George B. Autry has agreed to speak at our annual meeting in December. George is president of MDC, Inc., and is an effective presenter. He will talk about the recent report "The State of the South," which was published by MDC.
"The State of the South" provides an analysis of 30-year trends in population, jobs, income, poverty, and education in the South and includes positive statements regarding the role for community colleges in the future development of the South. His present ation should be informative and timely.
The meeting is set for Monday, December 9, in Nashville, Tennessee. It will be held in the Opryland Hotel, site of the SACS Commission on Colleges gathering. Starting time is 12:30 p.m.
Dr. Edwin R. Massey will preside at the meeting. A complete agenda is printed below. *
| Presiding | Dr. Edwin R. Massey |
| President, SACJTC | |
| President, Indian River Community College | |
| Fort Pierce, Florida |
| Welcome | Dr. Massey |
| Invocation | Dr. Julius R. Brown |
| Board Member, SACJTC | |
| President, Wallace Community College-Selma | |
| Selma, Alabama |
| Business Session | Dr. Massey |
| Introduction of Speaker | Dr. Barry W. Russell |
| Vice President, SACJTC | |
| President, Southwestern Community College | |
| Sylva, North Carolina |
| Keynote Address | Mr. George B. Autry |
| President, MDC, Inc. | |
| Chapel Hill, North Carolina |
| Door Prizes | Dr. Marshall W. Smith |
| Secretary-Treasurer, SACJTC | |
| President, John Tyler Community College | |
| Chester, Virginia |
Tickets for the upcoming annual meeting can be purchased for $25.00 each from any member of the Executive Committee or the Board of Directors. A list of these individuals along with their addresses and phone numbers is printed on Page 4 of this issue.
Developing a world-class work force for the South is a challenge, but it is not an impossible dream. The solution is not mysterious or elusive. It is more about changing the way the South thinks about training and educating its citizens--expecting more of them--than it is about creating new programs or spending vast amounts of new money. Much of the public sector institutional and programmatic base is already in place, and the refinements and new initiatives necessary to develop that base are known.
For the long term, this means carrying on the public school reform movement that Southern governors and corporate leaders created and have sustained. Equally important, however, it means extending education reform to out-of-school youth and adults, who wi ll constitute the bulk of the Southern work force for years to come.
The Southern states are hardly new to the business of work force development. For example, Southern states pioneered customized training programs for new and expanding businesses and are offering them increasingly to existing businesses as well. And virtu ally all the states have taken steps over the last five years to enhance their attack on functional illiteracy.
Yet, the South is operating with institutions and programs that were independently designed and implemented. Many are random, fragmented responses to problems that at one time or another were on the political front burner. Operating independently, most ar e too narrowly focused, too modestly funded, and often too hobbled by old institutional constraints to have more than a marginal impact on work force preparedness. And in too many places in the South, employers see work force development as a crazy-quilt pattern with a muddled mission parceled out among rival systems.
These education and training resources can be melded into a coordinated system that will not only serve the South well in the current catch-up phase of work force development but will also establish the ongoing postsecondary training and retraining system s demanded by our changing economy. Operating in conjunction with greater state emphasis on promoting and assisting employers in adopting new technologies, these state systems can reshape the economy of the South.
For 10 years the debate about work force development has begun and ended with discussions of elementary and secondary school reform, while the bulk of the future work force is on the job today, beyond the reach of the public schools.
Southern states are blessed with an abundance of postsecondary institutions, many offering the accessible and flexible education increasingly required for working adults. Short courses, certificate programs, or associate's degree programs are offered by c ommunity colleges, technical colleges, vocational centers, and regional universities.
The model particularly well-suited to the work force development needs of adults is the comprehensive community college.* It is difficult, however, to generalize about the South's community colleges. More than universities or public schools, they look and act differently from state to state, reflecting differences in origin. Mississippi's colleges, for instance, had their roots in the junior college movement, while those in the Carolinas sprang full-blown from economic development challenges posed by the transition from agriculture to manufacturing. In Louisiana, community colleges barely exist, their traditional functions shared by regional universities and vocational centers.
