Member Matters October 2024

A Monthly Lookback at Some of the Good Work in the CAEL Membership Community

Proactive Partnerships
A partnership between OneSpartanburg, Inc., and Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System is giving the company's health care workers access to college navigators in OneSpartanburg's Re:Degree initiative (Discover Health).

Re:Degree's navigators are modeled off of CAEL's approach to helping Comebackers. CAEL offers navigator training curricula that have been honed through more than a score of implementations of The Graduate! Network -- now known as TGN@CAEL --  method of data-tracking adults in their journey to and through postsecondary education. 

Central Michigan University has renewed a partnership with the United States Postal Services that brings a 15% tuition discount for CMU Online programs to all USPS employees (CMU).

Elizabethtown College and Peirce College are partners to an agreement with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania offering tuition discounts to Commonwealth employees (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania). Elizabethtown College also recently announced tuition-discount agreements with more than 30 public school districts and the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce (Elizabeth Town College).

Fayetteville State University has joined the Amazon Career Choice program, which offers Amazon's hourly employees a variety of education benefits (Fayetteville State University).

Montréal-based CGI Technologies and Solutions Inc., which is "among the largest IT and business consulting firms in the world," is partnering with Rowan University on curricula development, experiential learning opportunities, and more (Rowan University).

Thanks to a $400,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation, the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire has established the Office of Corporate and Community Partnerships in support of the university's focus on forging industry connections (UWEC).

The United States Department of Labor and Albany State University are collaborating to strengthen support for military-connected learners and enhance employment opportunities at HBCUs (U.S. Department of Labor).

Ivy Tech Community College and ReElement, "a leading provider of high performance refining capacity of rare earth and critical battery elements,” are collaborating to create an affordable training and degree pathway program for ReElement's growing talent pipeline (American Resources Corporation).

Short-Term Credentials for Long-Term Success
Central Virginia Community College is complementing its traditional academic programs with "micro, embedded industry-recognized credentials" (The News and Advance).

The Greenfield Education and Training Center, in Botetourt County, Virginia, has added health care programming to Virginia Western Community College certificates offered there (Virginia Western).

Utah Tech University is granting free access to more than 7,000 "technology workforce development courses." Available via the university's Learn and Work program, the noncredit, online courses are free to state residents with a high school credential or its equivalent (Utah Tech).

Winning Workforce Development Strategies 
More than 150 professionals from industry and education gathered at the grand opening of the University of Akron's Timken Foundation Center for Precision Manufacturing, a facility fostering workforce-oriented collaboration among the university and its manufacturing partners (UA).

Fueled by an $890,000 grant from the Delta Regional Authority, Louisiana State University Eunice is rolling out a mobile training and workforce development unit to improve regional access to agricultural curricula and other resources. The unit has onboard Wi-Fi, power generation, and other teaching and learning assets (The Advocate).

The president of Grand Valley State University joined other postsecondary education leaders empaneled to collaborate on the enhancement of Michigan's workforce (Grand Valley).

In Their Own Words
The interim president at College of DuPage wrote of the college's third consecutive year of rising enrollment, a trend aided in part by the college's continuing education learners, who range in age "from 5 to 105" (Daily Herald).

Awards and Other Achievements
Efforts to reengage Comebackers and other adult learners are contributing to a surge in fall enrollment at Rogue Community College (KDRV).

The Louisiana Board of Regents has designated Louisiana State University Shreveport a 2024-2025 Governor's Military and Veteran Friendly Campus (LSUS).

A recent report has demonstrated $24.2 million in total economic impact for Wiley University's area economy (Wiley University).

Ivy Tech Community College has reached an all-time high in the number of high school students who have earned ducal credits. In academic year 2023-24, more than 7,200 students completed more than 9,200 college credentials while still in high school (Ivy Tech).

Edmonds College's construction pre-apprenticeship program has garnered it recognition as a DEWALT Grow the Trades Grant recipient (Edmonds College).