Political Outreach and Community Engagement are Key to Demonstrating Your College’s Value
Written from an interview with Joel A. English, Executive Vice President and Kenneth Cooper Alexander, Chancellor, Centura College, Aviation Institute of Maintenance, Tidewater Tech
Career colleges must have a strategy for demonstrating the value they bring to a community, and that includes reaching out to politicians, decision-makers and others to tell them what they do.
Joel English, vice president of Centura College, Tidewater Tech and the Aviation Institute of Maintenance or AIM, said the last thing he wants their schools to be viewed as is just another business in town. “I would rather be seen as a solution for the town and a solution for the businesses in town through workforce development,” he said.
The best way to do that is by joining organizations and becoming active in the community, English said, noting that they are members of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU) and the Central States Private Education Network (CSPEN). For the last several years, he has also directed his campus directors to invite governors, senators, congressmen, and state and local leaders to their campuses.
Even former Virginia State Sen. Kenneth Alexander, before he formally joined the schools this year as chancellor, had been to their campuses a dozen times in the past, English said.
Alexander said they try to make the community aware that their schools are no different from any other schools in the quality of their education or staff, or in their commitment to the community or their students.
He said a career college’s outreach must be political because the schools need to reach out to those who are elected, appointed or in positions of authority since they make decisions that impact the sector. “But more importantly, those decisions impact and affect students,” Alexander said.
So that means they invite the governor, congressmen, senators and state and local politicians to campus for various meetings or activities. Repeatedly.
English said he invited local, state and federal politicians to his campuses many times prior to Alexander beginning his new role on Feb. 1, 2021, and that he had some success. But they are having more success with Alexander as chancellor since he can reach out to his network, which is more powerful, he said.
“We share our story, our outcomes, our mission, our goals, our values, our vision,” Alexander said. “They will find that we share … a lot of ideas and goals in common.”
But you also need to create an ethos, that authentic relationship between those stakeholders, Alexander said.
“It’s that trustworthiness, it’s that believability, it’s that known quantity,” he said. “Deploying that ethos will allow the awareness to take place, the invitation to take place, and the visit to take place.”
Once people come, see and confirm what you do at your colleges, they realize that those students thrive in entry-level positions and become important citizens in their community, he added.
But the key thing that has helped them demonstrate their value to the community and political leaders has been always striving to do the right thing, English said.
Be ‘beyond reproach’
“Be the kind of organization that is beyond reproach,” English said. “It is my duty and responsibility to be beyond reproach in everything I do. I have a reputation and a record that is so impeccable, that Elaine Luria, a newer, younger congresswoman who represents the veterans in my district says: ‘I like that place. I like how they’re treating veterans. I’ll stand up for that school because I saw with my own eyes something truly good there.’”
Other legislators have made similar discoveries. For instance, U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Virginia, chair of the Committee of Education and Labor, as well as Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and both U.S. senators who represent Virginia, recently visited their schools to talk not only to other stakeholders in the community, but also faculty, staff and students, including their students who are veterans.
“Congressman Scott spent some quality time with our veterans, listening to their stories (and) what led them to the Aviation Institute of Maintenance,” English said. “They all said it was the right decision at the right time, not only for their education, but also for their wellness … or mental health. They found community at our organization because we provide the right services that cater to the veterans’ needs by having a Veteran Center.”
At times the schools use those meetings with legislators to address regulations or legislation that potentially could be harmful to the career education sector, such as the Higher Education Act and the 90-10 rule.
“Joel and I have both made ourselves available to (Congressman Scott) and to his committee to speak on behalf of the good schools, not only our schools,” Alexander said. “We made ourselves available to speak on legislative issues that concern not only career colleges and schools, but higher education in general.”
That dialogue is important because of the “bad actors,” or those schools that gave the entire sector a bad name for their high-pressure recruiting tactics, high default rates on student loans, inadequate educational standards and more, he said.
English said they are not an institution that is out for its own profitability, but instead are out for the profitability of the student, the workforce, the state and their state institutions.
But that is easier said than done. It takes honesty, openness and collaboration, Alexander said.
“Other schools (shouldn’t) run away from the good (they) are doing,” he said. “There’s a void. We have stepped up with our own resources to respond to the demands of employers, each and every day.”
But they are also nimble, Alexander said. “We respond quickly, in lightning speed,” all while being good corporate citizens.
