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CUNY CareerPATH:Institutional Change

CUNY CareerPATH Preparation for Adults Through

Training and Higher Education

CUNY CareerPATH: Institutional Change

www.cuny.edu

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This workforce solution was funded by a grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. The solution was created by the grantee and does not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Labor. The Department of Labor makes no guarantees, warranties, or assurances of any kind, expressed or implied, with respect to such information, including any information or it’s completeness, timeliness, usefulness, adequacy, continued availability or ownership. The CUNY CareerPATH Program is an equal opportunity employer/program and auxiliary aids and services are available upon request to individuals with disabilities.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Micah Gertzog CUNY Central Office of Academic Affairs April 2015

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CUNY CareerPATH: Institutional Change

In 2011, the City University of New York (CUNY) was awarded $19.86 million through the United States Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant program to offer CUNY Career Preparation for Adults Through Training & Higher Education (CareerPATH), a four-year program aimed at adult students seeking career advancement and successful college transition. The grant provided eight participating CUNY colleges with an opportu-nity to explore new means of supporting these students, and expand CUNY’s capacity as a key agent of workforce development in the New York metropolitan area.

The strategies explored during the grant period were those that the USDOL held up as effective ap-proaches, including: increased employer engagement and responsiveness to industry; new approaches to classroom instruction and student support; and the creation of career pathways which could combine both access to jobs and access to college for program participants. As the grant period draws to a close, the experience has proven fruitful for CUNY students both in the short term – including over 2,600 pro-gram participants, the majority being unemployed – and in the long term, as the methods explored by CareerPATH are institutionalized within programs across CUNY. Our hope is that these examples can assist any CUNY program seeking to prioritize student readiness for the workforce.

Industry partnerships were a fundamental part of the CareerPATH model. Industry partnerships carry the direct benefit of creating employment opportunities for program participants, but also gave CUNY insight into which course curricula would appeal to employers. At Bronx Community College, Career-PATH programming created sixteen partnerships with Head Start and day care programs throughout New York City, and allowed for the creation of new partnerships with Montefiore Medical Center and the YMCA of Queens. At Queensborough Community College, industry relationships created through the grant will allow students in the College’s biology department to pursue internships at Quest Di-agnostics. The employer relationships developed both at Hostos Community College and Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) will be sustained by the continuing education departments. Continuing these and developing new industry partnerships allows CUNY to continue to be a strong link between New Yorkers and New York City’s employers.

1. Increased employer engagement and responsiveness to industry

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Spotlight on: New York City Labor Market Information Service

CUNY CareerPATH was made more responsive to employer demands through the involvement of the New York City Labor Market Information Service (NYCLMIS), a research initiative hosted at CUNY’s Graduate Center for the purpose of giving CUNY programs a strong basis in labor market information. LMIS helps to identify sectors and occupations to be targeted by training, and uses re-al-time labor market information to forecast areas of growth. Grant funds supported this research; allowed for the development of tools that improved training implementation; and funded the creation of career maps and overviews that helped students understand their career options.

2. Access to college and credit articulation to strengthen career pathways

CareerPATH was developed with the understanding that short-term occupational gains would be more meaningful for students if paired with progress toward an associated degree. This was achieved through credit articulation agreements created at participating colleges, whereby students completing CareerPATH trainings would also earn college credit for related CUNY degree programs. As of June 2015, over 1,400 CareerPATH participants have earned college credit through the program’s no-cost training. At BMCC, credit articulation for CareerPATH emergency medical technician (EMT) and direct care counselor/developmental disability aide trainings (DCC) allowed students to bank credit toward BMCC’s paramedic and human services associate in applied science (AAS) degree programs respectively. Use of this model created similar pathways for the College’s non-grant, tuition-funded programs in the same area. At Kingsborough Community College, the articulation agreement created between the CareerPATH Community Health Worker training and the College’s AAS in community health will continue beyond CareerPATH and be built into future workforce training programs.

The wide variety of CareerPATH trainings resulted in many different approaches to credit articulation, but all of them were targeted toward the long-term attainment of a specific degree.

Sample Credit Articulation Agreements

COLLEGE PATH PROGRAM CREDITS DEGREE

BCC Early Childhood Education 3 – 12 Education A.A.S

LaGuardia Community Health Worker (CHW) 8 Community Health A.A.S

Kingsborough Culinary Arts 7 Culinary Arts A.A.S

Queensborough Medical Office Assistant (MOA) 3 MOA AAS

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3. Student support, including advisement and job development services

CUNY CareerPATH was created with adult students in mind, and the grant allowed the initiative to develop support services tailored to these students. These services were chiefly embodied by student advisers and job developers, assisting students with occupational training completion, college access, and employment opportunities. CareerPATH included consortium- and CUNY-wide workshops and conferences for these staff, allowing for sharing of best practices, models, tools, and strategies, and establishing net-works to strengthen these connections at the institutional level. At LaGuardia Community College, other workforce development programs’ student advisers have enlarged their roles to include both program and career success. At Hostos Community College, CareerPATH advisement tools have been adapted by the Division of Continuing Education & Workforce Development for any continuing education student needing support services from the College’s advisers.

Industry Engagement Resources Based on the job development services offered through CareerPATH, CUNY’s Central Office will offer a business engagement guide for program staff, including program directors, job developers, and anyone else who interacts with industry partners. A compendium of best practice and recommendations based on lessons learned through the grant, the guide will be made available online for staff in CUNY programs and nationwide.

At Queensborough Community College, partnership between CareerPATH and the College’s Depart-ment of Biology will allow the College to offer a BI-961 Phlebotomy Practice course for the first time in years. At BMCC, trainings developed through CareerPATH have been packaged to be offered as continuing education classes. Experimental courses developed as part of Bronx Community College’s CareerPATH training are in the approval process to be integrated into the BCC Reading and Education Department’s AAS degree in early childhood education. At the New York City College of Technology, CareerPATH curricula in additive and subtractive fabrication will be offered via the College’s Green Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative. The College of Staten Island School of Business degree program will now offer the PATH entrepreneurship course. These and other examples illustrate the value brought to the colleges by CareerPATH curricula; many of these curricula have been released with Creative Commons licensing and are freely available.

4. Curriculum, instruction, and course continuation

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Spotlight on: CUNY Language Immersion Program Curricula

A cornerstone of the grant program was its partnership with the CUNY Language Immersion Program (CLIP), CUNY’s intensive English as a Second Language (ESL) immersion program. CLIP students traditionally learn English through studying academic topics in American history, literature, and environmental studies. Grant funds allowed for the creation of new CLIP curricula with ESL content developed around an industry and with a focus on careers and work. Over 630 students enrolled in CLIP’s CareerPATH curricula. The curricula developed through CareerPATH will continue to be offered to CLIP students.

Moving Forward

With the formal end of the program in October 2015, the knowledge and expertise gained through CareerPATH can enable further exploration and implementation of the program’s best practices. Areas of potential include:

Continuing professional development and skill building for CUNY staff, including administrators, job developers, instructors, and advisers;

Expanding the breadth and depth of employer partnerships in both workforce and degree programs;

Implementing and supporting best practice with CUNY’s tuition-based occupational and certificate pro-grams, or degree programs with an interest in employment outcomes;

Developing CUNY’s expertise and capacity with other alternative pathways to degree completion; examples may include innovative credit articulation agreements or apprenticeship-track models;

Providing technical assistance and curricula to implement seminars and workshops tailored to adults at other colleges and programs

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