On this past weekend’s “Minding Your Business” on News 12+, the show featured the latest collaboration from the New Jersey Pathways to Career Opportunities Initiative - a continuing effort from NJBIA and New Jersey’s Community Colleges to align education to build an innovative workforce.
Raritan Valley Community College Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Karen Bearce and RVCC Associate Professor of English and Alexa Offenhauer discussed the Essential Learning, General Education, and Career Readiness Collaborative offering students more tools to go from classroom to career.
“No matter what community college we’re talking with and no matter what industry partner, they talk about the technical skills that you need, but at the end of the day they always come back and say, ‘But can you teach them how to communicate?’” Bearce said.
“They will say things like, ‘You know I really wish my employees would come to work on time with a work ethic, that they would demonstrate professional skills’ or… ‘It’s great that they have the tech skills, but can they think creatively? Can they think analytically?’
“And… my provost heart just beats strong because that is exactly what we teach every day in all of these classes, but it’s kind of hidden to the students and so we were like we can do better to be able to really help these students not only get the skills, but then speak to what our employers were saying over and over again.”
NJBIA’s “Minding Your Business” is a weekly TV show and the winner of seven Telly Awards over the past three years, including a gold 2024 Telly in the Interview & Talk Show category.
