New England Colleges Prepare Report on Employability of Students; Draft Recommendations Outlined

December 22 is the deadline for those seeking to comment on the draft report and recommendations of the Commission on Higher Education & Employability, established earlier this year by the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE).  The Commission, which includes nine representatives of institutions and organizations in Connecticut, released its preliminary findings at a day-long Summit in Boston. “Despite the region’s strength in postsecondary institutions, employers remain concerned about a lack of qualified, skilled workers, particularly in technology-intensive and growth-oriented industries,” the draft report notes. “The Commission has proposed a draft action agenda, policy recommendations, strategies and next steps to align institutions, policymakers and industry behind increasing the career readiness of graduates of New England colleges and universities—and facilitate their transitions to work and sustained contributions to the well-being and competitiveness of the region.”

In addition to five strategic priorities,  the draft report includes specific recommendations are being considered in five areas:  Labor Market Data & Intelligence; Planning, Advising & Career Services; Higher Education-Industry Partnerships; Work-Integrated Learning; Digital Skills; and Emerging Credentials.

Among the recommendations being considered are a call for higher education institutions to incorporate employability into their strategic plans/priorities; determine their effectiveness in embedding and measuring employability across the institution; and develop a regional partnership for shared purchasing and contracting of labor market data, information and intelligence services.

The proposed recommendations also call on the New England states to “collaborate to launch multistate, industry-specific partnerships beginning with three of the top growth-oriented sectors, including: healthcare, life and biosciences and financial services.” It further urges the states to explore “implementing policies (public and institutional) that incentivize businesses (through tax credits or other means) to expand paid internships.”  The draft report also calls for the establishment of a New England Planning, Advising and Career Service Network.

The draft report calls on the states to “confront notable college-attainment gaps and the related personal and societal costs,” and “consider specific employability strategies to target and benefit students who are at risk of not completing postsecondary credentials, including underrepresented populations.”

Eastern Connecticut State University President Elsa Núñez led a session at the Summit about the Commission's “Equity Imperative.” Officials indicate that Commission's workforce vision serves all New Englanders ... “as a matter of social justice, but also as a matter of sound economics in the slow-growing region.”  Núñez highlighted her internship work with students who may not have cars or other resources to capitalize on off-campus work-integrated learning.

In addition to Núñez, the nine members of the Commission from Connecticut are:

• Andrea Comer, Vice President, Workforce Strategies, Connecticut Business & Industry Association Education and Workforce Partnership
• Freddy Cruz, Student, Eastern Connecticut State University
• Maura Dunn, Vice President of Human Resources & Administration, General Dynamics Electric Boat
• Mae Flexer, State Senator
• Tyler Mack, Student Government Association President, Eastern Connecticut State University
• Mark Ojakian, President, Connecticut State Colleges & Universities
• Jen Widness, President, Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges
• Jeffrey Wihbey, Interim Superintendent, Connecticut Technical High School System

The commission also includes six members from Vermont, seven members from New Hampshire and Maine, 11 from Massachusetts, 12 from Rhode Island, as well as two regional members and six representatives of NEBHE. The Commission's Chair is Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo.  The proposed recommendations, developed during the past six months, have broad implications, according to officials, “critical to building a foundation for moving forward the Commission's efforts toward strengthening the employability of New England's graduates.”

At Eastern Connecticut State University—which is about 30% students of color—lower-income, minority and first-generation students often had no cars, so had difficulty traveling off campus to internships. White students got most of the internships, President Elsa Núñez told the NEHBE Journal earlier this year.

The Journal reported that Eastern’s Work Hub eliminates that need, allowing students to develop practical skills doing real-time work assignments without having to travel off campus, and providing the insurance company Cigna with a computer network and facility where its staff could provide on-site guidance and support to Eastern student interns.

The draft report’s strategic priority recommendations include:

• New England state higher education systems, governing and coordinating boards, together with New England’s employers, should make increased employability of graduates a strategic priority—linked to the strategic plans, key outcomes, performance indicators and accountability measures for the higher education institutions under their stewardship.
• New England higher education institutions should incorporate employability into their strategic plans/ priorities supported by efforts to define, prioritize and embed employability across the institution and in multiple dimensions of learning and the student experience—both curricular and extracurricular.
• New England should make strategic efforts and investments—at the state, system and institution level— to expand research, data gathering, assessment capacity and longitudinal data systems to enable more effective understanding and documentation of key employability-related measures and outcomes.
• New England higher education institutions should undertake formal employability audits to review the strategic, operational and assessment-oriented activities related to employability–and their effectiveness in embedding and measuring employability across the institution.
• To confront notable college-attainment gaps and the related personal and societal costs, states must consider specific employability strategies to target and benefit students who are at risk of not completing postsecondary credentials, including underrepresented populations.

