specifically about the California Environmental Quality Act as an important statute. CEQA, is a big part of the work that we do. Because it requires that before any decision is made around future growth, that those potential environmental impacts be considered. 00:18:34 Salvatrice Thank you for sharing that, because I got so much golden little nuggets from just your response to that question. I took so many notes. But one of the things that I've experienced is these conversations, or the obligation as you put it, our institutional obligation as land use owners to the community, oftentimes, like these conversations do not start or even entertained unless there is something driving, which is typically a bond that was passed. 00:19:05 Salvatrice And so, now, we have the funds to do it. I know we're going off script here a little bit Alfred, but like how do we get public institutions to really talk about this, whether or not? Or start democratizing the process as you shared earlier? 00:19:22 Alfred Yes. 00:19:22 Salvatrice How do we engage in those dialogues ahead of the curve so that we are well-prepared? I mean, are you seeing any institutions or any of your clients that are really working proactively around their obligation versus waiting for that one moment where there's a bond issued? 00:19:41 Alfred Another great question, and I'll answer that through a specific example of the work that we're doing here at Somos. We have the incredible privilege of working with the LA Community College District. LACCD is, as you may know, Salvatrice, the largest community college system in the nation. 00:20:02 Salvatrice That's right. 00:20:03 Alfred And they started this journey around thinking of themselves as this anchor institute and using their real estate for a larger good because of the need that their students had for housing. 00:20:17 Salvatrice Right. 00:20:18 Alfred So, they started evaluating and doing surveys, and what they discovered was that over 20% of their student population was housing insecure. Almost 20% had food insecurity as well. And that really forced a reckoning within the institution to reimagine what their mission was when they talked about treating the whole student. So, when an institution says, "Hey, our educational outcomes depend on the health and well-being of our students ..." 00:20:52 Alfred How does housing influence the health and well-being of those students? How does having food insecurity influence the health and well-being of the students that ultimately lead to educational outcomes? 00:21:03 Salvatrice Yeah. 00:21:04 Alfred So, it was a really important conversation to have. And I would say that's a piece that I think is really critical, is to better understand what your ultimate mission and value...
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Bettering Our Cities for the Future Workforce With Alfred Fraijo Jr. The Founder and Partner of the SOMOS Group Episode 106
11/07/2023
Bettering Our Cities for the Future Workforce With Alfred Fraijo Jr. The Founder and Partner of the SOMOS Group Episode 106
Do you know all the ways your city’s land laws might be holding the future workforce back? To uncover a positive path towards change for you and your community, Alfred Fraijo Jr. is here, he’s the Founder and Partner of the SOMOS Group– where he provides legal advice to clients pursuing innovative urban renewal projects in the inner city and other sectors with emerging markets. Host Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and Fraijo cover when land law comes into play, what it looks like, and the positive and negative effects it can have on the community. Together, they explore the pressing need for accessibility and inclusivity in the workforce and cover powerful new ideas and solutions to transform our current systems. Using Fraijo’s advice, you’ll learn how to make positive changes to the landscape for future generations to come. Engage with us: , & : @PasadenaCityCollegeEWD Join our newsletter for more on this topic: Visit: More from Alfred Fraijo: Visit Email: LinkedIn: Partner with us! Contact our host Salvatrice Cummo directly: Want to be a guest on the show? Click to inquire about booking Find the transcript to this episode
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Transcript- Episode 105: The Power of Passion: How to Identify & Pursue Your Calling in the Future of Work with Dennis Rodriguez Director of Business Development – Western US & Design Build – Governments & Environment at Black & Veatch Corporation
10/24/2023
Transcript- Episode 105: The Power of Passion: How to Identify & Pursue Your Calling in the Future of Work with Dennis Rodriguez Director of Business Development – Western US & Design Build – Governments & Environment at Black & Veatch Corporation
00:00:00 Dennis A lot of folks kind of go through the educational process and they think, "By the time I'm done with this, or by the time I get my degree, or by the time I take that next step after graduation, I will have it all figured out." And the truth is, that's generally not the path, that generally the path is, you've got to kind of touch different things and to have different exposure to different concepts and professional aspects to really understand what your passion is. 00:00:27 Christina The workforce landscape is rapidly changing and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the future? 00:00:52 Salvatrice Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and host of this podcast. 00:01:01 Christina And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host of this podcast. 00:01:04 Salvatrice And we are starting the conversation about the future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals, more internship and PCC students in the workforce. 00:01:19 Salvatrice We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us, you the employers, the policy makers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole. 00:01:37 Christina We believe change happens when we work together and it all starts with having a conversation, I'm Christina Barsi. 00:01:45 Salvatrice And I'm Salvatrice Cummo, and this is the Future of Work. 00:01:51 Salvatrice Hi everyone and welcome back to the Future of Work Podcast, I am your host, Dr. Salvatrice Cummo. Today, we'll be discussing and defining sustainable infrastructure and the major role it plays in all industry sectors. With that being said, we are excited to welcome Dennis Rodriguez, Director of Business Development, Western U.S. Design-Build, Governments and Environment for the Black & Veatch Corporation. 00:02:17 Salvatrice Dennis has a deep background in economic development, public affairs, and business development. He is passionate about driving thought leadership and innovation into the state and local public sector market spaces with a focus on problem solving and relationship development. Thank you for joining us, Dennis. That's a big charge. 00:02:43 Dennis Exactly. It's a mouthful. 00:02:45 Salvatrice It sure is. 00:02:46 Dennis Happy to be here and thank you for the invitation. This is exciting and interested to kind of have this chat and just go through the conversation about workforce development. We're doing exciting things at Black & Veatch and just happy to chat deeper. 00:03:00 Salvatrice Excellent. There's a lot to unpack here but I wanted to really start with, and just so you know, it's an opening question that I pose to all of my guests because it's important to me. And I'm just curious, and I know that our listeners are curious, but if you could tell us a little bit about your career journey and really what led you to Black & Veatch Corporation? 00:03:21 Dennis It's a great question. I think I don't have a typical kind of career journey. I think when you think about careers and especially with an engineering company, you kind of think that most folks are kind of on a path direct to some future kind of engineering opportunity. And I think with me, I've just jumped and kind of zigged and zagged throughout my career and it's been interesting to kind of look back and reflect on it. 00:03:45 Dennis But essentially, I grew up in Los Angeles and ended up at Cal State Northridge University where I got a degree in creative writing, which has nothing to do with engineering but is always a good fundamental kind of background. I think communicating and writing things effectively is a key piece of being a professional in a future sense. And so, I think for me that's important to just ensure that was my foundation. 00:04:09 Dennis From there, I went on to law school at the University of Notre Dame, which also has not much to do with engineering in terms of traditional paths and that sort of thing. So, I ended up in law school, graduated, and my first position outside of law school was basically working for the Los Angeles City Council. 00:04:26 Dennis So, I worked for an elected official, a gentleman named Bernard Parks, and I spent the better part of a decade with his office and started at an entry position, ended up as an economic development deputy for him, which is kind of his right-hand person for major projects and major policies. 00:04:43 Dennis From there, I left his office and jumped into the private sector, which is kind of the leap into the path that I kind of took into this current position. Ended up with a company called Siemens, which is a global powerhouse in terms of product engineering. I think at one point they had close to 400,000 employees on the roster, so just a massive company multinational. 00:05:05 Dennis And so, what I did with that company is I did business development and I basically learned the company and then developed business back with major cities throughout the west coast. So, that was my charge with them. And essentially, I did that for about 10 years. 00:05:20 Dennis Following that position, I kind of found my way to Black & Veatch and currently doing business development for them in relation to their design-build group, which is a different way that government kind of goes to procure opportunities in the marketplace. 00:05:35 Dennis And so, I've been with this company for about two years and just having a great time or looking at a bunch of interesting projects with just important infrastructure implications and that sort of thing. So, not a traditional path, not a straightforward path of zig and zag throughout the process. And it's been a journey, but it isn't anything I would replace, I've thoroughly enjoyed the process. 00:05:57 Salvatrice For sure. I think the majority of us experience that. Like we go in with one mindset and then we grow and we have experiences and opportunities are brought forth to us and we understand that our skills and our talents can be leveraged in other sectors and other corporations and companies and things like that. 00:06:16 Salvatrice And so, I mean, that's my favorite question to ask by the way because for me, it helps understand who you are, but it also helps me understand even some of the approaches that we take in problem-solving, in developing new programs and building partnerships, it tells me a lot about the approach. Thank you so much for sharing that with me. 00:06:40 Salvatrice And today's topic is really about sustainable infrastructure, so we'll live there for a minute in this conversation. And you mentioned it in your intro about sustainable infrastructure and that kind of is a universal theme or thread I think throughout your entire career. 00:06:56 Salvatrice You kind of touched on it here and there, but now with the emphasis here with Black & Veatch, just really kind of tell me a little bit about sustainable infrastructure and why you personally think it's so important for our future needs. 00:07:12 Dennis When you think about infrastructure, we have it in different, various parts of our communities and our cities and our states and all these different components. It used to be built in a traditional fashion, so if you built a bridge, it was a bridge. If you built a pipeline, it's a pipeline. 