Community College Computer Consortium
IT Recruitment Work Force
June 9, 2006
Flemington, NJ
Chaired by: Norma Hall (Manor College)
Attended by: Dick Cavanaugh (The Cavanaugh Group), Alan Evans (Montgomery County Community College), Mardi Holliday (Community College of Philadelphia), Amruth Kumar (Ramapo College of NJ), Tom Yip (Passaic Co. Community College)
Minutes
- Purpose – to explore and pursue grant opportunities and work collaboratively to develop effective methodologies and marketing programs to recruit students into Technology majors.
- Members – under umbrella of the 4C organization to include both PA and NJ members. Current interest has also been expressed by faculty in NY community colleges.
- Attendees discussed current recruitment practices. All use open houses; there is a varying amount of interaction with local high schools; some provide teacher training.
- Discussed profile of potential incoming students
- Age
- Recruiting High School versus Non-traditional students
- High school – influence of parents and counselors; need to reach them as well as students
- Non-traditional students – salary issues with starting positions. What are logical and valid career opportunities for those looking to change fields?
- Returning military as recruiting opportunity
- IT Employment Opportunities
- Media perception versus reality and projected needs
- How to close this gap
- Gender issues
- Still have majority of male majors; but higher percentage of females in many of the courses. How to encourage female recruitment.
- Urban versus Suburban marketing issues – different target groups
- Method of Conducting Business
- Discussion Forum
- Will try to establish under 4C website. Norma will contact Nick Picioccio to determine if they can set this up. Google groups were discouraged based on prior experience from some of those involved. Alan Evens indicated that Montgomery Co. could probably set something up if we can’t find an alternative (however we will first try to avoid having this tied to any one institution).
- List Serve
- Meetings – as few as possible. Perhaps we can organize into subgroups and work from there, once we get set up.
- Interested Parties (potential partners):
- 16 colleges
- The Cavanaugh Group
- Computer Science Teachers Assn (K-12)? – Anita Verno has expressed interest.
- Others? Tom Yip suggested Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges. (CCSC). Other potential partners include ACM, IEEE
- Small Business Association (SBA) has an education component that may be able to address some funding issues, as well as provide some consulting services
- Should also explore NSF (although this funding is limited these days); Microsoft; Intel; Pew Foundation; Heinz Foundation.
- Other suggestions/issues?
- Discussion of the “new world” of Info Sys – the importance of job mix and the need to broaden technology skills with business knowledge or specific field information.
- Importance of IT as a component of most other fields, and need for integration
- Can this be expanded to look at integration either early or late with curriculum in other programs – for example, GIS (Geographical Information Systems)
- Need to explore skills set issues versus career paths in companies
- uggestions to focus on training sessions to bring technology to high school teachers/counselors. For example – Summer Institutes; ALICE workshops.
- Explore grant funding for free workshops; stipends for participants; “certifications”