The Boston-based New England Board of Higher Education promotes greater educational opportunities and services for the residents of New England. Comments on the recommendations are accepted on-line through Dec. 22.

PERSPECTIVE: Paving a Path to Postsecondary Attainment in Connecticut and Beyond

by Jamie Merisotis I was raised in Manchester. My father arrived in Connecticut almost 70 years ago after serving his country in World War II. Although he and my mother never made it to college, they instilled a strong belief in the value of education. Two generations of us – most still living here – have benefited from the state’s public schools, and colleges and universities.

So, as leader of a national foundation focused on increasing Americans’ success in higher education, Connecticut’s success is always on my mind. Last month, Lumina Foundation released its 2017-20 Strategic Plan. The plan describes what must happen for to achieve Goal 2025. Within the next eight years we must reach our goal for 60 percent of working-age Americans to earn college degrees or credentials, effectively creating a universal learning system beyond high school. We need a system that improves people’s lives and enables the nation to meet the rising demand for talent.

Since 2011, the U.S. economy has grown by 11.5 million jobs for workers with more than a high school education. In contrast, only 80,000 jobs have been added for those with a high school diploma or less. This disparity is projected to grow. By 2020, nearly two-thirds of jobs will require more than a high school diploma. Yet almost every state has an average level of education among working-age residents that is too low.

When the Foundation began reporting on the share of people with college degrees eight years ago, Connecticut stood at 46.6 percent. In 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, the rate reached 48.2 percent.

This year, Lumina added data about people with certificates and industry certifications. We believe an expanded focus on these credentials is vital for creating a better-educated country. Quality credentials have clearly stated, easy-to-grasp learning outcomes that create paths to good jobs and further education. In Connecticut, one of every 20 working-age residents has these types of certificates, bringing the share of people with meaningful credentials to 53.2 percent.

To reach the national goal of 60 percent by 2025, all of us have to do more to ensure fairer results for students who fare poorly today. The Foundation has been focused over the last several years on both traditional-age students and those who previously have gone to college but never finished.  Yet increasingly, we’ve come to recognize that we must do more and better for the nearly 64 million adults with no education beyond high school. This population is mostly made up of people from poorly represented racial and ethnic groups, immigrants with limited English-speaking skills, people who have lost middle-income jobs, and prisoners.

Others are faring better. In Connecticut, whites and Asian/Pacific Islanders with education beyond high school represent 53.6 percent and 71.9 percent of those populations, respectively. Yet for people who are African-American, Hispanic and American Indian, the percentages range from 22.5 percent to 32.8 percent. These numbers mean the system is not serving these learners who desperately need quality credentials to have better lives and jobs.

Eliminating disparities in outcomes across racial and ethnic groups and by socioeconomic status will require civic leaders, education leaders, policymakers, and employers to participate in a large-scale effort to redesign the system. To build tomorrow’s workforce, we must build a system that works for today’s diverse students. In the same way communities banded together to make universal high school a reality, it will take broad, coordinated action to ensure education beyond high school becomes a reality for all Americans.

This movement is underway, led by states setting goals to dramatically increase the number of people with education beyond high school. Connecticut is one of 26 states that set challenging, sustainable, and measurable goals in support of fair outcomes for students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. My hope is that other states will follow Connecticut’s lead to ensure the country has the talented people it needs to address future civic, economic, and social challenges.

________________________

Jamie Merisotis is President and CEO of the Lumina Foundation,  an independent, private foundation committed to increasing the proportion of Americans with degrees, certificates and other high-quality credentials to 60 percent by 2025. Lumina’s outcomes-based approach focuses on helping to design and build an equitable, accessible, responsive and accountable higher education system while fostering a national sense of urgency for action to achieve Goal 2025.  Lumina operates from Indianapolis. 