00:07:27 Dennis I think the way we're looking at things these days is how do we make these static, traditional pieces of infrastructure smarter, more capable of transmitting data and information, more capable of understanding what kind of status they're in. 00:07:43 Dennis So, if it's something that's deteriorating, if it's something that's got a long shelf life that's all used for information for people who are looking at maintaining this and operating these pieces of infrastructure. So, I think infrastructure really has grown into that kind of capacity over time and it's exciting. 00:08:00 Dennis If you think about a pipeline, like I mentioned, you can build a pipeline, you can kind of dig parts of the earth and kind of put the pipeline in place. But these days we're attaching sensors and we're attaching data transmission and we're attaching things that would feed back to some kind of central location to, like I said, identify what issues might be taking place if there's some kind of leak detection that needs to be understood. 00:08:25 Dennis And so, that's all just critical parts of the process to make sure that our infrastructure stays in place for long-term. Infrastructure, also, in today's concept when you solve for it or you plan for something, you've got to look at future challenges. And it's impossible to future-proof, but I think in as much as we can plan to future-proof, I think that's the way we should be looking at infrastructure. To me, that goes into making something sustainable for a long-term. 00:08:55 Salvatrice So, tell me a little bit more about that. What exactly are we looking for when you say we're looking at it to be more future-proof? If you could give me an example, that'd be great. 00:09:06 Dennis The amount of investment and the amount of initial inertia that needs to take place to develop a piece of infrastructure. You look at the California high-speed train, for example, the amount of inertia in political momentum that kind of goes into making that come to fruition, it's massive. 00:09:25 Dennis And so, in as much as we can think about what that system looks like in 20 years, in 50 years, in 100 years, and it's still delivering what it needs to deliver to the folks that are using it in that time span, that's kind of future-proofing. So, we want to make sure the infrastructure is in place, it's useful and it's serving your purpose long-term. That's at the top of the list in terms of infrastructure, making sure it's a long-term commitment. 00:09:52 Salvatrice It's important that you mentioned our traditional mindset about what infrastructure is or what it was and what it actually really is now. And we really appreciate you saying that, that it's so much more than what we traditionally think infrastructure to look like. But infrastructure now, and what I'm hearing is that it's not exactly like a tangible thing where you can see it live. It's around everything that you mentioned, the technology behind infrastructure design, specifically sustainable infrastructure design. 00:10:26 Salvatrice And so, what led me to think is, first of all, I didn't realize that Black & Veatch was 100-year-old company. When we were starting to do a little bit of research about the company, I genuinely didn't know that. And so, I was hugely surprised in a good way because we don't see companies last that long anymore and there's a reason why they are, and it's because what you just said. 00:10:47 Salvatrice Like thinking about future, thinking about innovation, thinking about how is this going to sustain us in the long run? So, I'm wondering if you can share how the company is investing in cutting-edge innovation that's essential. Could you share how really Black & Veatch has been able to become 100-year-old company, and what is the secret sauce to that you think? 00:11:18 Dennis To take the roof off of the company and kind of dig into it, I think is very interesting. One of the things that fascinated me about joining this company a few years back is the fact that it's a hundred percent employee-owned company. 00:11:30 Salvatrice Okay. 00:11:30 Dennis I've been a part of different career paths and I worked for a municipal government, which was massive. I worked for Siemens, which was massive, but this is the first time working for a company that I had an ownership stake in. 00:11:43 Dennis And so, I think that essentially does drive a lot of our innovation and kind of approach to the marketplace because at the end of the day, we want to turn this company over to the next generation of professionals, that's a huge thing that we focus on within the company. We want to be good stewards and make sure this continues forward. 00:12:00 Dennis So, not just making this 100-year-old company but making this 150-year-old company and a 200-year-old company in the future. But if you think about that from a marketer approach, we're on the forefront of looking at sustainable infrastructure, infrastructure in general. We focus on power infrastructure, water infrastructure, telecommunication infrastructure. Those are our kind of three main buckets. 00:12:21 Dennis And so, as we dig into the marketplace, it's just critical that we're at the forefront of the leading innovations that clients are looking for. We're digging into training components and workforce development, which I think we'll talk about here momentarily, to really identify what the trends in the market are looking at, what kind of things are helping us to future-proof our design and construction of these components of infrastructure. I mean, all that is critical. 00:12:50 Dennis And we do a lot of self-evaluation as I think any successful company should do. So, the self-evaluation is a key piece of it. We're always kind of going through a review process to make sure if we're taking a leading edge into something into the marketplace, is that the right leading edge? Or is that something that we think was an asset to the market and to our clients. 00:13:11 Dennis And so, I think those are all kind of critical approaches to making sure we're at the forefront of that stuff. And I say all that and it's also important to mention that as an owner in the company, these are the things that I think through at night to kind of make sure that I'm taking the right steps around decisions to go through the process to make sure the company's in good shape. 00:13:31 Salvatrice I think there's a lot to be said about companies that are owned and operated by the employees. Just hearing you now explain that, explain how this 100-year-old company still continues to be on the cutting edge and is wanting and has a desire to live longer, I should say, or be in business longer, there's a lot to be said. Because you have a vested interest in the success and the vitality of the company. 00:13:59 Dennis Absolutely. 00:14:00 Salvatrice That's really, really telling. Well, along that same thread of the company being on the cutting edge of innovation as it relates to sustainable infrastructure, we've already underscored that it's evolving. We've underscored that there's many variables to sustainable infrastructure, and there's also other ways of design thinking around it. 00:14:20 Salvatrice Could you share a little bit about how the company is keeping ahead on training the existing workforce for this evolving infrastructure design as we think about it for the future, how is the company investing in training and the future needs of our workforce? 00:14:44 Dennis So, there's a few different components to this. I think you can look at stuff that we do in-house. You can also look at external kind of training mechanisms. In-house, we have a program called our EDGE Program, which is basically a rotational program for young professionals. And I think a lot of good top-level companies kind of employ things of this nature. 00:15:04 Dennis So, you take a young professional, maybe a year or two out of college, they can jump into a program like this and really touch base with different parts of the company. So, they're kind of doing a 9 to 18-month stints in different sections of the company, different departments. They're looking at a whole variety of different concepts. 00:15:22 Dennis They could look at our power plant construction and design. At some point they could look at an advanced water treatment plant, at some point they could look at some telecommunications or electric vehicle charging infrastructure project. So, the goal is to kind of give them exposure to different parts, and at the end of the day, just identify if they have a passion for one particular focus. 00:15:42 Dennis I think for any young person kind of coming out of college, that's a key ingredient to this whole thing, that's part of the secret sauce. Because what you want to do in your career is find something that is of keen interest to you. And if it is and you're passionate about it, you're going to you stay up after work thinking about it and doing research. 00:16:01 Dennis You're going to network with professionals who kind of share a similar passion. You're going to educate yourself on the things that you would get exposure to in terms of that kind of focus point. So, that's a key piece of all this is just to make sure you've got that passionate thing you're digging into. 00:16:17 Dennis We also do a lot of in-house training. We have a bunch of great programs with Black & Veatch that keep us on the path in terms of keeping up with professional credits and that sort of thing. We also look at external kind of training impacts and those are professional organizations that dig into things that we're passionate about in our particular field. 00:16:37 Dennis For myself, on the water design built side, there's a Design-Build Institute of America that's one organization we dig into. You go to these meetings and you can kind of talk to the professionals, you talk to the experts in the field and create that network and expand your knowledge base and expand your network. 00:16:53 Dennis So, I think when you kind of wrap that all into a package, that's how you make sure the workforce is moving in the right direction and keeping up with what's shaping up. 00:17:04 Dennis And also, quite frankly, a lot of that is thought leadership. So, as a part of all these aspects, we want to introduce and be thinking through how we're bringing thought leadership to these conversations. And so, that's kind of key thing we are focused on. 00:17:18 Salvatrice The EDGE Program is an internal program. Is it in partnership with any other organization or is it- 00:17:26 Dennis It's a hundred percent internal and it's basically an internal rotational program. We do partner with other organizations and we can talk about that also. We partner with educational locations as well but just for the EDGE purposes, some people have a very direct path that wasn't my career, and that's fine. 00:17:44 Dennis I think if you've always focused on electrical engineering and that's the path you want to head down, I mean, that's one aspect to kind of get to your passion. If you're not quite sure when you get out of college and you join a company like Black & Veatch, you can sign up for it and just kind of make sure you get exposure to different things to see what might be a passion point, and that's the exciting part of it. 00:18:04 Salvatrice When I think about just our partnerships that we have with industry professionals or industry partners, companies, organizations, et cetera, one of the elements that we lean on industry for is what exactly do you need from us in order to prepare the next engineer, the next architect, the next fill in the blank. 00:18:28 Salvatrice And so, I'm wondering if there's an example that you can share or maybe you haven't explored it just yet, of what might a program look like where we're preparing the next generation or the next workforce, the next talent cohort, I'm going to call them that, is there a way or...
