Remarks by H. Martin Lancaster, President
North Carolina Community College System
HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
TRAINING ACADEMY
Durham, North Carolina
February 8, 2001
The Human Resources Program has since its inception in 1969 played a vital
role in meeting the economic and workforce development mission of the Community
College System.
HRD's role is even more important today in serving unemployed and underemployed individuals across the state who are struggling to deal with the stark transitions taking place in the NC economy. And even more today than in 1969, HRD programs are crucial to the business community who list finding a qualified workforce as their number one barrier to growth and profitability.
When HRD started as a pilot initiative at Lenoir Community College, no one thought the program would reach the level it is today, not even the skeptical Lenoir Community College President, Ben Fountain, who later held my position as System President. Six months after training 183 unemployed individuals, and helping 78% of the graduates find work, his skepticism disappeared, as he told one magazine, "The program brought in people who would never have come to college on their own initiative. What surprised us even more was that they could go out and get to work right after only eight weeks of study."
HRD staff have been providing these types of pleasant surprises since 1969, too often with little recognition. Within just the past 5 years your enrollments have increased by 74%, and FTE have increased by 21%, all of which has occurred with little to no increase in your funding.
Taking HRD to the next level, a goal which I share with all of you, will require additional infrastructure such as higher funding and salaries, a goal which will have to be years in coming given the current State budget crisis. But there are many things that you and I can do today, to enhance the effectiveness of HRD as one of the most vital cogs in the State's workforce development System.
One of the first things I have tried to do is provide clear emphasis of the important role of HRD within our Economic and Workforce Development mission, to make sure your program is fully integrated with our workforce development efforts, and to try and initiate an "anti-complacency campaign" with respect to our overall workforce development goals.
At the System Office, our main step in doing this was creating the Economic and Workforce Development Division almost two years ago, and making sure that HRD was a key part of this new Division. Barbara Boyce is now one of the valuable program directors in this Division, and in addition to insuring that the needs of the HRD program are served, she is doing an extraordinary job in working with the other program directors to position HRD as a key linkage in our overall workforce development system, a place where it should always have been.
While we have not had major successes yet with funding, we have this year provided funding through the State Board for development of a Manufacturing Readiness program, tied to the new Manufacturing Certification Program. And plans are in place to ask the General Assembly for authority to next year provide $100,000 to the HRD program, through House Bill 275, for further program development initiatives.
These of course are little steps along the way, but through these steps, we hope we will develop bigger strides in helping HRD leap to the next level.
Some of the things that we believe will be important in reaching this next level include:
- Promotion of HRD as a valuable partner, not only with other community college program areas such as continuing education and New and Expanding Industry Training, but with other state agencies. One of the clear linkages should be with the JobLink Centers around the state, one-third of which are located on community college campuses. Many of you I know are integrally involved in these efforts, regardless of where the Centers are located. For those of you who are not, I encourage you to pursue this partnership vigorously. JobLink is the link for providing one-stop workforce development services to the State's citizens, and as much as any program that we have within the Community College System, HRD is closely linked to JobLink.
- Promoting HRD as a first step in the pathway to new careers in emerging areas such as manufacturing and information technology. Through such programs as the Manufacturing Readiness program, HRD can provide a seamless linkage to industry certification programs and then to curriculum degree programs, enabling people to start down a career pathway, one step at a time.
- Rebranding HRD with a new name and identity. This is something we intend to continue pursuing but will probably not be able to accomplish until next year given current budget problems. HRD was ahead of its time in many ways, including the name. Human Resources Development has become synonymous with the personnel staff in most organizations, including some of your colleges. This often creates confusion for clients in reaching your programs, and sometimes for all of us in describing the program to others. As HRD is revitalizing as a program, we hope sometime next year to explore further revitalization with a new program name and logo.
- Study of the new role for HRD. As North Carolina's workforce development needs have changed over the past thirty years, HRD has responded in kind. In many ways, HRD serves the increasingly important clientele of the underemployed as well as the unemployed. However, the program structure, particularly in terms of funding formulas have not kept up with the changes and I feel are deserving new study to insure that the program, and its structure, remain responsive to the times.
I'm pleased that during this meeting, we will recognize the vital role of HRD Directors and staff in the workforce mission of community colleges, and acknowledge many years of service, which for Larry Love at Alamance Community College, Wanda Prince at Caldwell Community College, Christine Allen at Guilford Tech, and Terry Garrison at Vance-Granville, dates back 20 years).
In moving forward, it will be important for all of us to have the patient commitment from Directors and staff that have been exhibited by the program pioneers, many of whom will be recognized today. It will also be important that we remain open to the changes sweeping our economy and opportunities for further collaboration and partnership with programs both within and outside our System. And more so than anything, taking HRD to the next level will require the passion to help all individuals in the State reach self-sufficiency and independence through training and education, or as Dallas Herring said at the initiation of our System, "to provide the open door to take people from where they are to as far as they want to go."
The HRD program is often the foyer to our "open door" and the quote that you often use to describe yourself has been recently relayed to me, "We do not fit anywhere. We fit everywhere."
In conclusion, I would like to share with you a quote from the past, from Governor Terry Sanford when he proposed the North Carolina Community College System in his 1963 State-of-the-State speech to the General Assembly, because I think it rings truer today in regard to taking the Human Resources Development program, and indeed all of our community college programs to the next level:
You will hear some whisperings abroad saying that we have done enough, have moved well and far and rapidly, and so it is time now to slow down, rest, and catch our breath.
These whispers come from the fearful and those who have always opposed the accomplishments from which they now would rest. This cannot be and is not the spirit of North Carolina.
Much remains to be done, to provide better educational opportunities for the competition our children will surely face, to encourage broader economic development so everybody will have a better chance to make a better living. Now is the time to move forward. Now is no time to loaf along."
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