1. America’s Divided Recovery, Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/americas-divided-recovery/
2. Recovery: Job Growth and Education Requirements Through 2020, State Report, Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/StateProjections_6.1.15_agc_v2.pdf
3. A Stronger Nation: Postsecondary Learning Builds the Talent that Helps Us Rise, Lumina Foundation, http://strongernation.luminafoundation.org/report/2016/#connecticut

Sciences at Southern Get Dynamic New Home; Local Companies Help Along the Way

Students attending Southern Connecticut State University this semester are the first to use the campus’ new Academic Science & Laboratory Building, opened this fall, with local companies playing an integral role from design and construction to providing scientific equipment for the new facility. Officials say Southern's ongoing expansion of its science programs has been greatly enhanced with the construction of the 103,608-square-foot, four-level academic and laboratory science building. Situated adjacent to Jennings Hall, the existing home for the sciences on the New Haven campus, the new building extends the university’s capacity to educate more students in the STEM disciplines – science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The new science building also features a high-performance computing lab for research in theoretical science, bioinformatics, and computer science, two aquaria, and six rooftop telescope stations.  A collaboration between Southern and PerkinElmer, based in Massachusetts and with offices in Shelton, has also provided a boost. Equipment includes several analytical instruments to improve research capabilities and provide students with opportunities to do cutting-edge work.

Configured in the shape of an “L,” the new building works in concert with two pre-existing science buildings — Jennings and Morrill halls — to enclose a new “science enclave.” With very visible scientific displays and instrumentation inside and outside the building, the new center has quickly assumed a symbolic as well as actual role for the sciences on campus.

Embracing innovative sustainable design, it houses teaching and research training laboratories for nanotechnology, physics and optics, the earth sciences, the environmental sciences, cancer research, astronomy, molecular biology and chemistry.

“Built to the latest standards in sustainability, this signature building will truly enhance our ability to foster the next generation of Connecticut scientists,” Southern president Mary A. Papazian said at last month’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The Werth Center for Marine and Coastal Studies –named in honor of the Werth family following a $3 million gift from the Werth Family Foundation -- is housed on the second floor.  The center will have several new labs, including an analytic lab (where mercury levels can be determined) and a sediment coastal science lab (where levels of sediment can be tested).

The Center for Nanotechnology will be located on the ground floor, where the laboratory space is designed to isolate the building's vibrations -- considered important when dealing with microscopic materials.  A saltwater aquaria room with a touch tank is featured in the new building, providing a “centerpiece of outreach to area schools and the community.”

The building includes expanded wings for Earth Science, Environmental Science, Molecular Biology, Chemistry, and Physics teaching and research laboratories.  There are scientific displays throughout, illustrating the research interests of faculty and the students, including a replica of a nanotube — a focal point in the center of the building.  Rain water collection, which is being used to water the science quad and faculty garden was also integrated into the design. Designed for LEED Silver certification, many sustainable design features can be seen throughout the building’s footprint.

PerkinElmer delivered instruments and services “designed to help improve human and environmental health,” Christine Broadbridge, SCSU’s director of science, technology, engineering and math initiatives, recently told the Fairfield County Business Journal. “At Southern, we are proud to have a strong relationship with PerkinElmer, an important leader of business and science here in Connecticut.”

Ted Gresik, senior director of PerkinElmer, expressed his appreciation in being given the opportunity to work with Southern and accelerating its science through access to its innovative technologies.  At the ribbon-cutting, he said “We recognize the opportunity for Southern Connecticut State University and Perkin Elmer to work together on research, and technology initiatives toward developing programs where students can acquire a diverse set of scientific and technical skills which will facilitate a transition to career opportunities within the science industry.”

Plans for the new Academic Science & Laboratory Building at Southern began back in 2007 with a comprehensive 10-year capital improvement plan, dubbed CSUS 2020, for upgrading the four institutions of the Connecticut State University System.  Approved by the state legislature and signed into law by Gov. M. Jodi Rell, the plan was developed during the administration of Chancellor David G. Carter.  It included upgrades and repairs to existing facilities, as well as construction of a new Visual & Performing Arts Center at Western Connecticut State University, which opened in September 2014, a new academic and classroom building at Central Connecticut State University, which opened two years ago, and a Fine Arts Instructional Center at Eastern Connecticut State University, scheduled to open early next year.

The Science Building at Southern was designed by Centerbrook Architect and Planners of Centerbrook, CT, with construction by FIP Construction of Farmington.  (see video about the Academic Science & Laboratory Building)

UConn Applications Climb; Board of Regents Makes Commitments on Remediation at White House Summit

Who is attending college in Connecticut – and who is not – was the central topic of conversation in Storrs and at the White House Thursday.

At a White House summit on expanding college opportunity, the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (ConnSCU) system was among more than three dozen colleges, universities and systems issuing promises of specific policy steps to be taken to improve college access and completion rates, with a particular focus on low-income students.   Connecticut Board of Regents President Gregory W. Gray was among those in attendance.

As part of the day-long summit, the White House released a 90-page “Commitments to Action” summary that included new commitments from over 100 colleges and universities and 40 organizations “to build on their existing efforts.”  The steps the institutions will be taking follow calls from President Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and others to improve higher education opportunity in the United States, in response to the nation’s diminishing standing compared with other nations.