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The Power of Passion: How to Identify & Pursue Your Calling in the Future of Work with Dennis Rodriguez Director of Business Development – Western US & Design Build – Governments & Environment at Black & Veatch Corporation Episode 105
10/24/2023
The Power of Passion: How to Identify & Pursue Your Calling in the Future of Work with Dennis Rodriguez Director of Business Development – Western US & Design Build – Governments & Environment at Black & Veatch Corporation Episode 105
Attend the 5th annual October 26th The path to success looks different for everyone. Host Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development at Pasadena City College is joined by Dennis Rodriguez, Director of Business Development – Western US and Design Build – Governments & Environment at Black & Veatch Corporation, to dive into the fascinating world of personal development and the importance of finding your passion. Dennis has learned a lot of invaluable lessons throughout his own journey and he’ll share his knowledge surrounding sustainable infrastructure–everything from development and funding to implantation and planning. Tune in to gain insights into the future of sustainable infrastructure and why this type of design is critical for the future workforce. Remember, it’s important to stay curious, explore different fields, and embrace the power of failing in order to find your way. Engage with us: , & : @PasadenaCityCollegeEWD Join our newsletter for more on this topic: Visit: More from Dennis Rodriguez: Visit: LinkedIn: Email: Partner with us! Contact our host Salvatrice Cummo directly: [email protected] Want to be a guest on the show? Click to inquire about booking Find the transcript to this episode
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Transcript- Episode 104: Discover The Path To Success at The Future of Work Conference Episode 104
10/10/2023
Transcript- Episode 104: Discover The Path To Success at The Future of Work Conference Episode 104
00:00:00 Leslie I don't think that we need to be disrespectful. I don't think we need to be overly confrontational, but I think that indisruption, insignificant systems change in work that matters, there is a certain level of discomfort and you have to decide where you're going to stand. And so, sometimes that's uncomfortable. 00:00:22 Christina The workforce landscape is rapidly changing and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the future? 00:00:45 Salvatrice Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and host of this podcast. 00:00:54 Christina And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host of this podcast. And we are starting the conversation about the future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals, more internships and PCC students in the workforce. 00:01:12 Salvatrice We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us, you, the employers, the policy makers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole. 00:01:32 Christina We believe change happens when we work together, and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barsi. 00:01:39 Salvatrice And I'm Salvatrice Cummo, and this is the Future of Work. 00:01:43 Salvatrice Welcome back, this is Salvatrice Cummo, your host, and I'm joined today by my friend and colleague in our division of Economic and Workforce Development, Ms. Leslie Thompson, our Director of Operations. Welcome back to the show. Leslie, how are you? 00:02:01 Leslie Thank you. I'm great. How are you? 00:02:03 Salvatrice Very good, very good. I have to tell you, I know I say this all the time, but I really enjoy these conversations because it does give a glimpse to our listener, kind of what's percolating in our brains from time to time. And I think that you and I have these convos and it's really great to even get feedback from our listeners. So, thank you for joining me again. 00:02:23 Leslie Sure. We have a lot to talk about and we have a lot to talk about today too. 00:02:27 Salvatrice What are we talking about? 00:02:28 Leslie Well we're talking about the Future of Work Conference, our fifth annual Future of Work Conference, that is going to be on Thursday, October 26th from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM here on the beautiful Pasadena City College campus. And I'm pretty excited about it. I know you're excited about it, so let's get into it. What can folks expect? 00:02:47 Salvatrice If I could share is I'd like to kind of spend a minute talking about how it was birthed. Like how did this idea of the Future of Work Conference come about? And I remember literally being in this office with you and we were just, again, having one of our brainstorming sessions and we were saying, "How do we raise awareness? How do we build urgency around the trajectory of our future of work and the future of our occupations and the future of the skills that are needed to fulfill some of these trends that we were looking at at the time?" 00:03:22 Salvatrice And I can't remember what report it was, but I do remember us sitting here going, "Oh my gosh, how do we do this? How do we build awareness?" We came up with this concept of future of work, and it wasn't our concept, future of work exists. It is a language that exists in our world and plenty of agencies and people who are focused on the future of our workforce. 00:03:42 Salvatrice It started off as a conversation about raising awareness about what is needed, about the conversations that are needed. And then it kind of developed into, well, maybe we use this platform as a way to not only prepare the workforce, but also raise awareness on the complexities on how to do that. 00:04:05 Salvatrice We can sit here all day long and say, we need to have our new talent have these specific skills and we need our employers to do this. Well, there's the mechanics between all of that. What I've really enjoyed about our conferences this far is that it brought some awareness. It brought some awareness to, "Hey, you know what, we've actually had some system issues that we got to talk about first before we can even think about or solve the new pipeline development." 00:04:33 Leslie And I think that's one of the things that I initially really loved about the idea was that at the time, I didn't know of any other community colleges that were hosting the kind of event that would bring this many different kind of practitioners into one space and have these conversations about how they specifically impact college students. 00:04:47 Leslie We invited students and faculty and agents, all sorts of entities and representatives from those entities. And we did it purposefully on the campus and we centered that around the work that we do as community college practitioners in kind of the workforce development ecosystem. I thought that was pretty cool. 00:05:08 Leslie And that was one of the things that I was initially really into, the idea of bringing all these different people together and tackling these things and always, always looking for ways to kind of highlight or emphasize infrastructure shortcomings. 00:05:21 Leslie Because all these systems are so intricate and so just the bigger a system gets, the less regulated sometimes or maybe the wrong things get regulated and we don't pay enough attention to what I think would be the right things. And I realize that's a value call, but it's important to give spaces to highlight those kind of issues. 00:05:41 Leslie I have a question for you, Salvatrice, thinking back on all the conferences we've had thus far, we've only had two in person out of the last four and two were virtual because of the pandemic. 00:05:54 Leslie But each were uniquely different and had different topics and different guests. Is there anything that stands out for you out of any of those conferences as something that you learned, took away from it, impacted change down the line? Something that stands out for you? 00:06:09 Salvatrice For sure. So, before I answer that question, I think the other thing that is worth mentioning is the value of this conference and any conference really, the beauty and the value of conference is convening people. And when you convene people who care about something, whatever that something is, ideas get generated, relationships get built, and connectivity happens in a very fundamental way that has lasting impacts. Like we know that, we fundamentally know that because we're humans and that's what humans do. 00:06:45 Salvatrice And so, I want to underscore that here before I answer that question because that's the root of why anyone or any organization puts together a conference. And maybe I should just speak for myself. That's the reason why we do these conferences. For connectivity, for partnerships is baseline and then everything else is bonus. Heightened awareness, solving big issues, et cetera, et cetera. 00:07:11 Salvatrice When I think about that question you asked, I immediately think about last year we had Dr. Jez come from California Competes and she shared a significant amount of data that revolved around kind of like our trajectory as community colleges and the future of work in a nutshell. I mean, there was a lot more to that obviously. 00:07:33 Salvatrice And I encouraged the listener to go back on our website and take a look at her speech because her findings were incredibly impactful to me at the time and informed a lot of our work too moving forward. So much so, that she has been a wonderful partner, not only to this college, but scaling up to all 19 with our consortium. And so, just, I mean, not too long ago she presented to our 19 CEO colleges about performance of community colleges, about enrollments, about trends, about fill in the blank. 