The State Board of Community Colleges met July 18-19. The meeting had a fairly robust agenda, including an amendment approval regarding presidential reelection process. 

Behind the presidential reelection amendment: Historically, local boards of trustees were granted authority to reelect local college presidents. In the 2023 budget passed last September, the General Assembly added reelection authority to the State Board of Community Colleges. Since January, the Board has discussed the presidential reelection process and proposed amendments to SBCC code to reflect the statute passed in September 2023. The amendment passed in a 13 to 6 vote and became effective Aug. 1, 2024. 

Other Board items:

• Jennifer Maldonado-Castro, the new president of the North Carolina Comprehensive Community College Student Government Association (N4CSGA), was sworn in during the July Board meeting.
• The Board heard a presentation about modernizing the North Carolina Community College System’s (NCCCS) marketing strategy. The framework establishes cohesive branding for North Carolina Community Colleges, part of which includes brand parameters for current state programs. The five-year plan also incorporates marketing automation via a joint Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and call center. 
• North Carolina saw a 45% increase in registered apprentice enrollments and a 50% increase in registered pre-apprentice enrollments during the 2023-24 fiscal year. ApprenticeshipNC also registered 147 new apprenticeship programs and 19 new pre-apprenticeship programs.
• The Board approved six colleges for the Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor Program.
• The Board approved the 2024 performance measures for student success report. The report is the NCCCS’ major accountability document and is a source for the state performance based funding.

You can read our full recap on our website.

EdNC’s Chantal Brown wrote about the latest on the Southeastern Education and Economic Development (SEED) initiative. 

Gov. Roy Cooper celebrated the start of the Summer Manufacturing Academy at Lenoir and Wayne Community Colleges on July 10. The seven-week program is a part of the Southeastern Education and Economic Development (SEED) initiative.

SEED is a youth apprenticeship program supported by the North Carolina Business Committee for Education and Smithfield Foods. According to their website, it is meant to help provide career pathways and a college education for high school students living in southeastern North Carolina, while also growing the advanced manufacturing and agriculture workforce.

It is currently offered to students in Wayne, Lenoir, Greene, and Jones counties with plans to expand its reach. Students participating in the program will be paid and earn college credits while building a new skill set.

Check out Chantal’s full article.

Hannah attended the Successful Practices Network’s (SPN) 2024 Future-Focused Schools Conference in June. The three-day conference took place in Washington, D.C., with hundreds of education leaders from around the country. The conference highlighted a shifting education landscape, changing student and employer needs, and successful strategies being implemented across the state. 

Several education leaders from North Carolina were spotlighted during the conference. 

One breakout session of the conference focused on North Carolina’s Surry-Yadkin Works, a work-based learning program created in 2021 to connect high school students in Surry and Yadkin counties with internship and pre-apprenticeship opportunities in local high-demand fields.

Another breakout session highlighted UC Guarantee, a partnership between Union County Public Schools, South Piedmont Community College, and Wingate University. Union County students are notified of the opportunity in ninth grade. Under the partnership, Wingate guarantees eligible students a $100,000 scholarship to attend Wingate.

Read Hannah’s conference recap here.

ICYMI, CNBC ranked Virginia the #1 state for business this year. North Carolina is #2. 

 In 2024, CNBC said Virginia just barely beat North Carolina in what it called the the closest finish ever, separated by three points in the final tally.

States are graded on 10 categories including infrastructure, education, and economy. 

In 2023, CNBC noted North Carolina’s “world-class workforce and booming economy,” but it warned of “growing political divisions that threaten its rankings in education and quality of life.”

“The state is also a leader in career education,” said CNBC in the 2023 article, citing our community college system and how attuned it is to the needs of industry.

That year, CNBC found that in North Carolina “political tensions pressure education, quality of life.”

Mebane’s summary of CNBC’s rankings can be found here.

Dallas Herring Lecture | Register to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the prestigious Dallas Herring Lecture on “loving students to success.” The lecture is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 19, and features Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart, chancellor of the Austin Community College District, as the keynote speaker. Check out EdNC’s article with more details and registration instructions.

