Intersect With Earl March 2025

by Earl Buford on Mar 17, 2025

Whether they’re built on short-term credentials, advanced degrees, or all the above, no two pathways to success for adult learners and workers look the same. Amid this diversity, there are critical common threads. I’m convinced that the more divisive our political environment becomes, the more those threads can unite us. You might be surprised how differing policy views can coalesce around the need to support adult learners and workers. We are committed that CAEL’s mission to help learners align their competencies and interests with opportunities that are personally and professionally fulfilling will remain a constant amid continual change.

Energizing EPCE: Education benefits hold great potential for adult learners and their employers, and they are the foundation of the Energy Providers Coalition for Education, which CAEL helped found in 2000. We’re delighted to help celebrate EPCE’s 25th anniversary with a thoroughly enhanced coalition website, epceonline.org. My special thanks go to the Gitlab Foundation, which helped support the enhancements, and to Kristen Himmerick, who led the planning, design and development of the new site in partnership with Bridgett Strickler and our marketing team. EPCE employees make up more than two-thirds of the sector’s workforce and work in all 50 states. More than 7,200 EPCE workers have enrolled in more than 41,000 courses, which are designed through close industry collaboration and support the talent development needs of EPCE’s 3,000+ employers.

Extended pathways: As companies scramble to find qualified workers, more of them are taking a skills-based approach to hiring. While it’s true that a growing number of quality jobs don’t require college degrees, career growth typically entails more than one job. Adult learners and workers pursuing such growth benefit when they can keep their options open. One way we can ensure they can is by offering extended pathways, something I wrote about recently in Training magazine.

IACET council appointment: Congratulations to Elizabeth Warner, who has been selected to join International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training's new Learning Ecosystem Coordinating Council, where she will represent CAEL in support of scaling the individual and collective impact of association partner members.

Scaling Build Better Careers: We recently announced our Build Better Careers initiative, made possible by the Truist Foundation, has grown to include the Washington. D.C., area. Build Better Careers has also been expanding the work it is doing in the three service areas announced previously, including Memphis, Tennesee, where it is supporting Growing Relational and Occupational Wealth for West Tennessee Households (GROWWTH). In fact, collaboration with GROWWTH, a Tennessee Opportunity Pilot Initiative Implementation Grant to CAEL member the University of Memphis, has occasioned an opportunity to scale Build Better Careers pathways work beyond finance and insurance to include career pathways in the health care sector.

The Power of CPL and HBCUs: Please join CAEL and the Lumina Foundation as we host a national CPL webinar on May 1 to engage HBCUs around the topic of credit for prior learning. Learn from four HBCUs from around the country on how their institutions have utilized credit for prior learning and its impact on their student population. Register here.

CAEL Member Mention: Project Kitty Hawk, a nonprofit working with the UNC System to recruit adult learners throughout the state, has delivered a “huge increase in adult learning degree programs” at North Carolina Central University, Appalachian State University, and East Carolina University.

Grant opportunity: The Large Research Grants on Education program, funded by the Spencer Foundation, provides $125,000 to $500,000 in support of ambitious education research projects aimed at improving education across diverse contexts. Designed as a field-initiated grant opportunity, this program encourages researchers to explore a wide range of topics, disciplines, and methodologies without being confined to a predetermined research agenda. Eligible projects can span from one to five years, allowing for in-depth investigations into critical educational issues such as teaching and learning, policy impacts, equity and access, and educational technology. The program seeks to advance knowledge, inform practice, and contribute to broader discussions in the education sector by funding innovative and rigorous research. Letters of intent are due by May 14, 2025, at 12 p.m. CT, with full proposals due by June 17, 2025. More information can be found at Spencer Foundation's website.