00:08:13 Salvatrice It was a moment for me to sit back and say like, "Okay, it took that one conference, that one convening, that one invitation that now has allowed us to spread the talent and spread the knowledge across a system of community colleges through our consortium." 00:08:32 Salvatrice And so, although there wasn't like something directly towards what we initially started with the future of work, meaning about preparing and skill building and all that good stuff from our initial thoughts about the future of work, but it built a connectivity or a partnership that is imperative to our work, that's important to our work. And like I said, not only for our college, but we scaled it across the 19. And she's a wonderful partner to our consortium and we're very grateful for that. So, that's one that comes to mind. 00:09:04 Leslie I'm glad you pointed that out because I think that one of the main benefits of attending, like you said, not just our conference, but any conference are those moments, those kind of aha moments or the where you meet the right person and they have an idea, but they need a partner or they're looking for an idea and you happen to have one. 00:09:21 Leslie All those kind of opportunities for idea sharing, for inspiration for seeds to take root, that you take it back and next thing you know you're impacting hundreds and thousands of lives through this one idea that took root somewhere else, that you might not even witness that. In this scenario that you're giving us, we witness that because we're part of the consortium. 00:09:41 Leslie But we don't know how many people have left with an idea. And sometimes it's a disagreement, like, I don't agree with what you're saying, or I'm going to challenge that, I'm going to fix that or that problem. I see that problem differently now that you mention it, there is a problem, but I don't think that's it and I'm going to go work on something else. 00:09:57 Leslie There's lots of opportunities for connection and idea generating, and it's more than just coming to a conference, passively receiving information, calling it PD, taking a half a day off of work and then going back to work. It's so much more than that. Like there's more value in it. 00:10:12 Leslie And I think I like that example that you gave, that's a perfect example of a partnership being sparked. And now look at her expertise has been spread throughout the region. I mean, she was a good get for the conference. We were thrilled that she accepted, she gave a phenomenal presentation, and now that knowledge gets to be spread throughout the college. So, the relationship is just as beneficial for her as it is for us. 00:10:33 Salvatrice And it's even informing the consortium's advocacy efforts. 00:10:36 Leslie Yeah. Which is long-term effects. 00:10:38 Salvatrice Long-term effects, long-term effects. And that's why I'm saying it was simple but incredibly impactful. And I can't wait to see what else transpires from that. But again, it underscores what you just said right now about seeding, about idea generating, also, this is community. This work, I'm going to even go as far as any work. Okay. Like any work that matters that people care about takes a coalition of the willing. 00:11:04 Salvatrice And so, when you have like-minded or, and forget about like-minded, that's incorrect, driven, care, concern, passion about a particular subject or about a particular anything, that's when change happens, that's when ideas get generated. And so, you're right, even these conferences specifically our future work conference has allowed that. 00:11:28 Salvatrice I mean, I even think about last year when our student shared his experience, well what did that do? That ignited some of the colleges that were in that space who personally came to me via phone or email or text and said it was because of that voice that I took it back to my campus, and we changed things up a little bit. We changed the programming a little bit. 00:11:52 Salvatrice Or it also said we're on the right track, hearing his voice and his experience is telling us that we're on the right track. It could be a place for idea generating, but it also could be a place for validation. To validate that we are doing the things that matter to our community. And that continuing to fuse relationships, fuse the community in ways that we didn't think would come out of it. 00:12:18 Salvatrice I mean, I guess that's the beauty of it. You said a word, you said, and correct me if I'm wrong, what I heard was we're bringing people together that care about change or looking for change. Did I get that right? 00:12:31 Leslie I think what I said was not everyone has to agree with the ideas or identify the same problems within the system to acknowledge that change needs to happen. 00:12:39 Salvatrice Right. 00:12:40 Leslie But it gets inspired. So, now I'm going to change something. 00:12:43 Salvatrice That's right. 00:12:44 Leslie Either fix it, make it better. I would also argue that even broken systems to function require a coalition of the willing. 00:12:51 Salvatrice That's right. 00:12:52 Leslie Because we're all going along with it. I would suggest that we need more than a coalition of the willing. We need a coalition of the inspired. And if they're willing, then they need to be willing to go against the grain, but whatever. 00:13:03 Salvatrice That's right. 00:13:03 Leslie Change is important and it's necessary. And we try to highlight that as we expose or however you want to describe the different barriers and issues within the ecosystem. 00:13:13 Salvatrice That came about indirectly, that message or those interactions or that behavior from the conference came out without us even putting too much thought around it. Meaning we didn't force that, that was organic. Organically, these things have happened. From our conference, this year we took note of that, we took note of that there's change agents out there doing this work. 00:13:36 Salvatrice And at the end of the day, look, I'm going to be real, real talk. Individuals or people who attend conferences, they're naturally built as change agents. That's why they're there. They're there to gather information, build upon it, and come up with something like we just talked about. 00:13:56 Salvatrice So, this year we said, "Well, how do we highlight, how do we acknowledge those efforts?" I'm really excited about the LA Changemaker award that we've announced for the conference. And I'm looking forward to the nominations because even individuals within our own network, we have a big network, you and I. Like we're in this work all day every day. 00:14:18 Salvatrice Gosh, I can count five of them on one hand easily in a matter of seconds who we can highlight as change maker. Certainly it's not our decision and folks need to be nominated, or you can nominate yourself or you can nominate someone else. 00:14:35 Salvatrice But I think that's going to bring a different level of awareness, not only to the topics that we uncover at these conferences, but also really highlighting individuals who are making a difference in this arena that we work in. Because you're right, it takes an individual and/or a group to work against the grain sometimes to make a change happen and to see significant results. And it might not happen overnight. We know that. Like in this system, it might not happen overnight, but it does eventually. 00:15:07 Leslie I'm looking forward to seeing the nominations as well. I'm sure we're going to have no shortage of people to choose from. 00:15:13 Christina That's right. 00:15:14 Leslie Which is great. 00:15:15 Salvatrice When you think back, I asked myself this question moments ago in preparations for our talk, but when you think back, what has been kind of the energy of our attendees? I mean, gosh, I could think back on our first one. I mean, that was just ... 00:15:30 Leslie Yeah, first one was phenomenal. I mean, that was big. It was a big deal. It was a big event and the energy was high. It was very high energy. We saw a lot of different people. I was surprised at the kind of variety of people that we got at the cross sections. It was not just other college campuses, but I was excited to see that a lot of our colleagues from other campuses came. I think that's really cool. 00:15:53 Leslie When your colleagues come to something you're doing, that means you're onto something. So, they showed up, definitely high energy. I know that we did a lot of interviews that first year for the podcast, just kind of capturing things and the podcast was just getting started around that time. And there was a lot of excitement around that. 00:16:11 Leslie So, I think that first one was pretty special. And even on campus, just the production quality of the event was even noteworthy. Facilities setting up, it looks so great, what are you guys doing here? It was a lot of buzz. Everybody involved was a lot of buzz. That first one's always going to stand out as kind of- 00:16:30 Salvatrice The signature one. 00:16:32 Leslie The signature one, like the bar. And so, then, our next two after that were virtual. And then last year we did something a little different. We did a different setting, which was a beautiful venue, but there were a number of issues. Rain, still some COVID remnants. In fact, you were sick. 00:16:49 Salvatrice That's right. 