About Us
The Center for Workforce and Economic Development, organized within the AACC Office of Economic Development, brings together community colleges, offices of economic development, workforce boards, labor market entities, and other community organizations to improve the economic prosperity of business, workers, and communities. The Center provides technical assistance on collaborative practices, labor market analysis, and performance analysis in order to promote more integrated and interactive practices.
Mission: Build community college capacity to better align priorities, strategies, and resources with those of workforce and economic development partners in response to regional labor market needs.
Goals:
- Improved economic prosperity of workers, business, and communities;
- Increased use of best practices as common practices;
- Enhanced community college leadership role in building and sustaining high quality programs and services supportive of regional economic growth strategies.
At the local and regional level, the Center works to achieve long and short term results. The long term vision for the Center is that community colleges will have an effective system for creating and sustaining collaborations. The Center also develops practical information and recommendations that inform and influence policy by senior officers in all arenas: community colleges, economic development entities, workforce boards, business and labor leaders, as well as the news media.
More immediate results include a compilation of promising practices and models that provide a guide for collaboration among community colleges, workforce boards, and others; progress toward an improved competitive position for colleges to take advantage of public and private funding opportunities; and an increased number of partnerships moving toward more effective and sustained responses to changing workforce needs.