Four Universities Become a Force in Workforce Development
education, schools, workforce development,
In McLean County, workforce development has a multi-pronged approach. The county’s four institutes of higher education – two public and two private – each play a unique role in readying workers of all ages for the jobs of today and tomorrow.
“The region, not just McLean County, but the region, is quite blessed, because of what we have to offer workers to either train, retrain or continue their learning is pretty remarkable,” says Brian Davis, director of education for the McLean County Chamber of Commerce. “What we’re calling ‘workforce development’ is really, to me, the broad landscape of adult learning.”
Many of the region’s educational programs, degree-seeking and otherwise, are designed especially with the working adult in mind.
For example, Lincoln College in Normal offers an expedited bachelor’s degree program called the Accelerated Bridge to Education, which allows adults to earn up to 27 hours of credit in a calendar year by simply attending class one night a week in five-week chunks.
Additionally, Illinois State University has partnered with the chamber to form a corporate MBA program, which takes a group of around 30 adults through MBA coursework in just over two years. ISU also works closely with employers, through both the on-campus Career Center and directly through academic departments, aligning educational attainment goals with industry needs to craft a graduating workforce ideally suited for work in the Central Illinois region.
“The university is engaged directly with employers to understand their needs when it comes to skill sets and competency sets, for future graduates in terms of employment. The Career Center often helps facilitate those relationships, but academic departments also work closely with employers as well, to understand what those needs are,” says Dave Ruszkowski, coordinator of employer development at the ISU Career Center.
For example, Ruszkowski says, local accounting firms work directly with the accounting department to make sure they are in tune with current licensing and certification requirements.
Similarly, the Hart Career Center at Illinois Wesleyan University works as a liaison between students and employers to match skill sets with needs, for the benefit of everyone involved.
Heartland Community College in Normal recently completed a workforce development center that is dedicated to instilling students with the professional skills they need to succeed. It also works with employers on employee training and development programs.
“What we’re doing is not just workforce development in the traditional sense, getting out to those workers and getting them more knowledge, it’s backing it up as far as we can, all the way to the schools,” Davis says. “We are so extremely fortunate in our community to have the institutions of higher education that we do, that they offer the programming, not only to their direct students, but to adult learners and returning students to really enhance the skills that they have.”
Story by Michaela Jackson