00:16:49 Leslie There was a lot going on with that last one. So, there's a little bit of pressure on this one to be like now, okay, last year we were kind of coming back to real life, but this year we're really coming back to real life. It's our fifth annual, we want to make a big splash. We want it to have a good turnout and great energy. So, I think the one that stands out with the best energy was the very first one. And I'm hoping to surpass that this time. 00:17:09 Salvatrice Yeah. 00:17:09 Leslie How about you? 00:17:10 Salvatrice Me too. And I think that taking a sneak peek at the speakers, I think it's going to be that buzz. And also, just the topic itself is going to give us a heightened energy. So, I'm really looking forward to it. Here's the thing, and I have to be really honest about this. I can't believe I'm going to share it here on this podcast, but when we first started thinking about the future of work conference, I was very careful around certain subject matters. 00:17:39 Salvatrice Because of whatever, fill in the blank, you can call it politics, you can call it just the nature of the work. You can call whatever. But I think at this point, we are at a point that we need to kind of shift that. And I'm not suggesting being confrontational or controversial, but not being so apologetic about some topics that are going to come up in the future. Topics like labor, topics like inequities in labor, those kinds of things. Or topics like workforce conditions, certain policies that are hindering our site is growth. I mean, there's so much, there's so much in this world. 00:18:17 Leslie I understand the need to be mindful, delicate. I'm not sure how we want to describe it. I understand the need for that, but me, I'm always like, "Well, let's disrupt it. Let's step on a few toes." I mean, I don't think that we need to be disrespectful. I don't think we need to be overly confrontational, but I think that in disruption, in significant systems change, in work that matters, there's a certain level of discomfort. And you have to decide where you're going to stand. 00:18:46 Leslie And so, sometimes that's uncomfortable. And we've had many...
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Discover The Path To Success at The Future of Work Conference Episode 104
10/10/2023
Discover The Path To Success at The Future of Work Conference Episode 104
Change in our education systems can be uncomfortable but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t embrace it. Host Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development at Pasadena City College, and Leslie Thompson, the Director of Operations, dive into the exciting details of the upcoming Future of Work Conference on October 26th. Where did the idea come from, what new lessons can you expect, and what topics are top of mind for this year’s conference? Join them as they cover all of those questions and more. Most importantly, discover how this year’s event has the potential to generate lasting connections, fuel collaboration, and pave the way for a progressive future of work. Engage with us: , & : @PasadenaCityCollegeEWD Join our newsletter for more on this topic: Visit: Attend the 5th annual October 26th Partner with us! Contact our host Salvatrice Cummo directly: [email protected] Want to be a guest on the show? Click to inquire about booking Find the transcript to this episode
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Transcript 103: Creating A Collaborative Strategy For Educational Flexibility With Mayor Gordo
09/26/2023
Transcript 103: Creating A Collaborative Strategy For Educational Flexibility With Mayor Gordo
00:00:01 Gordo Formal education is important, but it comes in so many different ways. Not every individual, whether they're a high schooler or later on in their career, wants to go on to receive a bachelor's or a master's or a doctorate or a law degree. Those who do we should encourage to do so and help in every way that we can, and we will do that. And Pasadena City College certainly provides those opportunities. 00:00:29 Christina The workforce landscape is rapidly changing and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict the future? 00:00:51 Salvatrice Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and host of this podcast. 00:00:59 Christina And I'm Christina Barsi, producer of this podcast. 00:01:03 Salvatrice And we are starting the conversation about the future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals, more internships and PCC students in the workforce. 00:01:17 Salvatrice We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us. 00:01:31 Christina We believe change happens when we work together, and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barsi. 00:01:39 Salvatrice And I am Salvatrice Cummo. And this is the Future of Work. 00:01:45 Salvatrice Hi everyone and welcome back to the Future of Work Podcast, I am your host, Salvatrice Cummo. Today, we'll be talking about the city of Pasadena and the local government. We will also talk about how community colleges can work with their respective cities to better the opportunities for their constituents. 00:02:02 Salvatrice With that being said, we are very excited to welcome Mayor Victor Gordo, Mayor of Pasadena. Mayor Gordo was elected Pasadena's third citywide elected mayor on November 3rd, 2020. Throughout his time as mayor, he has focused on fostering an improved quality of life and promoting safe, family-friendly environments throughout the city. Mayor Gordo also serves as a General Counsel and Secretary Treasurer for the Laborers' International Union of North America Local 777. 00:02:34 Salvatrice Good morning, Mayor Gordo, thank you for joining us. 00:02:39 Gordo Good morning Salvatrice. Thank you for having me. 00:02:41 Salvatrice You bet. Such an honor to have you, and I know that your schedule's very impacted and so for you to carve up some time for us, we are absolutely honored and grateful that you did that. 00:02:51 Gordo Well, thank you for having me. It's an honor. 00:02:52 Salvatrice This is a question that I ask all of our guests that come to our show about the future of work. If you can share a little bit about what led you to become mayor. 00:03:01 Gordo Sure. So, I was originally born in Zacatecas, Mexico, small village. My parents brought me to Pasadena when I was five. So, I grew up in Pasadena from age five, delivered the Star News, worked in local restaurants, and the Star News was our local newspaper for those who remember newspapers. 00:03:17 Gordo And because I delivered it every day, I followed the front page and the local news and became very interested in civic government. All the different issues, the different personalities, and I became more and more involved as I attended Pasadena City College and then went on to higher education, including law school. 00:03:39 Gordo And I just took an interest. I appreciated what residents of Pasadena had done for me and my family, and decided that I wanted to be involved. 00:03:51 Salvatrice That was a pleasant surprise. I didn't know that you attended Pasadena City College. That's excellent. It's so appropriate for this conversation. 00:04:00 Salvatrice And at what moment did you decide like, "This is where I want to be, I want to get involved in local government." What point of that either academic journey or professional journey where you said, this is the moment I need to be there? 00:04:11 Gordo I think it was probably in my late teens when I was contemplating higher education and law school, I decided I needed a higher education degree that allowed me to participate in local government, but also make a living if I could. 00:04:29 Gordo And I decided that law was the path for me and I made that decision in part because I wanted to participate in local government. And so, that's what I did. I went on to school and ultimately received my law degree, became a practicing attorney and ran for office. 00:04:48 Salvatrice And you did that all simultaneously or was that ... how did it work out? Because you're making it sound very easy, Mayor Gordo, but I know it's not. 00:04:56 Gordo No, it was a lot of work. I was campaigning as I was studying for the bar exam. And fortunately, I only had to take the bar exam one time because it took a lot to campaign and also a study for the California bar exam. I got it done and they ran pretty concurrent tracks, similar and concurrent tracks. 00:05:18 Salvatrice I didn't know that. That's great. I had no clue. I'm learning so much in this conversation in the matter of two minutes that we've been talking to each other. As I think about the sunset of your first-term as mayor, might there be issues or opportunities, let's flip the script here. Issues or opportunities that you've encountered here in Pasadena that the public or our constituents and our listeners may not be aware of? 00:05:46 Gordo Sure. The first two years in office were dedicated to helping the city wind its way through COVID. I was elected in the middle of a world pandemic. It was tough. There were many days when it was the city manager, the fire chief, the health director, and the police chief and me at City Hall. And some days it was just the city manager and me at City Hall. 00:06:09 Gordo And we were trying to ensure that services kept running in the city, ensure that city was doing all it could to support its residents, to support its businesses, ensuring that we were coordinating with other local governments as well as state and federal officials. And that took the better part of the first two years of my mayorship. Fortunately, we've made it to the other side. 00:06:37 Gordo Coming out of that, I've now turned my attention to ensuring that the city's budget is replenished and we've accomplished that. We've backfilled the reserves that we spent during COVID, about $30 million. Our reserve is fully funded, our budget is balanced. We also turned attention to ensuring that we were fully staffed because we had quite a few retirements during COVID. 