“(English) sponsors everything and everybody, every organization, every activity,” Alexander said, from donating 1,000 backpacks so students in the Norfolk area can start school and be ready to learn, to donating groceries or other necessities during the pandemic. Several of their aviation schools have also been used by federal pharmacies to be a COVID-19 vaccination clinic in areas where there previously had been no clinic, he said.
They even opened up their schools to student athletes so they could practice, warm-up and get ready to play in the NCAA conference championship tournament, Alexander said.
English said when they heard the Norfolk Fire Rescue Department was having an issue with the students in their fire rescue academy being able to pass the program, they agreed to help at no cost. Those students now attend a basic skills class for at least two weeks at Centura College, and learn a bit of math, English, reading, study skills and anatomy, and Centura offers a tutoring program for those who need a little bit more help.
We just said, “Hey, let us help because we win when there is a better-trained fire and rescue staff,” English said.
“So why do we do what we do?” Alexander asked. “Because we care. It’s the right thing to do. And we will stand up each and every day, very proudly, boastfully, on our record.”
‘Great days at work’
The two have many examples of “great days at work.” Like when AAR hired an all-female cohort of aircraft mechanics at its Miami facility, and more than half of them were trained at AIM campuses. Or when the first female, Savannah Taylor, signed up for their new wind turbine technician program, which started in January at Centura College.
They also support organizations such as the Safe House Project, a 5-year-old organization based in Virginia Beach, Virginia that works to help children who are sex trafficked each year. English now serves as chairman of the board for the organization, which has set of goal of earning $1 million in charitable contributions this year to put directly into building safe houses and rehabilitating survivors of sex trafficking.
“There are over 350,000 American children who are trafficked each year,” English said. “And that is unique individuals each year. When I started hearing about this, I thought that has to be in awful places, on continents where we don’t live.”
But those places are in the states and cities where we live.
“As a citizen, I have a responsibility to say ‘no’ to something awful,” English said. “But as a school administrator, I have the opportunity and responsibility to have an impact. I have schools all over the country … I have an opportunity to actually step foot into my schools and say, ‘Look, we’re going to be aware of this.’”
English said the Safe House Project developed online sex trafficking training in 2020 that takes only one hour to complete called OnWatch. The training is narrated by survivors of sex trafficking.
“It’s this incredibly powerful way to simply let my employees, my staff and my students be aware of the signs of sex trafficking,” he said.
English has committed to 100% of his faculty and staff members completing the OnWatch training this year, and calls it “the best money” that he will ever spend by paying employees for taking the training.
“Who knows?” English said. “I may have a staff member who is able to make a call that saves a child. I may have a faculty member who makes an impact on somebody’s life.”
In fact, when they announced the OnWatch Safe House Project at one of their schools, a prospective student overheard them talking and said that she was a victim of sex trafficking when she was younger. She said: “I’m just putting my life back together. I’m trying to rehabilitate myself for educational purposes. I think I found where I need to come to school.”
The OnWatch training is free to anyone, and can be viewed at safehouseproject.org. There is also a link for more information.
Service learning should be embraced
English said the sector, to his knowledge, has never done a survey on community engagement and service learning. Service learning has been embedded in the public university setting since the 1970s, but the career education sector overlooked it until recently.
Service learning can be very impactful to students, English said, citing an example of their carpentry students building a gazebo for a senior day facility a few years ago. “I watched the students see the senior citizens and enjoy giving so much with what they were learning,” he said.
That’s when the light bulb went on in his head. While they have always given to their communities, they really hadn’t involved the students before.
“So I immediately said … I want everyone to have service-learning projects, where we can count the hours that our students are giving and build it into the program” for all 19 campuses of their schools. That philosophy has meant that aviation program students are building clipboards in their sheet metal classes for hospitals since they can be sanitized much easier than other materials, and HVAC students are installing new HVAC systems in churches and senior homes.
More recently, Tidewater Tech’s HVAC, electrician and carpentry students are helping to maintain the USS Wisconsin, an enormous battleship parked in the harbor in downtown Norfolk. The HVAC students will be creating a new ventilation system and the electrical students will be rewiring the entire battleship.
“Talk about the coolest service learning of all time, it’s these students right here,” English said. “They get to say, ‘Yeah, I cleaned the ship. I worked on the ship. I rewired a battleship today,’ and that’s pretty awesome.”
Future of career education
English said he foresees a trying four to eight years in the career education sector. “We will have to demonstrate our value through being good at what we do and being great in our communities.”
