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Colleges Offer Credit Where Credit Is Due

Posted on: Monday, 3 April 2006, 03:03 CDT

By Quinlan, Brian

Educational sweat equity pays off for tradespeople

ON-THE-JOB TRAINING and experience can move Garden State union members closer to a college degree. Last week the New Jersey Council of County Colleges announced a new program through which all 19- member schools will offer college credits to union members who have completed apprenticeship training.

The program NJ PLACE [New Jersey Pathways Leading Apprentices to a College Education], will offer 20 to 25 credits to plumbers, electricians, construction workers and other tradespeople who have completed their union's work-training programs, says Jacob Farbman, director of communications for the council.

Participating students will then have to enroll and take general education courses to earn their 60-credit associate's degrees in technical studies, says Farbman. With that, he says the students can transfer to a four-year college and earn a bachelor's degree, or take what they've learned back to the job.

On-the-job training can be just as technical as a college course.

"A lot of the training these folks receive is very difficult," Farbman says. "It's very technical and requires knowledge, computer skills and literacy skills. [The training requires] many of the same skills that are needed for a college education."

Farbman says the program is the result of pressure from state trade unions that want to see their workers advance.

Charlie Wowkanech, president of the state AFL-CIO, says he has been pushing for such an initiative for about 13 years, beginning with the Florio administration. "Colleges actually fought this in the beginning, but now they've come around," he says.

In a highly competitive workforce where "knowledge is power," Wowkanech says, the NJ PLACE Agreement is very important It will allow union members the opportunity to advance their careers, he says. "It's a great day for organized labor to have our apprenticeship program recognized with college credits."

With the increasing use of computers, and with math and other technical content becoming ever-more important aspects in people's jobs, these workers deserve to get college credits for their training, Wowkanech says.

A college degree will help these workers advance in their careers and become managers or foremen, Farbman says.

While this is the first formal agreement among the community colleges to recognize work experience for credit, Farbman notes that many schools throughout the state already do so on an individual basis.

Ronald McArthur, dean of Atlantic Cape Community College in Mays Landing, says Atlantic Cape will start evaluating the work experience and on-the-job training of tradespeople and union workers for college credit this fall when the college starts its own technical studies program. Students can also seek to have their work experience recognized for credits through the NJ PLACE agreement.

"There are a lot of people out there, especially union members, who have experience. Apprentices go through very rigorous programs that involve math and science. It's not just laying bricks," McArthur says.

The American Council of Education will evaluate workers' experience to determine how many credits it is worth at ACCC. McArthur says students will have to pay for any credits they earn through work experience, but that their unions may help defray costs.

Warren County Community College has launched a similar program. It allows students who have completed on-the-job training in corporate, industrial or military settings to earn credits for it, says Fae Guerin, coordinator of student academic outcomes & success at WCCC.

Students in the program can earn three to 16 credits, she says. The program is aimed at students who want to earn an associate's degree in applied sciences and go back to work, instead of transferring to a four-year college.

"It's not what we call a transfer program," Guerin says. "The students take whatever they learn from these courses and use it on the job."

She says WCCC is working with a manufacturing company near the college's Washington campus that does a lot of employee training. Guerin says the college hopes the firm becomes a source of students for the program that started in the fall and is still recruiting.

She says the program is open to participation from students in a wide range of professions, so long as their training has educational merit. The school will use more than one source, such as the American Council of Education, to evaluate work experience before determining how much credit they deserve. For those who have been in the military, she says the college will decide how many credits to offer them based on their military evaluations.

Christopher Emigholz, director of education policy for the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, says it is important that colleges recognize the benefit of practical work experience.

"A lot of people go to college and they get academic credit but not necessarily real business experience. A lot of our employers complain that people who come into the workplace don't have the practical skills and experience needed to succeed," he says. "So I think any way of bridging the business world and the college world is a win-win."

A PLACE for Union Members in Colleges

On March 2, The New Jersey Council of Community Colleges and Gov. Jon Corzine announced an agreement whereby laborers and union members can earn college credits for their apprenticeships and on- the-job training. The NJ PLACE initiative is part of a larger movement to get community colleges involved with educating businessmen and union members. To this end, the state formed the Business & Labor for Stronger Community Colleges committee whose recommendations included:

* Having the state work with community colleges to draw business to the state;

* Having the state push community colleges to draft career- training programs for businesspeople;

* Community colleges becoming the primary providers of training for state employees;

* Increasing the funding to community colleges and helping better the quality of education and work-training programs offered.

Source: Business & Labor for Stronger Community Colleges

E-mail to bquinlan@njbiz.com

Copyright Snowden Publications, Inc. Mar 6, 2006

Source: NJBIZ

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