SACJTC February 2000 Newsletter


Allen Edwards, Editor
Volume 34, Number 1

Overcoming the Challenges of Globalization: Community Colleges and the South's Economic Future

An Address by David L. Dodson, President, MDC, Inc.
Atlanta, Georgia • December 6, 1999

It is a great pleasure for me to follow in the footsteps of the late George Autry, MDC's founding president, and William Winter, our current board chairman, to address this gathering of presidents and officers of SACTJC member colleges. MDC's institutional mission has intersected with the work of community and technical colleges throughout our 30-year history. George Autry was long convinced that the South's community colleges are uniquely positioned to transform the life chances of people put most at risk by economic change. Through the Ford Foundation's Rural Community College Initiative, which MDC manages and in which several of the colleges represented here participate, MDC continues to explore and support the leadership role that community colleges can play in connecting people with jobs through education and training.

In the fall of 2000, MDC will publish the third edition of our biennial report to the region, the State of the South (SOS). My talk today will focus on two issues that our research for SOS is illuminating:

Economic Change: Are We Done Yet?

Over the last 20 years, the 14 states that MDC examines in SOS have experienced colossal growth and transformation. Nearly four in every 10 jobs created in the U.S. during that period were created in this region, stimulating a dramatic rise in regional prosperity. For most of the century, well into the 1970s, the South's economy looked very different from that of the rest of the nation, with a higher concentration of farming; low-wage, nondurable manufacturing; extractive industries; and military employment. Today, the structure and distribution of the employment in the region look much like those of the rest of the country. And just like the rest of the country, we are experiencing powerful, accelerating shifts in the nature of jobs and work.

According to data assembled by the Southern Rural Development Center at Mississippi State University, rapid job growth will continue in the region over the next decade as it has in the past 20 years, but with important distinctions. In terms of absolute numbers, the most new jobs will be created in occupations with low educational requirements and correspondingly low wages, such as basic retail and housekeeping. Of the 10 occupations that will provide the largest number of new jobs by 2005, only two—general management and registered nursing—will require even an associate's or bachelor's degree. At the high end of the wage spectrum, the region will experience a rapid rate of job growth, but the numbers of jobs will be comparatively small.

We are already seeing the impact of these trends in North Carolina, where we have recently begun to shed large numbers of jobs in routine manufacturing, many of them the economic mainstays of our rural areas, while we simultaneously add smaller numbers of high-paying manufacturing jobs, mostly in metropolitan areas. The fact that states like North Carolina, South Carolina, and Alabama can capture increased numbers of sought-after, high-skill manufacturing jobs testifies to our region's continuing competitiveness in fierce global competition.

Yet not all people and places will benefit equally as our economy reinvents itself. Rural communities, particularly those heavily dependent on traditional manufacturing and agriculture or lacking the scenic amenities to become tourist or retirement destinations, will face the likely loss of their economic vitality and the out-migration of their young people. And undereducated people, urban and rural, will find an ever-widening gap between themselves and family-sustaining, higher-wage employment.

Diversified Demography

Now lay over these economic and occupational trends the demographic restructuring of the South brought on by foreign immigration. In the 1970s and '80s, the South was a magnet for domestic migrants from the North and other regions of the U.S. Today, in-migration to the South is global, supplying workers not just to our farms and construction sites but to our hospitals and the laboratories of Austin and Research Triangle Park as well. Since 1996, more than half of all immigrants to the South, domestic and foreign, have come from Latin America. Latino immigration promises to transform our region as dramatically as air-conditioning and the abolition of Jim Crow laws did in the last century. But the smooth accommodation of our new Latino neighbors will not be automatic. Consider these challenges:

The Adaptive Challenge

Rarely in our history has the South been asked to address the challenge of widespread cultural adaptation while simultaneously dealing with profound economic volatility. Yet these twin challenges face us now, and community colleges have a special role to play in their resolution, a role that will require skillful institutional and community leadership by colleges on several fronts: It is hard to imagine a more exciting time for two-year colleges or any period where your imagination and skills will be more urgently needed. MDC wishes you success in your work and stands ready to be your partner in the South's continuing transformation.

