Va. community colleges prioritize workforce development
Virginia’s community colleges are national leaders in workforce development programs and are focused on the needs of Virginia businesses. The State Board for Community Colleges is building on that success by hiring a new chancellor who hails from America’s manufacturing capital and offers an impressive background in workforce training innovation.
We write to address several areas mentioned in Ron Taylor’s March 27 column (“Community college system not meeting Virginia’s needs”) which are inaccurate or misleading.
College enrollment numbers are a national challenge, exacerbated by declining birth rates and economic circumstances. Since the pandemic began, America’s two-year colleges have lost three-quarters of a million students, and last fall’s freshman class was 9.2% smaller than that of fall 2019. For our colleges, while total enrollment fell 4% last year, enrollment increased 9% in our G3 workforce development program courses, and our FastForward program enrollments are up 15% over last year.
When you consider our total enrollment, including those in short-term training programs for high-demand careers, our colleges are down 8% since 2008. To put that in regional perspective, community college enrollment is down in Maryland 15%, Kentucky 15%, and up in North Carolina by 7% in the same timeframe.
Contrary to Taylor’s assertions, our colleges are difference-makers for Black students. In 2020, 152,000 Black Virginians, educated at our colleges, held jobs at more than 30,000 Virginia companies, earning more than $5 billion in wages, according to state employment data.
FastForward short-term training programs are helping more Black Virginians begin careers in high-demand fields with enrollments and credentials earned doubling since 2018 in fields such as health care, information technology, and transportation. The completion rate for degree-seeking students increased 50% over the past decade; it jumped 64% for Black students.
Our colleges served nearly 50,000 Black high school students over the past decade, and the number of Black students earning a postsecondary credential while still in high school has increased by a factor of five.
Yet, we must do more.
The imperative to enroll and graduate more Black and Latino students is the driving force behind our new strategic plan, Opportunity 2027. We designed that plan to focus our colleges on finding and upskilling Virginia’s hidden workforce. Business leaders and our board agree that it is essential for Virginia’s future. That is why the Virginia Chamber endorses our workforce development plan in its Blueprint Virginia 2030.
We know that executing that plan — making the big, courageous changes necessary to increase the workforce pipeline — will require a leader who has shown the ability to think creatively, collaborate boldly, and build workforce development programs that soar. We found that in Russ Kavalhuna.
Kavalhuna distinguished himself throughout our national chancellor search. A successful former federal prosecutor and passenger airline captain, he holds a deep and nuanced understanding of business needs and how to address them.
His success in starting new training programs and collaborations with the Ford Motor Company, BASF, US Steel and others have earned praise and board appointments from governors of both parties. And his service as Henry Ford College’s president earned him an elite fellowship for leadership with the Aspen Institute.
Kavalhuna’ s resume and experience exceeded the expectations that Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s staff shared with us. In January, our search consultants met with two of the governor’s cabinet secretaries, Aimee Guidera and Caren Merrick, who gave us in writing the administration’s specific priorities for workforce development. We shared those criteria with our candidates, and they became the standard by which we evaluated our nearly 50 candidates.
We told that to the governor during the two face-to-face meetings he granted us as we approached our board’s March meeting. We invited Youngkin to meet the finalists. Just 48 hours before our meeting, Youngkin said that it was not his job to hire the chancellor, it was our job to do so. He advised us to have our meeting and make our hire, and he was kind enough to offer to help recruit our chosen candidate to Virginia should that be found helpful.
Our board took Youngkin’s advice and did our job, hiring the person best suited to advance the VCCS mission and serve the students, families and businesses that are counting on our colleges to lead a robust talent development pipeline. We are excited for what Kavalhuna brings to Virginia and look forward to working with him beginning this summer.