May 14, 2008
ENCORE COLLEGES: More community colleges launch encore programs
Santa Fe Community College will train older nurses to become nursing instructors. Western Dakota Technical Institute will offer courses for boomers who want to become seasonal rangers and interpretative guides at national parks. And Community College of Spokane is launching an effort to match older adults with job vacancies in the region.
These innovative community colleges are among the 15 institutions designing programs to help older adults focus on new careers and continued engagement, thanks to a $3.2
million “Plus 50” grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies.
Community colleges — known for their accessibility, affordability and flexibility — are a key resource for encore career transitions. Civic Ventures, with support from the MetLife, Foundation, last year provided community college “encore career” grants of $25,000 each to 10 other community colleges that also are developing projects to assist experienced workers transition to their encore careers. Civic Ventures’ “New Face of Work” survey, also supported by MetLife Foundation, found that half of Americans age 50 to 70 desire jobs that contribute to the greater good now and in retirement.
“The numbers tell the story,” said Norma Kent of the American Association of Community Colleges. “There are 78 million individuals in this population and many of them are reaching what used to be retirement age.
“All the studies we have read say that if we lose the resource that these individuals represent, whether in work or service, it is going to be a tremendous loss to our economy and our society,” she said. “That’s something we cannot afford to do.”
Most of the colleges will launch new initiatives targeted at boomers who are approaching the traditional retirement age but want to continue contributing to their communities doing work they find meaningful. Five of the colleges are building on programs that are already in place, and will serve as mentors for colleges with less experience.
Kent expects some of the mentor college programs to be open for enrollment as early as this fall, but she advises adults over 50 who want encore careers not to wait for programs to fall in their laps. She said, “If I were interested, I would call up my local community college and ask, ‘What are you doing to meet my needs?’”
The 10 colleges launching new “Plus 50” programs under the grant program are Chaffey Community College in Cucamonga, Calif.; Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood, Wash.; Joliet Junior College in Joliet, Ill.; Luzerne County Community College in Nanticoke, Pa.; Northern Virginia Community College, located near Washington, D.C.; Richland College in Dallas; Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Fla.; St. Louis Community College in St. Louis, Mo.; Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, N.C.; and Western Dakota Technical Institute in Rapid City, S.D.
The five “mentor” colleges are Cape Cod Community College in West Barnstable, Mass.; Central Florida Community College in Ocala, Fla.; Century College in White Bear Lake, Minn.; Clark College in Vancouver, Wash.; and Community College of Spokane in Spokane, Wash.
To comment, log in or register. | Forward to a friend | Subscribe to Terry Nagel's blog | Notify me of any comments about this post |
Plus 50- precautionary advice
I think community colleges offer valuable resources for many, and while I don’t know how the programs for “Plus 50” are structured, I’m hoping job placement is a big part of the services offered. My past experience with Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (DOL/ETA) programs in California, avoided funding of community colleges because of their inability to meet job placement performance criteria (aside from turf issues that exist between the employment and training community and academia). The major focus of community colleges is education and satisfying their students/customers academic needs, not actually finding jobs for their graduates. So, I am hopeful that as part of the “Plus 50” grant, a placement component exist. Often, however, an employer advisory committee is formed, and while helpful, it is not a substitute for actively providing for job placement assistance. Otherwise, I think this can be a very successful venture.