Awesome alert! There’s still time to check out Amoaka Boafo’s world premiere solo exhibition at the Denver Art Museum.
Meanwhile — it’s popular to diss colleges — but some are working. Community colleges that are vocationally-focused are in demand ;
And stackable vertical credentials work;
All of us will need lifelong upskilling as AI speeds the transition from traditional credentialism to a skills-based workforce. AI is accelerating at an extraordinary pace , coming quickly not just for the lawyers but many other white collar jobs across industries. Your credential will be the living record of the skills you’ve earned and stacked over time —- importantly, including how recently, as recency = value. This move to skills-based hiring and promotion feels slow — then it isn’t .
About 90% of HR leaders believe up to half of their workforce will need to be reskilled in the next five years…… “Skills-based talent strategies are essential, and the clock is ticking for employers across all regions and industries,”
For a skills-first world, we need to move away from our old shibboleth that ‘vocational training’ is less important than a 4-year degree. And in a skills-first world, we need to move to different peformance metrics than completion rates. That’s not how folks use community colleges. Only 16% of all students who start at a community college then transfer complete a bachelor’s degree in six years nationally. Only 13% in Colorado. Only 10% of those with lower incomes in Colorado. :
And that’s OK, as long as they are platforms providing the skills required for family-sustaining careers. Or, as we used to call ‘em, ‘vocations’.
Community colleges are critical to the innovation economy , and are America’s premiere everywhere- engines for economic mobility. Less-flexible higher ed institutions are toooo slooooooow. But community colleges need to be bold — stakeholders should expect massive and fast innovation. Or they may go the way of small town shopping malls …
Back to Denver is still cool.
Message in a Bottle stopped by early on its world tour and is magnificent. Truth be Told is hard, harsh, current — and the actors are phenomenal.
Meanwhile, 40,000 new immigrants have moved to Denver, largely intentionally trafficked from Texas as part of a right-wing strategy to keep the border open for Trump (go see Message in a Bottle). How are Denverites responding? By sacrificing some services to help the new neighbors. Denver women are stepping up. One older woman opened her home yesterday to take in a family of seven who were just evicted from their temporary shelter in Aurora ( where the GOP Mayor only wants to shelter those who have work permits — which the GOP has also made impossible). A group of Denver women helped the family complete the move, and is assisting with legal, medical, transit and all other needs. Why would this woman open her home? She was raised as an orphan from age 3 by a Venezuelan immigrant family. In America.
Of course, Colorado’s community colleges are vital pathways to opportunity for new immigrants.
And here are hundreds showing up at Denver’s City Hall last week to help their new neighbors find a path to work — which is all they want. Sign up to help here.
Hope your city is a Denver, too.
JB - Much to get through here following all links. All good info. Thank you.
Neither of our children completed 4 year college. I forwarded them both this substack and the credentials stacking link. After I get through it all, it will be a good time for a discussion-heavy Sunday dinner.
Our city is not a Denver. I love Denver
Having seen how the folks there are stepping up, I love it even more ! Cheers !