As education, business and nonprofit officials were meeting in Washington, the University of Connecticut, the state’s flagship institution, announced that the number of high school students seeking admission to UConn’s Storrs campus next fall has jumped significantly over last year’s figures, comprising a pool of potential freshmen with even higher average SAT scores and more diversity than previous years’ applicants.

More than 29,500 students applied as of Wednesday’s due date, a 10 percent increase over last year’s number, according to UConn officials. The number of minority applicants also increased by 16 percent – described as an important consideration in UConn’s commitment to diversity.   Officials pointed out that the jump in UConn applications runs counter to national and regional trends in which declines in the number of high school graduates have caused many universities to see their applications and enrollments level off or decrease.

Enrollment Moving in Opposite Directions

The Board of Regents system – which includes more than 90,000 students attending the state’s 17 public colleges and universities (except UConn, which is outside the system) – has seen the largest drop in students among the state’s public and private higher education sectors. At Connecticut's four state universities (Central, Eastern, Southern, Western), enrollment was down 2.2 percent to 34,062 this year compared to 2012, reflecting the continued losses in the number of part-time graduate students. Enrollment at the community colleges fell 2.1 percent to 56,977, reflecting losses in both full and part time students.

Full-time undergraduate enrollment among member institutions of the private Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges (CCIC) rose by nearly 2.5 percent this past fall. In fact, nine of the 16 CCIC member institutions had an increase in enrollment and five of these institutions hit new enrollment records: Goodwin College, Quinnipiac University, Sacred Heart University, University of New Haven, and the University of Saint Joseph. In contrast, only five of twenty three public institutions showed an increase in enrollment.

According to Thursday’s newly released White House document, “Connecticut commits to planning an evaluation of pilot data to assess and improve upon efforts to implement remediation redesign throughout post-secondary institutions in the state.  Efforts will support improvements to remediation curriculum and practices on campuses.”  One of the panel discussion Thursday in Washington D.C. focused on the remediation issue, in which students graduating high school but not quite ready for college have traditionally taken non-credit bearing courses to prepare for college.

Focus on Remediation

The Connecticut legislature in 2012 passed a new law that requires public colleges to embed remedial education in credit-bearing courses, with extra tutoring and assistance for students who need remedial help. The bill had concerned some faculty at the institutions, who felt that abolishing all remedial classes would be unworkable, considering the learning deficiencies of some incoming students. Beginning with the Fall 2014 semester, the new law allows institutions to offer a student no more than one semester of non-embedded remedial support.

Connecticut will be hosting two upcoming events focusing on the remediation issue, the White House report indicated:

• A“Multiple Measures Summit,” which will offer information and applicability of various methods of placement assessment for consideration of state community colleges and universities.
• A “Remediation Conference,” which “will serve as an opportunity for state-wide collaboration outlining best practices of the piloting of intensive, embedded and transitional remedial education initiatives.  Data results will be shared along with ideas for scalability.”

The “Commitments to Action” document also notes that “The Board of Regents is currently conducting 139 pilots consisting of both math and English, intensive and embedded programming across the 17 ConnSCU institutions… Data will be analyzed by institution and system faculty/administration to highlight challenges for adaptation and strengths for duplication.”   It has been estimated that by 2020, 70 percent of Connecticut’s jobs will require post-secondary education.

Among UConn’s larger applicant pool, several stand-out programs – including engineering, business, digital media, and allied health sciences – are among the disciplines that saw significant increases in interest from the potential new UConn students who applied for admission.  With substantial financial support from the Governor and state legislature, UConn is investing in new faculty, updating its academic plan, and planning for the Next Generation Connecticut initiative to revolutionize its STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) curricula.

UConn will begin notifying this year’s applicants with offers of admissions starting March 1, with the targeted new class of Storrs freshmen estimated to be around 3,550 students. The number of applicants has more than doubled since 2001, when the University received about 13,600 applications.

UConn’s Next Generation Connecticut initiative, a $1.5 billion 10-year state-funded investment, is expected to attract $270 million in research dollars, $527 million in new business activity, and fund the hiring of 259 new faculty members and the enrollment of an additional 6,580 undergraduate students, as well as the construction of new labs and facilities, expansion of digital media and risk management degree programs and development of student housing at UConn’s Stamford campus.

President Obama has set a goal of having the United States achieve the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.  The U.S., which was once ranked #1 in the world, has fallen from the top 10, and current projections indicate that decent will continue without corrective actions, such as those outlined by participants in the White House-led effort.