7 minute read
Interview: Brian Ralph, President William Peace University
Brian Ralph
President William Peace University
What do the opportunities for remote learning look like moving forward?
At William Peace, one of our core strategies is immersive learning. Immersive learning is all about how students interact with information in as many and varied ways as possible. In-person learning is what really facilitates immersive learning, whether that is through group projects, undergraduate research, working with external partners and internships.
Technology plays a role in how we create these varied experiences for our students. We’ll look at how to maximize and optimize the use of technology while leveraging the human connection that we believe is critical to learning. One of our major focuses is helping our students learn how to learn because we believe this will be essential in our students’ success after graduating from the university. Our primary mode of instruction will remain in-person but we’ve learned new ways to integrate various technologies.
What factors are influencing strategic planning moving forward?
For one, diversity, equity and inclusion is at the center of our plans. It is one of our core values and we know the future of learning institutions is very diverse. Most of the major school districts in North Carolina are minority-majority schools districts. We want to make sure we’re able to best attract all of those bright and talented students.
We have the great opportunity of being in Raleigh and we want to leverage this. This is a terrific city that is on the move so we’re looking at the many ways our location can be advantageous to students. Our strategic partnerships will be important as well moving forward. We will also look at how to take immersive learning to the next level. Our faculty are unbelievably committed to learning new ways to teach and finding new ways for students to learn and connect with information. We’re really excited as to how immersive learning will look over the next 10 to 15 years.
The welding industry mainly consists of men, but profuse demand is driving women to pursue a career in the field as well.
( ) 13,000 licensed electricians were 51 or older. The state’s plumbers face the same conundrum: barely 3 percent of the 5,500 licensees in North Carolina are under the age of 30. It’s a similar landscape for construction: By 2030, there will be a labor shortage of 500,000 skilled highway construction workers. The North Carolina Department of Transportation’s (NCDOT) Office of Civil Rights has taken matters into its own hands, sponsoring new Highway Construction Trade Academies around the state.
The importance of this industry niche is also made apparent in manufacturing, which employs 472,000 professionals in North Carolina, the ninth-largest in the United States and reigning supreme in the Southeast. By 2024, the American Welders Society estimates the United States will be short by over 400,000 welders in the national workforce.
This overwhelming level of demand is having at least one positive outcome: it is encouraging women in Raleigh to pursue a career in welding, especially now that the profession offers newer, tech-infused and safer equipment than those traditionally associated with the industry.
Orange County is helping persuade more women into the construction and related industries with its Hope Renovations program, launched in July 2020. Hope Renovations is a skilled trades training program directed at women. It graduated its first class in September 2020. Moreover, county commissioners hit the gas pedal for the construction of a second building on Durham Tech’s Hillsborough campus to cater to the fast-growing demand in key areas, including healthcare, IT and skilled trades — primarily electricians, plumbers and HVAC technicians.
In Durham, local elected officials have made workforce development a top priority. County commissioners launched a nonprofit grant program to support community college Durham Tech’s Back-to-Work shortterm training initiative, for example.
Workforce preparation The pandemic did not only cause significant dips in employment across industries, it also made apparent the urgent need to either reskill or upskill large portions of the workforce as companies adapted to the virtual world and the changing needs and wants of their respective consumer bases. This was made apparent in the surge of e-commerce and telemedicine, to name only two of the most prevalent examples.
In a commendable effort toward recovery, UNC Charlotte’s 2021 economic report showed North Carolina was well on its way to recover 99.8% of its lost jobs during the pandemic. Yet, the accelerated tech trends that developed throughout 2020 will require a workforce with a specific skill set to face the Triangle’s future challenges and growth opportunities in the highly dynamic industries that make up its industrial and business fabric. It comes as no surprise then that coding bootcamps have multiplied across the RaleighDurham area, offered by top-tier institutions including UNC-Chapel Hill and Tech Talent South.
The Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund (GEER) also set up WakeWorks Propel, a training initiative to assist residents undergoing a job transition and economic recovery process. It offers scholarships of up to $750 for accelerated, non-degree Workforce Continuing Education courses to obtain industry-recognized or state credentials for high demand jobs in industrial manufacturing, information technology, healthcare, public safety and skilled construction and ( )
Johnson Akinleye
Chancellor – North Carolina Central University
There have been multiple impacts as a result of the pandemic, and we all are coping with COVID-19 in one way or another. Thankfully, all the education providers in our state, whether it be K-12 or higher education, have risen to the occasion. It may have been particularly challenging for the K-12 segment due to the age of students adapting to learn in a completely new learning environment. The online nature of pedagogy can be difficult for some children. Despite this, I do believe that certain adjustments have made it easier to cope with these sudden challenges.
The Triangle region is home to 12 colleges and universities and eight community colleges.
( ) maintenance trades. The overall majority of the courses can be completed in three to six months.
Within the educational space, North Carolina is tackling the teacher shortage by passing Senate Bill 582, which allows people who complete one college semester of teacher preparation classes to become part-time highschool instructors.
Remote learning For a look at what higher ed institutions went through as they went fully remote at a moment’s notice, as well as what to expect going forward, UNC-Chapel Hill provides a good example, where technology staff played a critical role in creating a successful and engaging online learning experience. Learning from the experiences of spring 2020, UNC-Chapel Hill says it was better prepared when classes again went remote in the fall “having worked diligently since last spring to reimagine their fall courses amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” said a story published on the school’s website.
Higher ed IT departments are called to collaborate and work together with faculty to design educational tools that keep students engaged and foster interaction in a remote setting. The lessons learned throughout this process will be decisive when it comes to switching to remote by force to remote by choice.
One positive development of this experience is that now schools can capitalize on the positive and reinforce educational efforts that combine different methods — synchronous, asynchronous, online interactive, inperson and virtual reality applications — and potentially provide cost savings. In the end, digital tools work best when complementing, not substituting, face-to-face learning. These post-pandemic insights on changing the way lessons are taught and learned are poised to fundamentally change how academic institutions plan for, manage, fund and update online education.
The expectation is that the management of online learning will be integrated within academic leadership structures and processes. The previously decentralized and distributed online course development, parallel to student support functions, will become centralized to have better control and improvement capacity over a program’s areas of opportunity, to the benefit of both student and faculty.
Remote learning also means addressing the digital divide and familiarizing students with the technologies, platforms and learning methods associated with it. For online learning to have the desired impact, students will need to be exposed to and learn from online learning platforms early in their academic training to make the most of them. Raleigh’s Digital Inclusion division aims to do just that, particularly through its Raleigh Digital Connectors program. The program provides technology and leadership training for children aged 14 to 18, offering a chance for them to expand their 21st
