NASHVILLE, Tenn. — When the Kentucky Community & Technical College System (KCTCS) wanted to get a better understanding of the partnerships its 16 colleges had with business and industry, it launched a systemwide “mapping” initiative in spring 2022.
The idea emerged during discussions on how to get more out of partnerships, according to a panel of system and college leaders speaking at a session this week at the American Association of Community Colleges annual convention. KCTCS leaders noted that with business and industry support, colleges can provide robust career exploration opportunities, support industry-informed skill development, foster institutional advancement and ultimately improve employment outcomes.
To grow and expand these relationships, KCTCS and its colleges had to first identify and understand with whom they are working and the breadth of the partnership activities, according to the panel. Without this information, it was difficult to coordinate and communicate any targeted outreach.
But there were challenges to get that info. Keeping track of any partnership records with businesses wasn’t easy, and there was significant overlap in partnership activities across student services, academics, workforce development, and advancement.
That’s when the employer mapping plan came in. The goal was to provide a high-level holistic view of how companies work with the system’s colleges. All 16 colleges established “external engagement teams” to identify transformational partnerships.
Including all departments
The initiative started with a survey conducted by each of the 16 colleges to identify existing employer partnerships, said Jessie Schook and Khyla Smithers from KCTCS. Schook is vice president of workforce and economic development, and Smithers is a workforce technology strategist.
The system office used Salesforce to record all data into a single database, which is updated and maintained quarterly.
How data are collected at the campus level needed to be addressed. Even understanding how many and which employers served on advisory boards presented a challenge. Employer engagement is something that occurs at the campus level within various departments and by multiple individuals within departments.
But ensuring each department is involved is critical to understand and report an accurate overview on engagement, said Scott Williams, president of Owensboro Community & Technical College. He added that relationships are no longer seen as discrete departmental assets, but as cross-cutting relationships in which the entire college and system have a vested interest. The asset map provides a better window for interdepartmental collaboration.
What’s a transformational partnership?
Likewise, defining transformational partnership was tricky. The ultimate definition became those relationships that had a mutual goal, Schook said. An employer simply hiring students has the potential to be transformational, but it could be seen as just transactional, she said. Ultimately, the decision was to use Strada research and 22 categories (identified by Strada) to define relationship types.
The efforts so far have moved the needle. At the campus level, some colleges deliver weekly reports at cabinet-level meetings on plans to recruit new relationships and sustain current ones, Williams said. The goal is to break down silos, and work towards both horizontal and vertical alignment. Also, the system provides its data to colleges and employers to help them understand how they are already engaged and how to deepen their relationships.
Since implementing asset mapping and engagement teams, KCTCS has identified more than 3,000 transformational partnerships, as well as significant growth opportunities, according to the KCTCS officials on the panel. Teams at the colleges and at the system office have adopted a unified business service approach to conduct partnership outreach, assessment and intake, and maintenance.
Next steps
With the growth of data, strategic planning is now shifting to identifying gaps in services and areas for growth. This includes assigning career advisors to students for their entire stay at a college and developing experiential learning opportunities.
The overall goal is to answer how much is being done in partnerships, how well it is being done, and to identify the return on investment for the companies, according to the panel.
The theme throughout the partnership discussions has been that the work is about cultural change, noted Sid Hill, provost at Madisonville Community College. At the campus level, bringing everyone together — moving from a “my” to “our” mindset in terms of relationships — takes time and effort, he said. Breaking down silos is the goal.
Adding scalability and sustainability to stakeholder relationships is also part of the goal. Smither said that going forward, in addition to maintaining the database and gaining a broader understanding of these relationships, the system will survey how employers feel about partnership activities and how they value them.