Despite their variety, one generalization describes community colleges: They are the South's most flexible public institutions. And at their best--and many in the South are at their best--they are institutions that serve the ever-widening needs of adults :
Enrollments are growing in all 12 states, partly because of community colleges' relative affordability and access during recessionary times but also because more young people see them as a path from high school to work and higher education and because adu lts see them increasingly as stepping stones to increased skills and new careers.
As more demanding jobs devalue the high school diploma, market forces will hasten the day when a community college associate's degree will be the new entry-level standard for a decent career. Those forces will also hasten the day when "higher education" i ncludes the pursuit of an associate's degree within its accepted definition. It is already common for baccalaureate graduates to augment their technical skills at community colleges.
In a current employer survey by the Southport Institute for Policy Analysis, 85 percent of respondents named community and technical colleges as their first choice for help with work force training. Most of these schools have become adept at working day i n and day out with both employers and workers and at providing new and expanded workplaces with customized training. Some are now running high-technology training centers for local firms, and a few are operating as out-posts to link small- and medium-size d manufacturers to university research centers.
Still, with all their success and promise, most are a long way from reaching the performance of world-class urban institutions such as those in Miami or Charlotte, North Carolina, or of their more rural cousins, such as Itawamba Community College in Missi ssippi or Catawba Valley in North Carolina. Most are recession-ridden, struggling in the backwater of education reform with little attention. Even North Carolina's system, often seen as a national model, labors with the lowest-paid faculty in the nation a nd escalating tuition, and has had to eliminate training programs for students and business just at the moment of greatest need.
The training director of one major Deep South service industry said that because of the budget crunch and enrollment caps, some colleges have lost their drive for innovation: "They are tending more toward 'business as usual' and have less time for the ne eds of business." The struggle to support operations inhibits their capacity to design new programs and services for the local economy. This is especially true of smaller institutions that typically serve rural areas--the very places where educational att ainment is weakest and the need greatest.
Funding caps and tuition increases serve as barriers to access at a time of protracted recession, when people typically seek to upgrade their skills. Today, the passive "open door" system that relies on serving those who are motivated enough to walk throu gh the door needs to be replaced by a more aggressive, targeted approach of recruiting and retaining students. Ironically and unfortunately, however, colleges are facing more demand than they can meet and have little incentive to raise their profile and s eek those most in need of their services.
Even so, most employers and many college presidents say that it is not the amount of money so much as the rigidity of funding that inhibits creativity and service. This is ultimately the result of state legislators' thinking in terms of the number of stud ents enrolled rather than the numbers who are successfully trained and placed. By valuing student head count rather than what's put in students' heads, they expect too little and get too little. Although community colleges routinely do more assessment and evaluation than most public agencies, there is nevertheless too much attention to inputs (the quantity of their students) and too little attention to outputs (the quality of their graduates).
Community colleges in the South have the core of a state-based comprehensive training, retraining, and upgrading effort. They also have the means to reinforce their own efforts and reach out to those most in need of training through programs of the Job Tr aining Partnership Act, the Adult Education Act, the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills legislation, and the Carl Perkins Vocational Education Act. But too many places exist in the South where there are no comprehensive community colleges, or where they a re education's stepchild--underfunded, undervalued, and disconnected from human service agencies and resources. Further, most community colleges lack the resources to address today's needs, much less tomorrow's. That's a difficult perch from which to serv e as the salvation of the Southern work force.
States today are mounting impressive efforts to deal with the long-neglected problem of the unmarked path from school to work.
The highway from high school to the university has always been smooth and clearly marked. Secondary schools, however, have failed a big chunk of those young men and women who do not pursue a four-year degree. Likewise, employers--especially the more moder n manufacturing and service operations--are unprepared to absorb young people straight out of high school. The message these students hear is that not much is expected of them, and they are on their own to chart a career path without either compass or the tools to clear the way. *
______________________
* In this report, the term "community college" is used to describe Southern postsecondary systems, including technical colleges and institutes, providing one- and two-year educational programs.
