Community and technical colleges play an essential role in their neighborhoods. Tasked with supporting pathways to stable employment, these institutions are a critical piece of reducing local unemployment and supporting the socioeconomic success of their communities. Unfortunately, for many colleges, it’s challenging to update programming and content to ensure it keeps pace with the needs of local employers and key stakeholders. In this interview, Eric Richardson shares his insights on the barriers to relevance for community and technical colleges and shares his thoughts on bridging that gap.

Ave Maria is providing the Personal Selling class based on the GDA Consultative Selling course to provide its college students with sales and business communication skills.  The students are using the GDA Consultative Selling online course as their textbook, and they are practicing the techniques and learning real-world applications with Frank Shepard, Associate Professor of Finance at Ave Maria University.

Twenty-four percent of women say the ability to afford the education required to change careers would make them more likely to take the leap. Second to that, 22% of women identify access to employer-led education and training, and 19% identify access to career coaching/counseling as the opportunities that would make them more likely to pursue this change. 

Richardson held a kickoff event for the organization, the Sales Institute of Southwest Florida, at Keiser University’s Fort Myers campus May 16, where he tasked audience members to engage in an object lesson to prove his theory. Searching Indeed for open accounting positions in Fort Myers resulted in 207 jobs and 258 in engineering. Then a search for open sales positions showed more than 1,700 unfilled jobs and customer service more than 2,100.

Weatherford College announces a new program designed to provide training to local businesses and organizations in Weatherford, Texas and surrounding communities.  Weatherford is an hour west of Dallas-Ft. Worth, and primarily services its district of five counties:  Parker, Palo Pinto, Hood, Jack and Wise.