H. Martin Lancaster, President
North Carolina Community College System
Fayetteville, North Carolina
December 4, 2001
Thank you for inviting me to your conference. I know that each of you will go home from this conference enriched by what you have learned and that you will use your enrichment to benefit the children of your communities.
This fall, thousands of children in North Carolina entered school for the first time. And as always, their parents, teachers and policy makers wondered: "Are they ready for school? Have we prepared them and given them the skills they will need to be successful?"
Each child is a unique individual. We are proud of each one of them. But research tells us that across groups of children and even within individual children, development occurs unevenly. Children vary in their experiences before they enter school and schools vary in their readiness to receive students.
I know that you join me in wanting to make sure that all children in North Carolina are ready for school when they enter kindergarten. This is an increasingly difficult task as educators face increasing demands to teach "academics," struggle with money worries, and balance staff and parent concerns.
Nevertheless, we must keep in mind that moments of joy of discovery---cradling a baby bird or examining a newborn butterfly---enrich and enliven the hearts and minds of young children. It is our job to teach educators how to cultivate imagination and curiosity---true learning---in our classrooms. And, the job has its rewards---sometimes, even, we get to go to Mars and then the zoo.
Let me mention just a few of the things North Carolina's community colleges are doing to prepare early childhood teachers.
- All 58 of our degree-granting institutions are now authorized to provide the preparation required for certified childcare teachers.
- We have expanded the Family Literacy Program, which helps parents shore up their skills so that they can be their children’s first teachers.
- Our statewide Foundation has obtained one grant for $100,000 from the Bank of America and is seeking others to endow scholarships for adults who want to start their work toward teaching credentials on community college campuses.
- We continue to provide educational consultant services within our Academic and Student Services Divison. Kristi Snuggs is the Program Coordinator for Early Childhood & Public Service Technologies. Her primary responsibility is to act as a liaison for early childhood educators and the North Carolina Community College System in statewide and local initiatives in early childhood education.
- And now, as a collaborating partner in Project CONTACT, North Carolina's community colleges will present child care teachers with yet another way to earn college credits through electronic and campus-based resources that are accessible, affordable, and convenient. We are setting up a model that will let the state deliver college courses at a distance to meet increased demands for childcare teacher education and the needs of a low-resource population.
Research shows that teachers with a higher level of education provide a higher level of quality care. State licensing changes and the goals of Smart Start are also creating a demand for more education for early childhood teachers.
The North Carolina Division of Child Development reports that one-quarter of all Tar Heel children under six attend some form of childcare. However, fewer than 20 percent of the licensed child care centers in the state have the highest, five star rating. The rating is calculated, in part, on the education level of staff. Half of the childcare program directors and 75 percent of childcare teachers in the state have no degree past high school.
One of the primary goals of Smart Start is to improve the education of, and the support received by, childcare providers. Distance Learning has the potential to be the strong component of that effort by making curricula more accessible.
The North Carolina Community College System is committed to preparing early childhood teachers. The System has seen tremendous growth in enrollment figures over the past year. This fall, we have had a 10 percent growth in enrollment system wide. Many community colleges have reported enrollment growths of over 20 percent. As most of you are aware, this trend is also very evident in the early childhood education programs of study.
The four colleges serving as pilot sites for our first Virtual Learning Community course in early childhood are certainly sharing in that growth. They are AB Tech, the Stokes facility of Forsyth Tech, McDowell Tech and the College of the Albemarle. At COA, growth is pushing 70 percent. This growth poses a challenge for College of The Albemarle who began offering an early childhood curriculum in the Fall 1997. COA had an enrollment of more 600 students in 2000. FTE, or full-time equivalent.. numbers are even more startling…while FTE generated at the colleges has remained level or increased slightly, FTE of early childhood education programs has increased dramatically---20 to 30 percent.
When I look at these numbers, I see tremendous interest in fine programs, dedicated to the welfare of our smallest citizens. And I also see a potential resource for a whole new generation of certified teachers -- teachers our state's classrooms desperately need.
Where are we going to find certified and qualified teachers to meet the escalating need? Already, North Carolina is facing critical shortages as veterans retire, rural teachers move to the city and talented teachers leave the early childhood classrooms for more lucrative opportunities in public schools or private industry.
