Built to Last: Shasta College Partnership Presents Career-Making Manufacturing Pathways for High Schoolers.
“Teamwork makes the dream work,” as the saying goes. In stalwart Far-North industries like manufacturing, the dream of a diverse, competitive future workforce is wide awake thanks to a tireless team of employers, institutions, and instructors.
For employers in the Northern California manufacturing sector, the fate of the future depends on the effective deployment of career education. That’s why two Redding schools – Shasta College and Shasta High School – are teaming up to narrow the looming skills gap and create a dream scenario for the regional manufacturing workforce.
“It’s wonderful to work with a school like Shasta High that is actively looking to partner with higher education and provide a pathway for student success,” says Rick Osbrink, Industrial Technology instructor at Shasta College.
The collaboration couldn’t come at a more opportune time. The growing deficit between industry demand and supply of qualified workers could leave more than two million positions unfilled nationwide by 2030, according to a study by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute.
New, Extremely Useful Career Website Puts Regional CTE on the Map.
When is a website not just a website?
When it can transform regional career technical education, help boost enrollment during a downturn and strengthen the local talent pipeline at a critical time. “Just in the North Far North, we have 70,000 unfilled jobs, and people will need to train for them,” says Blaine Smith, Executive Director of the North Far North Regional Consortium. “That’s no small feat.”
Enter the NFNRC’s new North State Careers website to help students plan educational journeys like never before. The site crunches regional labor market and salary information, then matches it to career training at the area’s 15 community colleges, showcasing centralized, easy-to-understand, and accurate data. “Some of the larger statewide tools will tell you what the state picture is, but that could be misleading for someone living in Siskiyou County, for instance,” says Smith. “I don’t know of any other site that links directly from occupations to programs and has information about available job openings and wages, all in one place.”
When Chicostart brought the tech industry partnership growTECH to Daniel Donnelly at the Butte College Create Space for a tour, expectations were high for a flurry of meaningful connections and innovative ideas. That is precisely what happened!
Chuck Nadeau, the owner of MC Fiber Solutions in Chico, discovered a way to overcome a product development challenge to save his business and customers’ money. Nadeau had prototyped a part with Chicostart’s 3D printer that looked like it could solve his problem but needed help and a larger production plan to make it effective for his business. “The growTECH tour of the Butte College Create Space really made my wheels spin with new opportunities for utilizing all of the available tools to solve challenges with some of my products,” Nadeau said.
He was able to use Create Space’s 3D printers to print multiple batches of his product at a time. During one of the batch jobs, a Create Space technician discovered a way to increase his output from 13 to 72 batches at a time. It took an hour to modify the print file, and they enjoyed being part of improving the process.
The number of students in public K-12 schools in fall 2021 fell 2% below projected levels, meaning about 833,000 fewer seats were filled and a higher education sector already bracing for an enrollment cliff now faces heightened risks
Still, overall declines in K-12 students and high school graduates are generally regarded as downward pressure on the higher ed sector’s enrollment and financial prospects.
The number of high school graduates for the classes of 2020 and 2021 were relatively stable, the report finds. That aligns with other research suggesting pandemic-era declines in college enrollment are driven by changing student behavior, not a drop in the number of high school graduates available to matriculate at colleges.
Nationwide, undergraduate college enrollment dropped 8% from 2019 to 2022, with declines even after returning to in-person classes, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse. The slide in the college-going rate since 2018 is the steepest on record, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Fewer college graduates could worsen labor shortages in fields from health care to information technology. For those who forgo college, it usually means lower lifetime earnings — 75% less compared with those who get bachelor’s degrees, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. And when the economy sours, those without degrees are more likely to lose jobs. Economists say the impact could be dire.
Now Available – February 2023 Rostrum
In this issue of rostrum, hear from faculty about issues impacting noncredit students, updates on the Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Program, and continued discussions on AB 705 (Irwin, 2017), AB 1705 (Irwin, 2021) and AB 1111 (Berman, 2021).
Disciplines List Revision Process: 2023-2024 Cycle
In February, the process for formally reviewing the Disciplines List, which establishes the minimum qualifications for the faculty of California community colleges, was initiated. The ASCCC is currently accepting proposals to revise the Disciplines List for the 2023-2024 cycle. As a reminder, the review process is now an annual process. The deadline for submission of proposals is September 30, 2023. Proposals received after the deadline may be held for the 2024-2025 cycle.
Such a review was completed in spring 2022 for Native American/American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies, and Nanotechnology; all proposals were accepted and recommended for inclusion in the Minimum Qualifications Handbook.
Please visit the ASCCC Disciplines list webpage for to access resources to assist you with your proposal, the Disciplines List Proposal Timeline, and the Submission Form.
The RP Group’s Leading from the Middle (LFM) program, in partnership with the California Community College Chancellor’s Office, invites you to apply for a 2023-24 LFM Academy!
LFM provides college teams with a unique opportunity to have a dedicated space for cultivating leadership skills and knowledge, gaining new mindsets, and learning from one another, all while getting dedicated support from an LFM coach throughout the Academy.
During the 15-month Academy, participants will have the opportunity to:
- Engage in experiential learning to explore effective leadership strategies.
- Formulate and articulate a collective and individual equity-minded leadership identity.
- Develop and implement a project that advances systemic equity-focused, student-centered reform efforts and aligns with their colleges’ strategic priorities and the Vision for Success.
- Apply leadership skills and strategies to their day-to-day work and LFM project.
- Examine data, research, and other forms of evidence to make informed decisions to advance their LFM project.
- Create sustainable professional relationships where peers share ideas and strategies around equity and transformative change.
- Work with a designated coach who will support and provide guidance throughout the LFM Academy.
Selected college teams will participate in the following online and in-person activities:
- Virtual onboarding activities (fall 2023)
- Three 2.5-day in-person convenings (fall 2023, spring 2024, and fall 2024, in Pomona, CA)
- Scheduled monthly phone calls with an assigned LFM coach (fall 2023 – fall 2024)
- Two in-person campus visits where teams get to be face-to-face with their assigned LFM coach (dates TBD)
- Virtual sustainability planning activities (fall 2024)
Learn more and apply for the Learning from the Middle Academy. Applications are due by 11:59 pm on Monday, April 3, 2023.
Any questions? Please reach out to Ireri Valenzuela, Director, Leading from the Middle
