Clark State Community College President Dr. Jo Alice Blondin will serve on the keynote plenary panel at the American College Testing (ACT) Workforce summit in Austin, Texas.
The plenary session on Thursday, November 9 will cover the Role of Credentials in Closing the Skills Gap. Leading workforce development credentialing experts, including Blondin, will discuss the importance of incorporating credentials that measure and validate competencies and skills mastered into educational programs of studies.
“I will address the ‘supply chain’ of higher education and how we add value for our students so they find gainful, meaningful employment and can provide for their families,” said Blondin, who also serves as president of the National Council for Workforce Education. “In other words, I will talk about which strategic alliances that community colleges must pursue in order to add value for their students—we can no longer expect that the degree and the degree alone guarantees successful employment and/or a successful graduate.”
The Panel will also share information on the new, innovative Credential Engine, designed to bring clarity to scaling and maintaining a web-based Credential Registry that—through software apps built on the registry’s data—enables job seekers, students, workers and employers to search for and compare credentials, just as travel apps are used to compare flights, rental cars and hotels. In addition, information on the Lumina Connecting Credential initiative, currently supported by over 120 organizations, will be discussed including the crosswalk of the ACT WorkKeys NCRC to the Framework.
Blondin said Clark County just became the second county in Ohio to receive the “Workforce Readiness” designation from ACT. “I have been involved in communicating the importance of ensuring that the county has the trained workforce to make our service area an attractive place to locate a new business and retain our current businesses,” she said.
The national ACT Workforce Conference runs November 8 - 10, 2017, at the Hyatt Regency in Austin, Texas. ACT is a mission-driven, non-profit organization dedicated to helping people achieve education and workplace success. ACT is a trusted national leader in college and career readiness, providing high-quality assessments grounded in nearly 60 years of research.