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>> Betsy Sykes: We have a caller who joins us from Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill, you are
on the program. Thanks for joining us.
>> Chapel Hill Caller: Good evening. I didn't see the program in total. You might have discussed
this a little bit earlier, but I understood the traditional role of the community colleges
was to consult with local industry, see what the needs were, and reflect that in their
curriculum and train students for jobs that are open in the community. I'm very interested
in the early college high school program, and I understand that it increases the graduation
rates of both the high school and the two-year colleges. But what I'm wondering in this economy,
what happens to the graduates? Are they actually getting jobs? Are there jobs? I know some
communities out in eastern North Carolina where I don't think the community has any
jobs to offer to the schools in large part. I was wondering if that's part of a problem
or you see that as a temporary economic setback problem that will be resolved later?
>> Betsy Sykes: All righty.
>> Dr. Bill Harrison: I think that's probably a good question for the Lieutenant Governor
because that was a big part of the JOBS Commission and the reason for going out across the state
as they did and involving the economic development regions as they did to make sure programs
were developed around the present job opportunities in a community, but also the capacity to develop
specific types of jobs in the community.
>> Lt. Governor Walter Dalton: Well we've seen great success. They are not immune from
this bad economy. It's tough to find jobs anywhere. I can remember its anecdotal I went
to Alamance County where they have an allied health early college. They told me they had
90% of their graduates placed in allied health. So that's a pretty good endorsement of what
they are doing. So I think they've been very successful. They are faring far better, probably,
than other areas in a bad economy because of this training and because of their completion
of this early college program.
>> Betsy Sykes: And when you talk about the regional aspect, so it doesn't become just
a one size fits all, because what works maybe in the mountains necessarily doesn't work
down east in terms of the economy; correct?
>> Lt. Governor Walter Dalton: That's exactly right, and that was one of the charges of
the JOBS Commission. Regional economies differ, and our charge was to go into each one of
the seven economic development regions -- and I made a point. Somebody said early on,
said you know, that's a lot of travel. We can hook you up technologically so you don't
have to make those trips. I said that's fine later on, but I said this first time -- and
I emphasized to the members -- it's going to be very important that you travel into
these seven regions of North Carolina. You need to feel North Carolina. You need to understand
the people of North Carolina. You need to understand their needs. And I said it's going
to be very important to the people of each region because we invited every superintendent,
every school board member, every public official to come to these meetings so we could hear
them and they could hear us, and they would know that not everything is Raleigh centric,
that we are out there to listen to their needs. We want to know what is your regional economy?
Where are you now? Where do you want to be? What can we do to help get you there. It's
also an economic recruitment tool. If we build these things, we build a program in hospitality/tourism,
if we build one in language and global studies, if we build one in allied health, if we build
one in STEM and engineering and we can show companies that we are training students for
those 21st Century skills and we have a unique program that's been nationally recognized,
we should be able to recruit more stellar businesses to North Carolina and keep more
stellar businesses here. So it's been a great program. We're just trying to enhance it and
move it further.