It’s Charlotte week! In honor of the Institute for Emerging Issues’ October 15 ReCONNECT to Economic Opportunity Forum in Charlotte, the First in Future podcast takes a week-long sit-down with some of the Queen City’s thought leaders. Listen in every day this week for a thought-provoking conversation on the future of economic opportunity in North Carolina.
Across North Carolina, our 58 community colleges are designed to be within a few minutes’ drive of every person in the state. They have a broad core suite of services: degree programs, technical training, ESL, high school degree completion, and continuing education. They send some people out ready to transfer to four-year schools and accept some people back from four-year schools to get additional skills. Community colleges are a critical part of our state’s retraining challenge. If you’ve been paying attention to the work of the myFutureNC Commission, that challenge involves raising up an additional 400,000 adults by 2030 with an education credential beyond high school.
That is the kind of challenge Dr. Kandi Deitemeyer, president of Central Piedmont Community College, has been thinking about for most of her adult life. She has worked in community colleges in Florida and Kentucky, and before moving to CPCC, she worked in three smaller community colleges in North Carolina — Davidson, Moore and Pasquotank counties. What do all those places have in common? A responsibility to get people in their area the knowledge and skills they need to succeed.