00:07:01 Gordo Now we're focused on some of the issues that I wanted to accomplish before the pandemic when I was running for office. And that includes job training and mental health services to residents of Pasadena and beyond. I'm very focused on helping and PCC is playing a pivotal role on the job training aspect and even the mental health aspect. 00:07:26 Salvatrice This leads me to think about with the most recent events in the last couple of years, we've seen and we've heard that LA County was down 3000 mental health clinicians, which led to massive components in training components, I should say, even within PCC and other institutions. That being said, how can we as a college continue to work with the city to fill those workforce gaps? 00:07:52 Gordo Sure. Well, I think that they're sort of interconnected. But yeah, the LA County has reported to us that they have a shortage of 3000 mental health professionals. That's a tremendous shortage. They have the resources, they report to provide services. They just don't have the clinicians. And statewide, we went into the pandemic at a nearly 39.6% shortage in mental health clinicians at the state level. 00:08:23 Gordo So, the profession is a difficult one, one where there's lots of opportunity, but also one that we need to double down on as educators, as government officials, local, county, and state government, and providing incentives for people to do this work because it is very difficult work. 00:08:43 Gordo And one of the components of the mental health clinic that we're working to bring to Pasadena together with the county of Los Angeles is a job training component where clinicians would be trained as they provide services to residents of Pasadena and beyond. 00:09:02 Gordo And so, it's not just a provision of mental health services at the clinic, it's also a training ground, if you will, for clinicians, bedside assistance and other medical professionals 00:09:16 Salvatrice While they are gaining the knowledge and the education around becoming a clinician. 00:09:22 Gordo Correct. 00:09:22 Salvatrice I see. You mentioned incentives, tell me more about that. What does that look like for you? 00:09:29 Gordo One of the incentives that we've brainstormed together with the county is for the county to provide assistance with tuition, with books and supplies for students who agree to dedicate their career, or at least for a few years, to providing mental health services to the public. 00:09:46 Gordo I think that that's a creative way to incentivize people to say to them, "We'll pay your tuition and your costs while you're in training and providing services," with the agreement that people would of course continue once they're prepared to provide services for a couple of years. 00:10:05 Salvatrice Got it. And are there specific partners that you're looking for outside of healthcare industry partners? What other partners might you be looking for to fulfill the mission of this gap of clinicians that we're seeing? 00:10:19 Gordo Anyone who wants to partner with us, we will partner with, but certainly educators, Pasadena City College is an important component, the Cal States, Cal State LA also is an important component, Huntington Hospital, the professionals at Huntington Hospital who can provide some of the training, but also provide jobs afterwards. 00:10:36 Gordo The county of Los Angeles is a major partner because they will provide tuition, they provide the services, they can provide the training, all of the above and including the jobs. I think it's important when we have this type of training to also at the back end, ensure that people have a job to utilize their training and their skill. 00:11:00 Salvatrice Got it. And thinking about, as a first gen student, you're a first gen student, I'm a first gen student. Thinking about our own respective journeys, in what ways do you think that along the same line, that the education system can improve to prepare our students for the workforce outside of what we traditionally think as training? 00:11:23 Gordo I think understanding the various cultures that first generation students come from is important. Understanding the challenges that come with being a first generation student. PCC worked very well for me because of the flexibility. I could take some classes in the morning, go to work, and then come back in the evening and take other classes. 00:11:47 Gordo So, it was that flexibility, that understanding that helped me to be successful. And I think having as much flexibility for first generation students, understanding the culture and certainly being able to communicate is very, very important. And the challenges faced by first generation students. 00:12:07 Salvatrice That's right. I think that's why when you were talking about on the job training, training while gathering the education, and the incentives that you shared, I think allows for first generation students that flexibility. You're providing that solution now as we speak, like cultivating this project because as first gen student, I can speak to that as well, is there is flexibility. 00:12:32 Salvatrice We're having to earn while we learn. And it's a double-edged sword. So, if you can earn and learn and be incentivized at the same time and your cost being covered, I think that that is incredible example of flexibility that you just mentioned. 00:12:48 Gordo And that's what it takes. There's so many first generation students who want to get their education, want to provide the services to the community and be of service to the community, but have to earn and contribute to their family. And so, you're absolutely correct, helping them to learn and earn at the same time is very much key. 00:13:09 Salvatrice And I would go even further, and this is ... I'm going to kind of go on a tangent here, Mayor Gordo, so bear with me, is really thinking about our existing employees, our existing workforce. Sometimes we think about workforce as new talent and we forget that there's existing talent. 00:13:26 Salvatrice So, I'm super interested in working with our district, our cities, specifically with Pasadena, and how do we cultivate an energy, a movement around upskilling the existing workforce? 00:13:41 Salvatrice Because I strongly believe that the gaps that we're seeing, whether it's in the health industry, whether it's in entertainment, whether it's in food services and management, I mean, you can think of any industry, any industry gap that we are faced with at this moment. There is a massive opportunity to upskill the existing workforce. And I think that together with cities and industry partners, we can also incentivize our employers to upskill their existing workforce. 00:14:12 Gordo Absolutely. 00:14:13 Salvatrice There's some room there, there's some room there in filling the gaps while incentivizing the employers to upskill their existing workforce and educating our employers the value and the reasons and the benefits to upskilling the existing workforce. 00:14:28 Salvatrice I mean, folks who work local, shop local. 00:14:32 Gordo That's right. 00:14:33 Salvatrice Just planting that seed in the event that you want another project Mayor Gordo. 00:14:38 Gordo Well, no, that's got to be a part of everything that we do, these opportunities have to be available to workers who are already in the workforce and those who are new to the workforce. I agree with you 100%. And the employers that we're working with also agree. 00:14:56 Gordo They agree that they're most likely to be successful with people who are already working for them and have established themselves as an employee of Kaiser or Huntington or Resnick, and now they want to further their career. I think we have a responsibility as educators and as a local government to work with businesses to help the employees do just that. I think that's absolutely correct. 00:15:23 Salvatrice I'm 100% on board and the champion of that, happy to be a part of it. You just count us in, count PCC in because that's definitely our interest. I mean, PCC, specifically our division of economic and workforce development and I can speak to that directly. 00:15:39 Salvatrice We are very interested in formalizing that a little more, so that there is more growth and prosperity in our local communities, more so than we've seen in the past. I think now is the best time to change things up and the best time to shift doing business outside of the norm. 00:16:02 Salvatrice Speaking of which, our institution prides itself on its innovation and being one of the gems of the community college system, we have a lot of pride around that. Our community is very supportive. Our elected officials like yourself are very supportive of our work. 00:16:21 Salvatrice How could we become better as an educational system through your lens? How could we be a better partner, a better educational system? And what might that look like for you? And how do we fulfill that? 00:16:34 Gordo I think you're doing it. When we came up with a concept, for example, of the job training and partnership with the...