Certainly, better pay for early childhood teachers helps. However, if the pay goes up in Raleigh, Charlotte or Fayetteville, for example, then chances are that the big city will still be more attractive than the small town to people who have no community ties other than the job.
Many communities have potential teachers on the payroll already, as teacher assistants, cooks, secretaries, drivers, and other staff. These individuals have local roots and experience with children. They need credentials, diplomas, associate degrees, and baccalaureates close to home, on convenient schedules, so they do not have to give up their homes, jobs and family time.
Thanks in large part to technology, we now have incredible tools for eliminating so many of those disadvantages. Each of our colleges is now engaged in distance learning, to the great benefit of our students and of our staff and faculty. The scale and pace of change in distance learning is truly astonishing. Last academic year, the North Carolina Community College System enrolled more than 40,000 students in hundreds of courses taught over the Internet, through broadcast telecourses and two-way video.
Within the community college system, we are beginning to understand that the reality of cyberspace has erased many of the boundaries that have been so much a part of our traditional way of doing business---service areas defined by county lines, for example; and worker training programs separated into for-credit and continuing education when they provide virtually identical content.
And technology is just one of the fast-moving forces helping blur the boundaries between the different sectors of the educational system as well.
Access is a cornerstone of the North Carolina Community College System. We have an open door policy reflecting our commitment to provide universal access to opportunity for North Carolinians to improve their lives and to remove barriers to that access. The Virtual Learning Community is one way that we provide that access.
The Virtual Learning Community is a collaborative initiative of all 58 of North Carolina’s comprehensive community colleges---sharing resources and expertise to expand access to quality online courses and supports services.
Through much of our history, we have defined "access" as physical convenience and flexible scheduling. Every North Carolinian lives within a 30-minute drive of a community college campus or satellite center. Most colleges offer classes at night; many offer them on the weekend.
However, the changing nature of the student body, the drastic shift in the economy, demographic shifts, and the tremendous potential of technology have forced us to reexamine "access" from the perspective of the students we have today, not the ones we had in 1963, when our system was established.
North Carolina’s community colleges enroll more than 760,000 students. The average age is between 30 and 36. More than two-thirds of the students work. Many have families. A growing number speak a language other than English as their native language. Growth in the Latino community is particularly dramatic as the 2000 Census revealed. Quick and easy access to quality education is a critical need.
To meet this access, community colleges are up to the challenge. By spring 2001, every community college in North Carolina had offered at least one online course, and total online enrollment promised to top 25,000 statewide. That marked a growth of at least 50 percent over the previous year.
Distance learning is about opening doors to the opportunities of education and training for people who would not otherwise have them. Technology is a tool to enhance teaching and learning both in the classroom and by distance where it eliminates the barriers of time and space. Technology can empower learners, increase interaction, foster discovery and research, and increase skill applications. The most obvious benefits of this initiative include shared resources, reduced costs, standard course authoring software, and statewide commitment. Collaboration among colleges leverages its potential, as evidenced by the Virtual Learning Community, through the sharing of resources and expertise. Cooperation reduces duplication, instructors from across the system share information, experience and knowledge, incorporating the "best of the best" into each course.
Imagine a more engaging and productive classroom. Here faculty interacts and connects with students on an individual basis. The Virtual Learning Community courses and community college faculty provide online instruction, tools, support and resources to help community college instructors create a superior learning environment. With Project CONTACT and the VLC, colleges can give their faculties the flexibility to choose from a variety of instructional methods and customizable content modules---whatever best fits the way an instructor teaches, and individual students learn. And course content is available around the clock via the web.
We face many challenges with distance learning -- technical support, equipment and funding are just a few. But may I stress that as educators and policy makers, we must recognize that boundaries NEED to blur. We should not let boundaries or obstacles hold us back from serving the citizens whose welfare is our mutual concern.
The North Carolina Community College System is not alone in our efforts in early childhood education. We have established collaborative partnerships with a number of outside agencies including the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center, the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and the Division of Child Development. By strengthening these partnerships, the North Carolina Community College System will be able to successfully prepare a diverse workforce for a global economy.
I challenge each of you to work to build courses using the best research, sound pedagogy and technology. These courses will enhance and expand the resources available to students. Our citizens and students deserve no less than our best.
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