While the American workforce is in a punch-drunk stupor from repeated poundings at the hands of an ill-tempered marketplace, Olive Harvey College President Valarie Roberson has imported programs and courses which are designed to help job seekers rapidly regain their financial equilibrium. The community college is targeting those programs that produce immediate employment or “at least employment after their degrees. Our programs have a 90 percent placement rate,” Roberson emphasizes.
For example, Roberson states, “this semester we brought in a process technology program, where people can gain work in water treatment plants or food processing plants, and where we know that there [are] jobs available and people can make a good wage, as much as $50,000 – $60,000,” following the completion of an associate’s degree.
Roberson also employs creative strategies to attract members of the community to the campus and prospective students into the classrooms. Harvey created a performance and visual arts department with annual spring productions and Roberson added health care courses for aspiring emergency medical technicians. “That’s where the jobs are,” the four-year president says. “As long as we’re offering the programs that help people get employed, it’s a good situation for everybody.”
Harvey also provides free tax preparation at the college and hosts a job fair on the first day of April. For Roberson, who was raised in Chicago, community service provides immense gratification – especially during these dire times. “We’ve had to certainly be more efficient [in] our use of federal dollars and state dollars. But what we’ve been able to do is increase our class size so that we’re getting more students in,” Roberson adds. –terry shropshire
