Community Colleges key to new markets

Editorial from Greenville Daily Reflector, September 4, 2013.

North Carolina Commerce Secretary Sharon A. Decker recently told The Daily Reflector the state’s ability to meet the needs of emerging manufacturing industries is a key component for continued economic recovery. Critical to meeting those workforce needs, she said, is a strong community college system.

Pitt Community College is among the strongest community colleges in the state. Maintaining that strength, however, means the school must keep up with demand resulting from record enrollment growth brought on by the economic recession.

“We’re now seeing some growth in the manufacturing sector and a very high level of interest among companies trying to return manufacturing to the U.S.” Decker said just before the Labor Day weekend. She said the workforce has some catching up to do to take advantage of emerging opportunities in the manufacturing market.

Customizing training for such employment opportunities is one area in which the state’s community colleges have been working to meet the need.

“As we talk with the respective manufacturers, that is turning out to be a true asset and advantage that the state has,” Decker said. “…We are working cooperatively with colleges like Pitt Community College. We are rethinking our whole workforce development strategy. As good as it is, we know it can be better.”

Pitt County taxpayers can help keep that momentum going by voting in favor of a bond referendum on Nov. 5 to fund the construction of a new science building and the renovation of an existing facility to be used as a basic law-enforcement training center.

The growth on the PCC campus has been highly visible over the last decade with new classroom buildings, student centers and sports facilities seemingly sprouting from year to year. Yet with all that growth, the college has not kept up with an unprecedented rise in student population.

For all of its strength in academic programs, PCC ranks last among the state’s community colleges in per-student space available. That reality belies the college’s ambitious planning for the future. When PCC President Dennis Massey drafted a master plan to guide future construction in 2005, the onset of the so-called Great Recession was still three years away.

Asking voters to approve a tax increase during hard economic times is a difficult order. But if PCC is to help position Pitt County and the rest of the state to accommodate the promise of an emerging manufacturing market, it must first be able to accommodate the influx of students working toward meeting the workforce demand.