Before examining the details of this significant three-way partnership between two-year colleges, local business and industry communities, and america’s premier technology companies, let’s first consider an interesting feature article from ComputerWorld magazine [13] that delineates the following “10 hot it skills for 2013”:
■ programming and application Development
■ project Management■ help Desk/technical Support■ Security ■ business intelligence/analytics
■ cloud/SaaS■ Virtualization■ Networking■ Mobile applications and Device
Management■ Data center
let’s now consider these much-in-de-mand competencies from the two-year col-lege perspective. because of the three-way partnership, these skills are now taught in information technology programs at the two-year college level. From their onset, america’s two-year community colleges have been key contributors to regional economic development by producing graduates from certificate and associate-degree programs, as well as students who complete retraining, in-service, and lifelong learning programs that are attuned to the specific needs of local business and indus-try. the rate at which new graduates are placed into careers, as well as the extent to which career advancement is facilitated for current employees are common measure-ments of the success of such efforts. obvi-ously, meaningful results for such measures of success require exceptional alignment between a two-year college and its local employer community. Faculty members keep their curricula current and tailor it to targeted needs; they design pedagogy suited to classroom and laboratory activi-ties for students with a variety of special circumstances. institutions are firmly rooted in their local communities, adroit
at adaptation and change, and committed to the community college mission of open access. the 2010 community college completion challenge1 is a national initia-tive to graduate five million more associ-ate-degree and certificate holders by 2020; it speaks directly to sustaining economic growth at the local level [1].
Moreover, beyond the vibrant relation-ships between two-year colleges and their local business communities, the extraor-dinary partnerships between america’s community colleges and america’s premier technology companies contribute might-ily to fulfilling computerworld’s “10 hot it skills.” certainly, for many years com-munity colleges have supplied the nation’s workforce with graduates proficient in the domain of networking, frequently via programs such as the cisco Network-ing academy [3] or the Juniper Networks academic alliance [9]. Many two-year col-leges have now augmented their traditional program tracks in system administration to include coursework in virtualization, often in conjunction with the VMware it acad-emy program [15] and the citrix academic Network [4]. the eMc academic alliance [7], the Netapp academic alliance [11] and the oracle academy [12] support curricula focused on database and storage system management. the rapid proliferation of two-year college programs in it security is
1 The challenge is endorsed by the Association for Community Colleges, Association of Community College Trustees, the Community College Center for Student Engagement, League for Innovation in the Community College, and Phi Theta Kappa National Honor Society.
underpinned by faculty development op-portunities provided by the SaNS Mentor program [14]. community colleges continue to conduct strong programs in computer science, often extending to upper division baccalaureate programs. typically, with a focus on programming content; many community colleges make use of resources available through the ibM academic initia-
tive [8] and Microsoft DreamSpark [10] to support such curricula. in recent years, community colleges have enlarged such programs to include application develop-ment specific to mobile platforms, including support for such efforts from the blackberry academic program [2]. two-year college programs leading to help desk or desktop technical support positions are widespread, and frequently include tracks leading to certifications such as those supported through the comptia academy partner program [5]. additionally, the Dell academy program [6] deploys curriculum and instruc-tional resources to prepare students for the computing technology industry associa-tion (comptia) a+, Network+ and Server+ certification examinations.
this three-way partnership among the foremost technology companies, the two-year college sector of higher education, and the business and industry community is a powerful engine for america’s economic growth and development. community col-leges understand and value the pivotal role they play at the center of this partnership, the conduit between advances in it and the application of it, the means by which individuals acquire “hot it skills,” in turn creating a highly qualified local workforce by which companies satisfy their needs for employees with “hot it skills.” this long-standing symbiosis between america’s community colleges and america’s business community, now enriched by the premiere technology companies, is an extraordinary moment in america’s history – and more importantly, america’s future. ir
References [1] About the Community College Completion Challenge.
(2010). http://www.cccompletionchallenge.org Accessed January 12, 2013.
[2] BlackBerry Academic Program. http://us.blackberry.com/company/blackberry-academic-program.html Accessed January 12, 2013.
[3] Cisco Networking Academy. http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/netacad/ Accessed January 12, 2013.
[4] Citrix Academic Network: Citrix IT Academy Program. http://training.citrix.com/cms/education/citrix-academic-network Accessed January 12, 2013.
[5] CompTIA Academy Partner Program. http://partners.comptia.org/Academy-Partner.aspx Accessed January 12, 2013.
[6] The Dell Academy Program. http://www.dell.com/down-loads/global/services/tnc_ed_dellacademy.pdf Accessed January 12, 2013.
[7] EMC2 Academic Alliance. https://education.emsc.com/academicalliance/ Accessed January 12, 2013.
[8] IBM Academic Initiative. http://www.ibm.com/developer-works/university/academicinitiative/ Accessed January 12, 2013
[9] Juniper Networks Academic Alliance. http://www.juniper.net/us/en/training/academicalliance/ Accessed January 12, 2013.
[10] Microsoft DreamSpark. https://www.dreamspark.com/ Accessed January 12, 2013.
[11] NetApp Academic Alliances. http://www.netapp.com/us/company/leadership/academic-alliances/ Accessed January 12, 2013.
[12] Oracle Academy. https://academy.oracle.com/ Accessed January 12, 2013.
[13] Pratt, M. K. 10 hot IT skills for 2013. ComputerWorld. (September 24, 2012). http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9231486/10_hot_IT_skills_for_2013 . Accessed January 12, 2013.
[14] SANS Institute Mentor Program. http://www.sans.org/mentor/ Accessed January 12, 2013.
[15] VMware IT Academy. http://www.vmware.com/partners/programs/vap/ Accessed January 12, 2013.
Elizabeth K. HawthorneComputer Science DepartmentUnion County CollegeCranford, New Jersey 07016 [email protected]
DOI: 10.1145/2432596.2432605
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