A New Era of Community College Leadership: Building a Futures Community with Skills-to-Jobs at the Forefront

by Hope Clark, PhD, Principal Advisor for Work + Learn Futures

Building a Futures Community

During the last year, I’ve had the honor of working with visionary community college leaders such as MiraCosta College President Dr. Sunita Cooke and Central New Mexico President Dr. Tracy Hartzler who have been collaborating with SocialTech.ai’s Futures Innovation Lab and Practical Futures Advisory to incorporate futures thinking into their strategic planning processes and daily operations to ensure equitable and sustainable futures at their colleges. Central New Mexico Community College created a Future of Work Strategist position that was held by Dr. Erica Barririo, who as part of SocialTech.ai’s Practical Futures Advisory team, helped MiraCosta College take it one step further by embedding futures thinking all the way from the top with the Board of Trustees down through the ranks of administration to faculty, staff, and even students by creating a futures community.?

They participated in a year-long Futures Skills Academy learning futures principles, signal spotting and how to implement these new practices into their strategic plans and day-to-day operations. The academy, developed in conjunction with the Practical Futures Advisory team and MiraCosta College, provided an opportunity for the college’s stakeholders at all levels to unlock their futuristic mindsets in order to thrive in extremely disruptive environments for many years to come using a proactive, rather than reactive, approach. They also studied The New Leadership Literacies by Institute for the Future’s Distinguished Fellow Bob Johansen on how to lead in a “VUCA” world that is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.

Parminder Jassal, SocialTech.ai’s CEO, in an interview with the American Association of Community Colleges shared this practical approach for helping colleges investigate the future through three intersecting lenses: the changing role of people in their environments, the innovations of open economies, and the evolving relationship between learning and working. As a result, many more colleges are inquiring about how they too can begin future-proofing their operations to reverse the adverse trends in community college enrollment.?

The Mass Exodus and Changing Role of Community College Leaders

Throughout the past century, the roles of current community college presidents have evolved significantly with more challenges that they’ve had to face than any other generations of leaders before them. Existing strategies used by higher education leaders were deemed ineffective for navigating poly-pandemics such as COVID-19 and racial injustice causing the spotlight to shine brighter on the inefficiencies of traditional higher education models. As a result, many leaders have thrown in the towel by opting to retire altogether.?

In the book, Generation X Presidents Leading Community Colleges: New Challenges, New Leaders, the American Association of Community Colleges reported in 2016 that there were over 900 presidential transitions within the five years prior. It also estimated that nearly 5% of presidents would retire five years later in 2021. A report by Inside Higher Education also warned about the flood of retirements of sitting presidents and other senior leaders in higher education exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Community colleges are facing unprecedented challenges with the exodus of once successful presidents, and new Generation X leaders will be tapped to fulfill these vacant leadership positions to lead in a foreign economic landscape.?

So what type of leadership skills do these new leaders need to have to be successful in a post poly-pandemic VUCA world?

Terry O’Banion, President Emeritus of the League for Innovation in the Community College advocates that a new culture of leadership is needed that builds on 1) already established cultures of teaching and learning typically predicated on traditional academic practices, and 2) a culture of evidence that supports student success.?

I believe these new leaders need to cultivate more than just teaching and learning excellence,? and student success. They will require a new set of skills that relate to workforce development and business acumen. This new culture of leadership will need to support systemic transformation to address the long-term declining enrollments and will need to implement new business models to address the irrelevancy of traditional academic programs that have no direct connection to a good paying job. Workforce outcomes are a key aspect of the evidence that supports student success.? For example, research by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce shows that workers with associate degrees in the health and business fields have earnings about twice as high as workers with associate degrees in liberal arts and general studies.?

Elevating the Role of Workforce Development in Community College Leadership

There is much that has already been documented on the devaluation of the traditional college degree. Brandon Busteed’s article in Forbes succinctly summarizes the issues around the fall of the degree indicating that “anyone paying close attention to rising college costs, declining confidence in higher education and the growing number of high-value college alternatives could have predicted a continuous enrollment decline.”

To combat enrollment decline, there has been a renewed focus on workforce development including microcredentials, micro pathways, and fast-track programs that support working learners with a new platform that has gained tremendous momentum such as Unmudl’s Skills-to-Jobs? Marketplace powered by community colleges that deconstructs programs into courses with a direct link to a job.?

In a review of state legislatures, Pew Charitable Trusts, found that states are looking to community colleges to play a major role in economic recovery and to be the go-to solution to fill skill? gaps across a wide spectrum of high growth industry sectors including healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and technology. Legislatures in at least 10 states have expanded workforce training programs at community colleges since the start of the pandemic or begun paying tuition for students pursuing in-demand fields. Martha Parham, the senior vice president for public relations at the American Association of Community Colleges said that “governors, local governments, and individual schools and community college systems across the country also have made similar changes, contributing to a “real upswell in interest” over the past two years.

According to a white paper by New America, if community college leaders want to maximize their workforce edge, they need to flip their model from? “learn-to-work” to “work-to-learn.” This will require current and new community college leaders to move workforce development from the back burner to the front burner. They must also have strong business acumen to support a new marketplace that better aligns skill development and career advancement. These new leaders will be in the best position to make the flip to new business models that respond to ongoing customer demands for instant, transparent and seamless experiences.?

Leaders that are able to “flip into the future” and use their futuristic mindsets will be much better prepared for ongoing shocks to the traditional higher education system. I’m calling all community college leaders to make the flip to a Skills-to-JobsTM marketplace.?

Who’s with me??