If they are to excel, career colleges must be completely needed by the businesses that hire their graduates, he said.
If you ask the major airlines, they will tell you that community colleges don’t give them the volume of certified mechanics that they need so they must rely on schools such as the Aviation Institute of Maintenance, English said. The same can be said for other employers in the fields they train such as wind turbine, welding, HVAC, medical assisting and dental assisting, he added.
“One of my edicts to my campuses is (that) every program has a service-learning component where the students give to the community of the skills they’re learning,” English said. “Service learning and giving to the community creates an essential organization (so that) … people like Elaine Luria, Tim Kaine, Mark Warner and Bobby Scott are willing to say, ‘I saw a good school today.’”
Alexander agreed with English, and also said the American Jobs Plan offers the sector opportunities.
“I do believe over the next 10 years, and more importantly, in the four years of the Biden administration, that the $2.7 trillion American Jobs Plan is promising for career and technical schools,” Alexander said. “The goal of the plan is to build back better, and this is not only building new, but also rehabilitating and retrofitting affordable houses and buildings, making them more accessible and energy efficient, and building resilient housing and commercial buildings and schools and infrastructure. In the American Jobs Plan, it is clear that a lot of the skills that are needed … will require the certification or the accreditation that career schools and colleges provide.”
“We can provide the tools and the resources, and we can produce the students,” Alexander said. “And we can respond to the call to rebuild America under the president’s American Jobs Plan. (Career colleges) should be discussed as a vital part of making that plan a reality because we have demonstrated time and time again that we can rise to the occasion in the future.”
JOEL ENGLISH is the Executive Vice President of Centura College, Aviation Institute of Maintenance, and Tidewater Tech, where he supervises all operations over the 19 campuses across the country. Dr. English served as a Commissioner for the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC) for six years, serving as the Chair for two years, as well as chairing the Distance Education Committee. In previous positions, Dr. English served as the CEO for the Ohio Centers for Broadcasting, Illinois Centers for Broadcasting, and Miami Media School, a family of schools dedicated to technical education in radio, television, and internet media broadcasting. He also oversaw distance learning and school operations at several campuses as a Regional Director and Executive Director at Centura College, and he was formerly an Assistant Professor of English and Distance Learning at Old Dominion University. Dr. English published Plugged In: Succeeding as an Online Learner through Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, as an extension of his dedication to supporting student success within online courses and programs. Dr. English holds a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from Ball State University, and an M.A. and B.A. in Technical and Expository Writing from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Contact Information: Dr. Joel A. English // Executive Vice President // Centura College, Aviation Institute of Maintenance, Tidewater Tech // 757-456-5065 // jenglish@centura.edu
KENNETH COOPER ALEXANDER serves as Chancellor for Centura College and Aviation Institute of Maintenance where he oversees policy development and provides direction for its institutional mission, core, values and vision while leading external affairs for nineteen campuses across the county.
He was elected Mayor of the City of Norfolk in 2016 and reelected for a second term in 2020. A native of Norfolk and also president of Metropolitan Funeral Service, he began his public service career more than two decades ago. Before his election as mayor, Dr. Alexander served in The Senate of Virginia where he was a member of the committees on Commerce and Labor, Finance, Transportation and Privileges and Elections.
Before his election to the Senate, he represented the 89th District in the House of Delegates from 2002 until 2012, serving on the committees of Commerce and Labor, Education, Privileges and Elections and Rules. He is a member of the Greater Norfolk Corporation and an alumnus of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership. Dr. Alexander began his community service as president of Berkley’s Beacon Light Civic League and Beacon Light Community Development Corporation.
A 1985 graduate of Lake Taylor High School, Dr. Alexander holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Old Dominion University and a master’s degree in Diplomacy from Norwich University, and a doctorate in Leadership and Change with Antioch University. He has served as a lecturer in International Relations, and the focus of his studies and research includes: Servant Leadership and Community Organizations, the Politics of Higher Education, and Political Citizenship in Representative Democracies. His first book, Persistence: Evelyn Butts and the Fight for the Rights of a People is scheduled for release on May 31, 2021.
Dr. Alexander and his wife, Donna Burnley Alexander, have two school-aged sons, Kenneth II and David.
Contact Information: Kenneth Cooper Alexander // Chancellor // Centura College, Aviation Institute of Maintenance, Tidewater Tech