The Changing Landscape of Education

Dr. Judith F. Cardenas
President
Lansing Community College

Workforce development, a key role of the comprehensive community college, is about more than just providing training for existing jobs. It is about building capacity for new jobs, about developing an educated and entrepreneurial population, and about creating ladders for learners to access learning throughout their entire lives. It is tied tightly to the community college/four year transfer function, community responsiveness and developmental coursework roles of colleges. These functions bundled together create a strong response to community needs.

Workforce and economic development activities are fueled both by those who are creating work and by those who need work. This urgency reminds me of an African proverb from Thomas Friedman’s book about the changing nature of work, found in an American auto parts company in China:

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up you better start running.

As leaders in today’s higher education system, community colleges must be aware that the importance of working with their communities to prepare for the race is more critical than ever. However, our definition of community has drastically changed. We are no longer able to define community as merely our local and immediate community. Our global and competitive world has now become our new community.

Leaders throughout our nation are rethinking their position related to globalization within the construct of our academic systems. Creating programs which foster entrepreneurship, agility, cultural sensitivity and productivity will be required in order for the U.S. to stay competitive and ahead in our changing world.

Through the creation of strategic partnerships, private/public collaborations and integration of best practice models from corporate America, colleges can begin to transform themselves into highly credible, accountable and competitive centers of excellence. Colleges must look for new ways of forging partnerships and redefining their mission.

Our educational landscape is changing, and our world is changing. We must wake up every morning and run together as fast as we can.