Number of Immigrants to the South, Age 25+, by Educational Attainment:

Less Than High School Some High School College Bachelor's Postgraduate
1975-80 148,840 164,440 153,360 70,960 89,760
1985-90 198,685 173,973 231,757 139,955 104,752
1990-95 231,585 203,539 223,470 166,057 86,671
1995-98 166,912 150,830 154,046 150,493 138,705

Number of Migrants by Educational Attainment, Age 25+, 1990-95

Place of Birth From To Less Than High School High School Some College Bachelor's Postgraduate
Native Born South Northeast 21,690 111,173 80,308 91,700 61,820
Northeast South 93,784 240,554 233,198 173,846 104,481
South Midwest 65,575 175,180 148,142 161,970 58,665
Midwest South 144,591 263,629 264,388 179,035 113,176
South West 19,424 139,881 194,534 132,798 108,594
West South 80,152 203,121 309,687 156,826 123,947
Foreign Born South Northeast 4,712 8,854 4,337 12,962 4,426
Northeast South 35,830 52,625 31,475 31,179 17,052
South Midwest 4,362 4,945 12,515 2,467 4,263
Midwest South 28,177 10,279 16,967 18,024 13,206
South West 25,617 24,258 12,588 10,020 2,561
West South 45,703 20,478 32,337 16,515 5,941

Number of Migrants by Educational Attainment, Age 25+, 1995-98

Place of Birth From To Less Than High School High School Some College Bachelor's Postgraduate
Native Born South Northeast 29,953 125,840 116,156 116,882 36,182
Northeast South 57,794 187,980 148,209 138,557 73,903
South Midwest 68,419 176,365 158,919 127,482 69,732
Midwest South 72,457 215,959 231,148 148,699 86,313
South West 49,595 153,898 180,704 118,956 65,480
West South 51,308 199,703 171,859 125,049 60,181
Foreign Born South Northeast 15,478 31,691 14,697 14,744 38,065
Northeast South 24,137 36,740 42,425 20,172 21,729
South Midwest 6,589 10,749 3,734 4,570 11,926
Midwest South 16,968 15,493 6,751 16,857 8,511
South West 29,930 8,639 14,128 10,387 13,939
West South 32,834 32,304 10,340 26,747 9,392

Educational Attainment for the South, 1990

Less Than High School 15,611,863 28.7%
High School 15,736,041 29.0%
Some College 12,811,059 23.6%
Bachelor's 6,638,974 12.2%
Postgraduate 3,537,648 6.5%
     
Total 54,335,585 100%

Biography of David L. Dodson

David L. Dodson is president of MDC, Inc. Since joining the firm in 1987, he has been project director for major initiatives in school reform, workforce development, and community economic development in the Carolinas, the Deep South, and Appalachia. Currently he is leading MDC's effort to transfer the Ford Foundation's Rural Community College Initiative to Africa. In addition, he has served as consultant on community capacity building and leadership development to the W.K. Kellogg and Casey foundations as well as the Pew Civic Entrepreneurship Initiative.

Dodson is co-author of The Rural Futures Program: A Guide for Trainers and Building Communities of Conscience and Conviction: Lessons from MDC's Recent Experience. He has been visiting lecturer at the Hart Leadership Program, Terry Sanford Institute for Public Policy at Duke University, and trustee/director of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, the Center for Community Self-Help, and the Center for Law and Social Policy.

Dodson studied at Yale College, Yale Divinity School, and Yale School of Organization and Management in the areas of architecture and planning, ethics and theology, and public and private management. Previously he served as executive director of the Cummins Engine Foundation and director of Corporate Responsibility for the Cummins Engine Company.