MIAMI—The American Association of Community Colleges’ (AACC) Virtual Incubator Network will be extended for another year, according to Jack Litzenberg, senior program manager at the Charles Steward Mott Foundation, which is funding the project.
The initiative helps 11 community colleges nurture business start-ups. Litzenberg announced at AACC’s Workforce Development Institute last week that his foundation is considering funding the program for a third year “to extend this effort to the rest of AACC’s members.”
“We wanted to gather together the best and brightest at community colleges who are engaged in entrepreneurial activity. We went to AACC to do that. We accomplished that mission,” he said.
The community college leaders involved in this initiative have created a community among themselves over the past year—from rural areas to inner cities—helping local residents make the transition to a new economy, Litzenberg said,
The people involved in this initiative are “exceptional people who come from regular backgrounds,” he told the audience at a WDI panel showcasing how community colleges and their partners are leveraging resources to support career training and economic development.
Support for start-ups
Deb Derr, president of
North Iowa Area Community College (NIACC), which is participating in the Virtual Incubation Network, sees entrepreneurship education as “key to the economic vitality of rural areas.”
“We are literally in the middle of a corn field,” Derr said. “The chances of having major companies move here is probably not going to happen.”
NIACC’s
John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center works with chambers of commerce, city councils and businesses in the region to help small businesses, including assistance with loans, business plans, mentoring and other start-up services.
“Our goal is to build the economic vitality of our region, and we do that through small-business development,” Derr said.
As one example, she cited
Latham Hi-Tech Seeds, a small, family-run company that won a small-business competition at the Pappajohn Center and has quadrupled its workforce.
Derr also brought two NIACC students to WDI, Luke Benjamin and Kevin Breister, who created their own graphics design and sign company,
PSF Design, and brought in $60,000 in sales in their first year.
The Goldman Sachs Foundation’s
10,000 Small Businesses initiative, a partnership with community colleges, is aimed at spurring job creation by providing technical assistance, entrepreneurial education and access to capital to help small businesses grow.
One of the program's goals is encouraging diversity among business owners, said Katherine Jollon, the foundation’s vice president. Half of the businesses are owned by women, and 40 percent are owned by African-Americans or Latinos.
“We partnered with community colleges because you understand diversity.” she told the audience.
The program offers a “linked pipeline of services,” Jollon said. Participating business owners have access to a 100-hour curriculum, with a heavy emphasis on finance. Weekly lessons are based on a facilitated learning style, with lead faculty helping entrepreneurs teach themselves.
The foundation underwrites the cost of program and hires a business advisor for each site. The college places a five-person team and recruits small businesses. Those that are accepted receive a scholarship.
“We get it up and running quickly, within three to five months,” Jollon said. “The number-one thing we hear from participants is that the training is immediately applicable. You have a session and the next day you’re redoing your contracts.”
The
Ewing Kauffman Foundation has made entrepreneurship one of its top priorities and would like to forge more connections with community colleges, said Daryl Williams, executive director of the foundation’s National Urban Partnership.
Kauffman's focus in on providing “seamless services” to people who have already started a business and are expected to employ more than five people, Williams said.
“We want to have people who will have an impact on the community and create jobs,” he said.
Business owners selected for assistance are given an assessment, a personal development plan and access to coaching delivered via videoconference.
“For the United States to remain competitive, you have to find the talent in rural and urban areas, and you have nurture that talent,” Williams said. “Community colleges are the hub of communities."
Golden partners
McDonald’s Corp. worked with community colleges to design a program to teach English language skills to their employees.
“Our folks have jobs. They can’t go to a community college for face-to-face English classes, and they didn’t want to use an online program. So we created a blended approach,” said Betsy Clark, director of education strategies. The courses are reaching 1,700 students a year.
The result is the English Under the Arches program. Community colleges helped develop the courses, and their faculty teach English as a second language to McDonald employees at 37 sites around the country using live Web conferencing.
McDonald’s owners/operators cover students’ tuition and instructors’ fees.
“They see it as an investment,” Clark said, noting that about 90 percent of workers who completed the training are still on the job.
The program is being expanded to include basic skills courses in math, reading, and writing, and Clark said she would like McDonald’s to work with community colleges to build career pathways.
IBM’s focus is on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education, according to senior program manager Doris Gonzalez, who added that 63 percent of students with associate degrees in STEM fields earn more than people with bachelor’s degrees in non-STEM fields.
P-Tech opened in September with 103 students, many of whom were the first in their families to attend college. Students can earn an applied science associate degree in computer systems technology or electromechanical engineering technology.
The curriculum is based on mastery learning, with some students moving forward faster than others, Gonzalez said. IBM helped develop the curriculum, which is tied to the skills the company wants in its employees. It also assigned an IBM mentor to each student.
Gonzalez said three more similar schools are being considered for New York City and five for Chicago.
In Los Angeles,
PromaxBDA, a company that produces commercials for movies and TV shows, set up a paid internship program to “build a pipeline of diverse talent,” said Katerina Zacharia, director of industry development and diversity.
Working with
Santa Monica College, Promax designed a one-year training program on how to write and produce promotional videos. Twenty-five local artists, from a pool of 350 applicants, were selected. The television networks provided footage from TV shows which the interns used to create promos they can take to job interviews.
The company also designed a structured mentorship program and reached out to creative directors and executives in the industry to become sponsors and help transition the interns into paying jobs, Zacharia said. Two weeks after graduation, most of them were hired.