As part of Vocational Month, Dr. Gretchen Riehl, the associate vice president of workforce education at Austin Community College, spoke to us about different programs that ACC is promoting. She gave us a brief history of ACC, which started in 1973, and currently has approximately 40,000 students on 11 campuses. ACC is a leader in university transfers and services 6 counties in the central Texas area.
It has 4 strategic goals:
- equity and access - make it easy and serve everyone
- persistence and engagement- keep students and make sure they are engaged
-completion and transition to employment or transfer to university
- effective and efficient operation and infrastructure
ACC is working with local Austin/Travis County entities on a Master Community Workforce Plan that has the goal of creating training for jobs that need education between a high school diploma and a college degree. There are three focus areas where there a shortage of workers:
-health sciences – ACC has started a bachelor’s degree in nursing, which required a change in Texas law.
-information technology- ACC is working on a second bachelor’s degree in this area
-skilled trades/advanced manufacturing - ACC has started a program through Lanier HS to train and apprentice electricians. It will also be working to set up a bachelor’s degree in advanced manufacturing.
Dr. Riehl briefly described a number of other programs ACC has in place helping to train the next generation of employees in central Texas.