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Creating A Collaborative Strategy For Educational Flexibility With Mayor Gordo Episode 103
09/26/2023
Creating A Collaborative Strategy For Educational Flexibility With Mayor Gordo Episode 103
How can community colleges partner with their respective cities? What new opportunities are out there, and how can we offer them to more constituents? Which incentives will help us expand job training and mental health services? Formal education is important, but it’s even more important to remember it comes in many different shapes and forms. Host Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development at Pasadena City College will discuss the city of Pasadena, educational flexibility, and how we can benefit from going outside the norm, with the Mayor of Pasadena, Victor Gordo. Tune in to discover strategies to tackle all of these questions, and more. Engage with us: , & : @PasadenaCityCollegeEWD Join our newsletter for more on this topic: Visit: Attend the 5th annual October 26th More from Mayor Gordo: Visit & Email: Instagram: Facebook: Twitter: Youtube: Partner with us! Contact our host Salvatrice Cummo directly: [email protected] Want to be a guest on the show? Click to inquire about booking Find the transcript to this episode
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Transcript- Episode 102: Discover What A Modern Apprenticeship Program Looks Like With Kelly Mackey State Director of Strategic Partnerships for the State of California Episode 102
09/12/2023
Transcript- Episode 102: Discover What A Modern Apprenticeship Program Looks Like With Kelly Mackey State Director of Strategic Partnerships for the State of California Episode 102
Kelly Mackey [00:00:00]: Here's the truth. Graduates of these programs stay longer, and we also know that buying talent is no longer an easy option for a lot of these employers. The simple truth is there aren't enough Stanford, MIT, and Berkeley graduates to fill all of these roles. And the good news is, there doesn't have to be. Registered apprenticeship can create a transformative impact for employers and communities and the. And we know this is because we've seen a 36% growth rate in modern registered apprenticeships over the last two years, and that includes during the pandemic. Christina Barsi [00:00:39]: The workforce landscape is rapidly changing, and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our community and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So how do we begin to predict the future? Salvatrice Cummo [00:01:02] Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, vice president of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College and host of this podcast. Christina Barsi [00:01:20] And I'm Christina Barsi, producer of this podcast. And we are starting the conversation about the future of Work. Salvatrice Cummo [00:02:20] We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals more internships and PCC students in the workforce. We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us. We believe change happens when we work together, and it all starts with having a conversation. Christina Barsi [00:02:30] I'm Christina Barsi. Salvatrice Cummo [00:02:32] And I'm Salvatrice Cummo. And this is the future of work. Salvatrice Cummo [00:02:35] Hi. Welcome back to the future of work, podcast. I am your host, Salvatrice Cummo, and today I am joined by Kelly Mackey, who I learned has been formally recognized for her work in establishing many of California's new Marquee registered apprenticeship programs. That is because Kelly Mackey is the State Director of Strategic Partnerships with the State of California's Apprenticeship and Workforce Innovation Unit. Kelly leads a statewide effort to identify registered apprenticeship partnerships across multiple sectors, including information technology, healthcare, business services, and the public sector. Welcome, Kelly. How are you? Kelly Mackey [00:02:39]: I'm good. Thank you so much for having me, Salvatrice. It's a pleasure to be here and join you and your listeners. Salvatrice Cummo [00:02:46]: You know, one of our branding points about these Future Work podcasts and I always ask a very curious question in the top of their conversation is what led you to this work and why is it important to you? It's a curiosity question. I'm sure sometimes our listeners are curious about what led individuals to their profession, and so I wanted to maybe start off with that, if that's okay. Kelly Mackey [00:03:09]: Yeah, of course. So prior to my current role, I served as an apprenticeship consultant and was tasked some 25 years ago with partnering alongside many of our long standing at the time, building and construction industry programs. And I was responsible for ensuring that they were complying with regulations, but more importantly, that they were providing on ramps for individuals to move into these really good paying, high quality jobs. And so I've really had a front row seat to how the registered apprenticeship model can change lives. I've watched individuals come through these programs and upon successful completion, move into the middle class and beyond so that they can provide for themselves and their families. It's a long standing, time tested model that I saw very early on had a way of lifting up communities, including those marginalized communities, who've not had historically, those access points to move into good paying jobs. And I knew that it was a passion for me pretty much the first day I went to a graduation ceremony where many of those apprentices that I had met early on who didn't know what their future held, now had a career that they could lean in on and have through the duration of their lifetime. Salvatrice Cummo [00:04:26]: That's awesome. That's very beautiful story. It leads me to believe that the work, and the passion that we see as educators and as an institution to this work, it really underscores our interactions that we've had with yourself and the office. Now we would truly understand the passion of where that's coming from. You saw it firsthand. There's nothing better than that, than experiencing it firsthand, right? I thank you very much. I failed to really thank you, really at the top of this conversation before diving into the question, thanking you for accepting our invitation for the future of our conference that's slated for October 26 this year. You have graciously accepted an invitation to be part of our panel. Perhaps maybe we could spend a little bit of time if you can share with us what you're planning to discuss and shine light on as it relates to apprenticeships. Kelly Mackey [00:05:19]: Yeah, I'm really excited to share with not only your listeners today, but attendees at the upcoming Future of Work conference, some insight about the registered apprenticeship movement that's taking place not only in our state but across the nation. And it all really began when our governor was a candidate for office and he spoke about the incredibly aspirational goal of serving a half a million registered apprentices by the year 2029. I think he recognized very early on the critical importance of building a future workforce that prioritized good paying, high quality jobs for workers. And that really meant ensuring that businesses had the resources to develop that skilled workforce in order for them to thrive in our state. We are almost a fifth of the way there to that very aspirational goal. And I think in large part it's because he's really executing on that vision by building an ecosystem of practitioners who develop these new, innovative and inclusive 21st century apprenticeship programs. Now historically, I think many of your listeners are probably aware, and as I alluded to in my opening remarks, that the building and construction industry has really optimized this registered apprenticeship model for almost a century and they've created this strong testimonial about what it can do. So much so in fact, that over the last decade we've had this really significant increase in a number of other types of sectors that are now embracing this model to attract, train and retain their highly skilled, diverse and resilient workforce. And what we're finding is these modern apprenticeships are being utilized in sectors like you reference, like information technology, arts, media and entertainment, healthcare, transportation, our business services and public sectors and it's really benefiting employers and workers alike and I think contributing more broadly to building a thriving inclusive economy. This is what has really catapulted California as the national leader of registered apprenticeship. And our state has five times the number of registered apprentices as the state with the next highest total. For that reason, in terms of specifics like how we're making this progress, it really came down to a number of things. First and foremost, when the governor came into office, one of the first things he did was form the Future of Work Commission. It was a brain trust, if you will, and they were tasked with driving workforce strategies. And one of the things that they did as a first order of business was develop a five point plan, basically kind of like a roadmap on how to expand registered apprenticeship. And they really broke it down into kind of five categories. The first was to support sectoral and regional apprenticeship intermediaries. Secondly, to expand those sort of new and innovative apprenticeships that are outside of the building and construction trade. Also to really lean in and expand access to our more traditional construction apprenticeship programs who have been widely successful for many, many years, supporting youth apprenticeship for both in and out of school youth. And then lastly, really introducing this model to some of the largest employers in our state and that includes our public sector entities that are our state and local governments. All of this was really helpful in giving us that, like I said, a blueprint. The other area was expanding opportunities by creating a strike team, this unit that I have the privilege of being a part of, the apprenticeship and workforce innovation unit that sees a strike team of subject matter experts who provide invaluable completely free of charge, end to end technical assistance and resources to our stakeholders to create these programs. One of the other things that the governor prioritized, among many other of our partners, was to really create a strategy to increase funding that we knew was imperative to ensure that a lot of these stakeholders had access to resources to build and sustain these programs. And now, through the historic investments of our governor the Biden administration, among many other funding partners, we've seen an unprecedented number of modern registered apprenticeships being developed. Some of the examples of some of the funding structures that we have in place now include an increase in philanthropic support. We have some of our largest philanthropic organizations really doubling down on registered apprenticeship. These funds are really designed to complement available public funding. Our federal workforce partners at the US. Department of labor have also deployed a number of workforce grants to help scale apprenticeship