Latine Education Summit | Registration is open for the annual Latine Education Summit hosted by LatinxEd. The summit is scheduled for September 12-13 at the Benton Convention Center in Winston-Salem. Find out more details on LatinxEd’s website.

42 medallions for NCCCS students | North Carolina community college students took home 42 medallions at a national SkillsUSA Championship in June. The championship is a series of career competition events showcasing the best career and technical education students in the nation.

DEQ recognizes 13 for energy reductions | The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s State Energy Office recognized 13 state agencies, universities, and community colleges for their significant energy reductions and progress towards Executive Order 80’s goal. Four community colleges were recognized, including Coastal Carolina, Pitt, Asheville-Buncombe, and Blue Ridge community colleges.

New learning center for Randolph County | Randolph Community College is gearing up to open a new learning center in Liberty. The learning center will be located about five minutes from the Toyota plant. According to a news report, the 22-acre property will become a spot where the future workforce of Randolph County can learn.

Other news, stories, and opportunities:

• Wayne Community College will host the Mexican “Consulate on Wheels” to allow Mexican citizens to get identification documents. Personnel with the Consulate General of Mexico in Raleigh will provide limited services at the college on Aug. 19–23.
• Guildford Technical Community College students and community members can obtain fresh produce and meat at no charge. From August 2024 to May 2025, the college’s “Out of the Garden” project will bring a fresh mobile market food truck to the High Point campus on the first Wednesday of each month.
• Check out these heartwarming community college graduation stories from Cape Fear Community College, Robeson Community College, and Nash Community College.
• Gaston College pitcher Landon Carr will join the NC State baseball team in 2025.
• Richmond Community College representatives were invited to Washington, D.C., recently as special guests of the National Institute of Metalworking Skills, for a launch of NIMS’ new training software. The event hosted by the National Manufacturers Association.
• The North Carolina Teaching & Learning Hubs is offering professional learning opportunities this fall. The Teaching and Learning hubs “support full-and part-time faculty and staff educators from North Carolina community colleges in their efforts to build equity in learning and student success.” Check out the fall semester offerings.

Check out this Chalkbeat article regarding efforts to provide college credits and career training in Indiana:

Beginning this year, all high schools must offer or have a plan to offer the College Core — a stack of 30 credits that can be transferred to all the public and some private colleges and universities in the state. Additionally, the state is considering a requirement that students complete some work experience in order to earn a new advanced diploma by 2029.

Around 2,500 students statewide last year earned a diploma with both Academic and Technical honors, indicating that they completed both advanced coursework and some career preparation courses. While that’s the closest current offering to the proposed advanced diploma and the College Core, it’s still missing more than 75 hours of work experience that will be required of students.

The Education Department wants to collect much more information about distance education courses and the students enrolled in them as part of a broader effort to increase oversight of online programs.

The department’s proposal would require colleges and universities to take attendance in distance education classes, which include those offered online or via correspondence. Institutions also would have to provide more information to the agency about those classes’ enrollment. Additionally, the department proposes to end any asynchronous options for students in online clock-hour programs, which are typically workforce training programs that lead to a certificate.

The proposed changes worry some higher education groups, which say they could hamper innovation, unfairly target online classes and limit access for students who could benefit from the flexibility that online education provides.

What the department wants to change:

One big change: Colleges would be required to create a virtual location to house all their programs that are offered entirely online or through correspondence, which would not have to be approved by accreditors or state officials. (Note: This paragraph originally stated that accreditors and state officials have to approve new virtual locations, and has been corrected to reflect that they do not.)

In 2022–23, a little over 3,700 institutions of higher education offered at least one distance education course. But current federal reporting requirements don’t distinguish between on-campus programs and those offered online or in a hybrid format. The department also can’t tell how much federal financial aid is going specifically to distance education programs. To address that information gap, the department is proposing new reporting requirements related to distance education enrollment along with the virtual location.

The reporting requirements would require colleges to break down whether students enrolled in a distance education course are fully online or hybrid, though the specific details have yet to be determined.

Read the full article from Inside Higher Education.