South Metro Denver Chamber hosts all-star lineup of innovative educators

BY FREDA MIKLIN
STAFF WRITER

On March 9, South Metro Denver

highly engaging moderator and executive vice president Doug Tisdale, who also happens to chair the RTD board of directors, presented a distinguished group of educators to a full house of representatives of business, government and education, and visitors from around the globe.

The topic was “Workforce Development: How Educators Fill the Pipeline.” Speakers focused on innovative training, resulting in multiple new certificates and degrees in previously unrecognized areas that furnish students the skills sought by employers. Everyone soon learned that the key to the development of effective training programs is a collaboration between private industry and the education community.

The programs that CU’s Sarabeth Berk, director of Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative, Research & Innovation Office, University of Colorado Boulder, specifically focus on teaching students how to be more innovative and entrepreneurial. She hosts competitions for new ventures, including those focused on social awareness, as well as the for-profit world. Berk confirmed what many in the room suspected that the fastest growing field is computer science. She also said that CU is creating new types of computer science degrees as quickly as they can hire new faculty to support them.

After hearing from employers in various industries, Community College of Denver determined it needed to develop new associate degrees certificate programs in career and technical education. They currently offer one-year certificate programs for students to meet the need for welders, machinists, and specialists in cybersecurity and even 3D modeling.

At DU, Dr. Matt Gordon is a strong proponent of cooperative learning, where students take a timeout during their pursuit of a college degree to spend from six months to a year doing real jobs in the real world. He believes that this experience is much more useful than a typical summer internship, for both students and employers, in finding the right fit for a job after graduation. Cathleen Badillo talked about how valuable her experience was working full time at Ball Aerospace, after her junior year of college, even though it delayed the start of her senior year. She said it would have been even more valuable, had she done it a year earlier, because of all that she learned by having real job responsibilities, something that she could not have learned in a classroom setting or a few weeks in the summer.

Arapahoe Community College is multifocused on creating new pathways for employment. In addition to training blue-collar workers, they hope to provide more white-collar workers in areas like banking and finance, who represent the entire community, including minorities.

Currently, ACC is partnered with companies, such as Centura Health, who “co-hire” ACC students to work in jobs for which they are seeking a certificate, simultaneous with their studies. When they complete their coursework and attain a certificate, students are employed full-time at Centura and have no school loans.

ACC is very excited about its brand-new joint venture with CSU, the Douglas County School District, the Town of Castle Rock, and the Castle Rock Economic Development Council. The ACC Castle Rock Collaboration Campus will provide a synergistic campus to offer new programs for workforce training from high school to associate degree to bachelor’s degree beginning in fall, 2019. Preliminary programs will be in health care, information technology/programming, business and entrepreneurship, and general education.

Andrew Dixon presented yet another vantage point in the education to employment pipeline. He told the crowd that higher education must evolve with the industry and that CSU Global, whose average student is 35 years old, is constantly reviewing and revising its curriculum to keep current. He talked about how automation is resulting in more specialized degrees, and a new term of art, “midcareer internships.”

Last on the agenda may have been the panel member with the most unexpected presentation. Some wondered why the former superintendent of a 38,000-student diverse public school district, became president & CEO of Wings Over the Rockies, an air and space museum located in the Lowry neighborhood?

John Barry, president and CEO of Wings Over the Rockies (WOTR), explained that his organization will open its second location later this year at Centennial Airport, a 15-acre campus to educate future employees of the aerospace industry in multiple disciplines. He told those gathered that there is a severe shortage of qualified pilots in this country, and that available training isn’t anywhere near to keeping pace with the need for more pilots. Right now, WOTR is talking to area public schools with students from elementary to college age, about potential collaboration.

Listening attentively were state Rep. Jeff Bridges, Centennial Mayor Stephanie Piko, and Columbine Valley Mayor Richard Champion. Area city councils were represented by Wynne Shaw from Lone Tree, Ron Weidmann from Centennial, Dave Black from Sheridan and Dave Bullock from Greenwood Village. Numerous educators in the room hailed from virtually all the state’s public and private colleges and university systems, especially community colleges and multiple K-12 public school districts. As always, local representatives of business, from insurance to accounting, were also in the room. Rounding out the crowd were international visitors sporting State Department credentials, from countries like Egypt, Malaysia, Russia, Australia and Luxembourg.