Community colleges cater to business needs

The role of community colleges has changed dramatically.While these colleges were once considered two-year preparatory schools to get into four-year institutions, now the colleges are technical training centers for people making a career change, companies that want to retrain workers for new projects or individuals who want more training to improve their job skills.
These two-year institutions are a vital part of the community, and community leaders and businesses have become active partners to support and build programs at community colleges, which now have courses tailored to the needs of businesses.
“From 1987 to 1995, 32,040 employees have been trained at one of the Front Range Community Colleges,´ said John Feeley, director of community and media relations for Front Range College at the Larimer Campus in Fort Collins.
“We’ve been a community college here for eight years. Our enrollment has been growing, and we do offer customized training for businesses.”
Front Range has a new campus in Fort Collins, known as the Remington Campus, located in an old school. This site has been open just under a year.
Front Range also has two campuses in Boulder, one in Longmont and the main campus in Westminster.
“We have 47 acres in Fort Collins,” Feeley said. “Last fall, we had 3,129 students here.”
Front Range has a total of 17,000 students a year, 163 faculty and 590 adjunct faculty for all campuses. About 64 percent of the students are women.
Feeley said the Larimer campus has teamed up with a number of businesses on special training projects.
“We did work with Advanced Energy Inc., which was the 1996 Colorado Business of the Year. We were in a partnership with them on a training project. We also worked with Teledyne Water Pik. We did some programs to upgrade the skills of employees. We go on-site to businesses, and we also offer courses to businesses at Front Range.”
Business and industry training is designed to support the economic development of the community. The purpose, Feeley said, is to develop a well-trained work force, improve the organizational performance and bring about change in college curriculum that reflects current workplace standards.
Front Range offers courses via broadcast television, the Internet and audio cassettes. The Larimer campus also has a Small Business & International Development Center to assist small-business owners and startup companies with free individual counseling, workshops, referrals and help in preparing business plans and loan packages.
The center is a subcenter of the Colorado Small Business Development Center and assists businesses with international-trade issues. Two certificate programs are available at the center.
Three new buildings are going up on the Larimer Campus, including a 31,000-square-foot library, which is a joint project between Front Range and the city of Fort Collins for $3.5 million, a new 25,000-square-foot student center for $2.6 million and a new 22,000-square-foot science and classroom building for $2.5 million, plus another $1 million in renovations.
Feeley said that total enrollment increased by 6.8 percent between 1995 and 1996 for all campuses.
Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, with a student head count of 4,044 last spring, also works closely with local businesses. The college has a branch in Laramie and an outreach center in Pine Bluffs.
The college is so closely tied to the business community that it has a small-business incubator right on campus in Cheyenne, with eight businesses using the facility. The Enterprise Center receives support and services from the college at a reduced cost.
“Local businesses will tell you that we have a good relationship with the business community,´ said Bill McCoy, director of information services.
McCoy added that even though the Enterprise Center is used to hatch new businesses and not as a training center for students, the need for creating jobs in Wyoming is thought to be of primary importance. The Enterprise Center is a general incubator for services, production and those who offer a product.
“There are not enough jobs for our graduates, and many of them leave the state,” McCoy said. “Our presidents felt that by helping businesses, we could create jobs and keep people here.”
Wyoming does not have a state income tax, and many people see a need to expand the business base in the state. Jim Lamprecht, director of the Laramie County Enterprise Center and Business Assistance Center at the Cheyenne campus, said, “We have got to expand that base to get more jobs. We have a brain and talent drain from Wyoming. So we think that businesses that start up here will stay here. We are trying to create jobs at a livable wage. We want to create healthy communities and a diversified business base.”
McCoy said the college works with dozens of businesses and has an operating budget of $16 million a year. There are 20 buildings on the Laramie campus in Cheyenne, including an indoor and outdoor rodeo arena.
“We are always interested in finding new students,” he said. “Our enrollment has been flat the last couple of years, which usually means the economy is good.”
The college has a wide variety of programs, including courses in rodeoing, equine studies, professional horse training, courses in food, soil and animal science, plant and animal genetics, meat evaluation, team roping, fertilizer technology and many others. Courses are offered on the Internet.
The college guarantees a student’s degree in vocational and technical programs. If a student is hired for a job he or she is trained for but cannot perform, the school will retrain the student at no expense to the employer.
At Aims Community College in Greeley, about 19,000 students are served annually. The main campus is in Greeley, with 185 acres and 10 buildings. Aims has branches in Fort Lupton and Loveland and also has taken an active role in working with the business community.
“We joined forces with Aims,´ said Lyle Butler, president of the Greeley/Weld Chamber of Commerce, and we now support the Colorado Small Business Development Center at the chamber in Greeley. It acts as counseling, training and seminar center, where businesses can learn how to do business plans, marketing, financing and other things. A lot of the seminars take place at Aims.”
A counselor from Aims is available for business counseling at the center. The chamber also works with businesses and does an annual survey to find out what programs would help companies.
Manufacturing and service industries have grown tremendously in the Greeley/Weld area, creating a need for more employee training. But the cost of four-year schools has grown dramatically.
Butler said the need for community colleges is growing because they fill a vital gap.
“Community colleges keep the costs of education down so more people have access to education,” he said. “Most people change jobs four to seven times in a lifetime, and many people go back to school for retraining. Then the increase in technology has also forced people to go back to school to get more education.”ÿ