Reprinted from MDC, Inc., and Its Advisory Panel on Southern Workforce Development, "Greater Expectations: The South's Workforce Is the South's Future," MDC, Inc., Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1992. George Autry is president of MDC, Inc.
George B. Autry, a native of Wilmington, North Carolina, was educated at Duke University (A.B., 1958), at the Duke University Law School (J.D., 1961), and at the George Washington University Graduate School of Public Law.
Following his years at Duke, Autry was named a Richardson Foundation Congressional Fellow and later became chief counsel and staff director of Sam Ervin's U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights.
Autry is a member of the Editorial Board of the Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy, the Board of Directors of the Sam J. Ervin Jr. Memorial Library, the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, the Advisory Boa rd of the Pew Charitable Trusts' public journalism initiative, and the Ford Foundation-sponsored Task Force on the Role of the Community College in Rural America. He is also chairman of the Board of Directors of the Lucy Daniels Center for Early Childhood and chairman of the Southern Education Foundation Task Force on Education and Economic Development.
He has written for the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution and is a frequent contributor to the North Carolina press and the scholarly press on economic and work force development issues.
Autry is president of MDC, Inc., a private, nonprofit corporation located in Chapel Hill. For 29 years MDC has conducted research and demonstrations on education and training policies and programs as they relate to employment and economic growth.
Recent MDC reports include "The State of the South," an analysis of 30-year trends in population, jobs, income, poverty, and education in the South; "Greater Expectations: The South's Workforce Is the South's Future," on work force challenges facing the South; "America's Shame, America's Hope: Twelve Million Youth at Risk," on how at-risk youth have fared in the education reform movement (the report that inspired Bill Moyers' PBS special "All Our Children"); "Shadows in the Sunbelt," concerning economic development problems facing the rural South; and "Coming Out of the Shadows: The Changing Face of Rural Development in the South," an examination of shifts in rural development policy and planning five years after "Shadows in the Sunbelt." *
PRESIDENT
Dr. Edwin R. Massey, President
Indian River Community College
3209 Virginia Ave.
Fort Pierce, FL 34981-5599
(407) 462-4701
FAX (407) 462-4724
VICE PRESIDENT
Dr. Barry W. Russell, President
Southwestern Community College
275 Webster Rd.
Sylva, NC 28779
(704) 586-4091, Ext. 239 or 242
FAX (704) 586-3129
SECRETARY-TREASURER
Dr. Marshall W. Smith, President
John Tyler Community College
13101 Jefferson Davis Hwy.
Chester, VA 23831
(804) 796-4020
FAX (804) 796-4364
IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT
Dr. Phail Wynn, President
Durham Technical Community College
1637 Lawson St., Drawer 11307
Durham, NC 27703
(919) 686-3375
FAX (919) 686-3412
EDITOR
Dr. Allen Edwards, President
Pellissippi State Technical
Community College
P.O. Box 22990
Knoxville, TN 37933-0990
(423) 694-6616
FAX (423) 694-6435
Class of 1996
Dr. Jim Hudgins, President
Midlands Technical College
P.O. Box 2408
Columbia, SC 29202-2408
(803) 738-2994
FAX (803) 738-7821
Dr. Dorothy L. Lord, President
Brunswick College
3700 Altama Ave.
Brunswick, GA 31523-3644
(912) 264-7201
FAX (912) 262-3282
Class of 1997
Dr. Patrick R. Lake, President
Henderson Community College
2660 S. Green St.
Henderson, KY 42420
(502) 830-5244
FAX (502) 826-8391
Dr. Jackson N. Sasser, President
Lee College
P.O. Box 818
Baytown, TX 77522-0818
(713) 425-6300
FAX (713) 425-6555
Class of 1998
Dr. Julius R. Brown, President
Wallace Community College-Selma
P.O. Box 1049
Selma, AL 36702-1049
(334) 875-2634, Ext. 145
FAX (334) 872-0158
Dr. Tommy Davis, President
East Mississippi Community College
P.O. Box 188
Scooba, MS 39358
(601) 476-8442
FAX (601) 476-8822