programs across the nation. As I indicated previously, our governor investing in some of our state grants that include our California Apprenticeship Initiative grants, our High Road Training Partnership grants, both of which are funded through the budget and have seen an increase under this administration. We also have developed really separate, targeted, sector specific workforce funding to help, for example, to train the next generation of healthcare workers and climate related jobs. We also have seen the investment of youth apprenticeship funding. I talked about the critical importance of following that roadmap, and one of those areas was really getting younger people in the apprenticeship pipeline earlier. And so the governor, in last year's budget, invested $65 million to help create a youth apprenticeship unit right within our division to help identify strategies to bring young people in. And included in that funding was also seed money to help new programs around youth apprenticeship. And then finally, perhaps one of the most exciting funding opportunities, a really game changing funding stream that was developed right here in California. And that's our California apprenticeship. Innovation funding. It's the first of its kind in the nation non competitive formula funding to help existing program sponsors defray the cost of running their programs. There is no other program like this. It's been developed right here in our state. And because of these strategies, among many others, it's really putting us on a trajectory to realize the governor's really highly ambitious goal, but we think very attainable to serve a half a million registered apprentices by the year 2029. Salvatrice Cummo [00:11:55]: That is amazing. There's so many available resources and funding specifically. But I also look at the access to talent and the access to people, access to experts like yourself who are saying, look, this work has to be done holistically. It cannot just be one area's or one departments or one division's focus. Sometimes I think of it even through the lens of academia here, workforce development, even within an institution, yes, it lives here in my division. But the work and the output and the outcomes really is threaded among everyone in all of the areas here in the college. So I kind of view same way with the state. The state has recognized, look, this work can't be done alone. This work has to be done in collaboration with other entities, academia, employers, agencies, et cetera, et cetera. It's really awesome to hear. And I can guarantee you that there's listeners out there who are saying gosh, I really didn't know, I didn't know that all of this was available. So I appreciate you sharing that with me. Maybe we could even insert a link in the show notes where this information can be found and people can really study it a little bit further. But you mentioned a few times the term Modern Registered Apprenticeships, the word apprenticeships. It has been my experience that the word apprenticeships kind of gets tossed around loosely and not everyone really understands the complexities sometimes around any form of apprenticeships, pre registered, you name it. So could you explain a little bit more about what it means to be a Modern Registered Apprenticeship program? Kelly Mackey [00:13:40]: Yeah. So Registered Apprenticeship has been the long standing gold standard work based learning model for employers and we have a debt of gratitude to the building and construction industry as I alluded to, that have really established this model and optimized it to be able to train their workforce. And now the reality is that what we're realizing is that it has a far reaching application. But in a nutshell, the Registered Apprenticeship model consists of a two pronged approach. It consists of a theoretical component which comes in the form of a recommended 144 hours of what we call related and supplemental instruction, which is a fancy way of saying coursework. And then it's complemented by roughly 2000 hours of on the job competencies that are performed by an apprentice in the workplace. Essentially what happens is you have a group that's interested in putting together a Registered Apprenticeship program and so they will come to us and they'll work with one of our strategic business advisors that is focused on the sector that they're interested in. And we begin by helping employers identify that occupational code, the needs and then identifying how they're going to be utilizing it. We take an onet code Identifier which basically says you need this for related and supplemental instruction and you need the following for competencies in order for an apprentice to have a mastery of understanding of a particular occupation, they will then select their candidates, their apprentice candidates and we also bring together partners for them. So as they're forming that apprenticeship set of standards, which is basically what will allow that individual apprentice to go through the program and have the employer, partner and other stakeholders follow that sort of roadmap. We basically bring in local education agencies who will deliver the curriculum, intermediaries who can provide in some cases programmatic support, all the outreach and the recruitment and assessment and then funding partners to help really educate them about all those different funding streams that can help offset those costs. We also recognize that mentorship is the cornerstone of Registered Apprenticeship. And so an apprentice will work under the tutelage of a subject matter expert while they are enrolled in a Registered Apprenticeship program, who will guide them through their time in the program, which will average anywhere from six months, upwards to three years depending upon the occupational role. The employer will set the wages, which we typically see about 40% to 70% of that high skilled work wage. And an apprentice will be eligible to receive at least one pay increase based on that criteria set forth by the employer. Once the apprentice has successfully completed their curriculum and their competencies performed on the job, they will then be issued a certificate of completion by the US department of Labor Office of Apprenticeship and by our state agency, the Division of Apprenticeship Standards. The good news is that once an employer and other stakeholders develop this program and embed it within the institution itself, they can then augment it right as market conditions shift, new occupations are needed and emerge and then other partners that may be added down the road as well to really strengthen and fortify a more robust program. The good news is that the benefits to registered apprenticeship have a really far reaching application. First, for the employers. There's a stat that we often quote according to the US department of labor, for every dollar that an employer invests in registered apprenticeship, they see a return of almost a dollar 50. We know that instilling trust and confidence allows for those employers to hold on to apprentices future employees that much longer. They tend to stay with employers who are investing in them the thought of diversity and experience. We want people from all kinds of background to have access to this. Registered apprenticeship is an on ramp for that and that benefits the employer, the access to funding, which really far exceeds any opportunity that they would see with an internal training program that cannot necessarily be linked to a registered apprenticeship funding. Stream the increase in efficiencies and performance by reduction in turnover and really optimizing that model as a recruitment strategy that they can deploy at any time. And then the customizable training, we can really tailor a registered apprenticeship program to meet that specific employer and stakeholders operational needs so there's no one size fits all and they can get that program up and running in many cases as soon as three to four months. And then lastly, for the apprentice, the apprenticeship benefits for future workers is really exciting because a lot of our apprentices, the apprenticeship program aligns very nicely with a degree track. So we often see a lot of our apprentices graduating with either two or four year degrees. We also know that that linkage between industry and academia creates for a more robust training opportunity and experience for that worker so that when they're done with their apprenticeship, they are that much more skilled on day one when they start their job and the opportunity to earn while they learn. That's a very exciting prospect. All the while developing lifelong skills with competitive wages and then upon completion that certification that they have a mastery of that particular occupation. And then again the credential getting that certificate, that is a portable credential that the apprentice can take with them throughout their lifetime. I think all of these really demonstrate, and for so many other reasons, why apprenticeship is the gold standard model for work based learning. Salvatrice Cummo [00:19:40]: Absolutely. And based on what you're seeing and through your lens, what are you seeing as the current landscape of the apprenticeships and how are they evolving at this point? Kelly Mackey [00:19:52]: Yeah, so we've seen a sizable shift in the labor market over the last few years and I think it gives us really our best clue about how the model can be optimized. Here's the good news. The registered apprenticeship model, as I talked about, is really customizable and can...
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Discover What A Modern Apprenticeship Program Looks Like With Kelly Mackey State Director of Strategic Partnerships for the State of California Episode 102
09/12/2023
Discover What A Modern Apprenticeship Program Looks Like With Kelly Mackey State Director of Strategic Partnerships for the State of California Episode 102
It’s getting harder and harder for employers to lock down good talent. This makes it more important now than ever to cultivate registered apprenticeship programs that create long lasting, and meaningful relationships with students who will eventually become incredible workers. Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development at Pasadena City College is joined by Kelly Mackey, the State Director of Strategic Partnerships for the State of California to dive deep into the critical importance of the different types of apprenticeship in various industries and how businesses can ensure they have the resources to support these types of programs. She’ll break down the apprenticeship model, the requirements, and the protocol that must be followed to ensure the program meets the student’s needs. Tune in to discover what role you play in the future of work and how you can further understand the importance of apprenticeships in student’s lives. Engage with us: , & : @PasadenaCityCollegeEWD Join our newsletter for more on this topic: Visit: Attend the 5th annual October 26th More from Kelly Mackey: Visit Email: & : @ca_dir Facebook: Partner with us! Contact our host Salvatrice Cummo directly: [email protected] Want to be a guest on the show? Click to inquire about booking Find the transcript to this episode
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