FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Contact: Jack Hershey or Tom Walsh
COLUMBUS, OH – This week, Lorain County Community College (LCCC) became the latest Ohio college to partner with a leading nonprofit trade association to engage regional employers in the development and implementation of a new apprenticeship pathway in healthcare.
The goal of the new apprenticeship program is to help fill the healthcare talent pipeline in the region with a workforce that is trained and prepared through experiences developed at Lorain and refined at regional healthcare organizations. In the LeadingAge Ohio apprenticeship for State Tested Nursing Assistants at Lorain County Community College, students earn 15 college credits, receive tuition assistance, have 2,000 paid hours of on-the-job training and have the opportunity to continue training to become a licensed practical nurse or a registered nurse.
“Apprenticeship programs are valuable recruitment and retention tools for employers to use to build their talent pipelines,” said LCCC President Marcia Ballinger, Ph.D.
Lt. Governor Jon Husted, Ohio Department of Higher Education Chancellor Randy Gardner, LeadingAge Ohio President Katherine Brod and Ohio Association of Community College (OACC) President Jack Hershey were among those who participated in the event.
The partnership with LeadingAge Ohio, who represents 400 long-term care organizations and hospice centers, is an apprenticeship program colleges are working to replicate with other statewide employer organizations. Over the past year, a growing list of partnerships have been created with Ohio’s community colleges to help put students on the pathway to new careers. For example, OACC is partnering with the Ohio Hospital Association and the Ohio Realtors Association on how colleges can develop new programs and curriculum specifically to build their workforce needs. And, Ohio’s community colleges have been working with the Ohio Manufacturers Association to increase apprenticeship opportunities that will help address Ohio’s manufacturing workforce shortage and skills gap.
“We face a wide gap between the number of college-educated adults in today’s workforce and the number that businesses need, so we have been engaging with a number of state business associations in order to better understand the types of policy changes their employer members feel would help solve their workforce shortages,” said Jack Hershey, OACC president and CEO. “As we roll up our sleeves to work on these problems, we felt it was absolutely imperative to listen to employers and engage with statewide groups such as the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, NFIB- Ohio, the Ohio Association of Realtors, LeadingAge Ohio, the Ohio Hospital Association, and the Ohio Manufacturers Association. The growing partnerships we are seeing today are a direct result of that effort.”
For many years, community colleges have worked to meld academic instruction and apprenticeship programs that allow students to complete an associate degree while participating in an apprenticeship, or to complete a degree after an apprenticeship.
“We know the importance of linking students up with employers in their field of study is key to improving success and completion of degrees,” Hershey said.
The OACC and the Ohio Department of Higher Education have developed statewide agreements in curriculum design with various trade apprenticeship programs approved by ApprenticeOhio and 23 community colleges. Through the Ohio College Apprenticeship Consortium, participating students can receive tuition reimbursement for completing some apprenticeship programs in occupations in demand locally such as advanced manufacturing, information technology and healthcare.