Miami Dade College (MDC) has been selected to participate in the American Association of Community College’s (AACC) Right Signals initiative, supported by a grant from Lumina Foundation, to identify and develop a model for recognizable credentialing to be utilized by students, colleges and employers nationally.
“Students have many avenues to achieve the skills necessary for obtaining well-paying jobs in the current economy,” said Holly Zanville, strategy director at Lumina Foundation. “It is critical that these skills and credentials are universally recognizable to students, colleges, and employers.”
The credentialing marketplace is highly diverse. Students enter the workforce with educational degrees, certificates, professional and industry certifications, apprenticeship certificates, digital badges, licenses, and other micro-credentials, which are obtained through traditional schools, online courses, Start Spoken workplace training, the military, IT boot camps, and more. In addition, some community college students begin in a non-credit program, earning an occupational certificate or industry certification, with interest in transferring to credit-bearing courses.
Each of those credentials uniquely attests to what students know and are able to do. Community colleges must operate in the highly diversified and constantly adapting intersection of their students’ varied credentialing pathways.
“Credentials and acquired skills are valuable to both students and employers,” said Walter G. Bumphus, AACC’s president and chief executive officer. “This work has the potential to provide a national system of recognizable credentials across all sectors and users making it possible to quickly identify completed courses of study, learned skills, skill mastery, continuing education credits, and other types of credentials.”
About the AACC
As the voice of the nation’s community colleges, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) delivers educational and economic opportunity for 13 million diverse students in search of the American Dream. Uniquely dedicated to access and success for all students, AACC’s member colleges provide an on-ramp to degree attainment, skilled careers and family-supporting wages. Located in Washington, D.C., AACC advocates for these not-for-profit, public-serving institutions to ensure they have the resources and support they need to deliver on the mission of increasing economic mobility for all.
About Lumina Foundation
Lumina Foundation is an independent, private foundation committed to increasing the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees, certificates and other credentials to 60 percent by 2025. Lumina’s outcomes-based approach focuses on helping to design and build an accessible, responsive and accountable higher education system while fostering a national sense of urgency for action to achieve Goal 2025.
About MDC
Miami Dade College is the nation’s largest institution of higher education with an enrollment of more than 175,000 students. It is also the nation’s top producer of Associate in Arts and Science degrees and awards more degrees to minorities than any other college or university in the country. The college’s eight campuses and outreach centers offer more than 300 distinct degree pathways including several baccalaureate degrees in education, public safety, supervision and management, nursing, physician assistant studies, film, engineering, and others. In fact, its academic and workforce training programs are national models of excellence. MDC is also renowned for its rich cultural programming. It is home of the Miami Book Fair International, Miami International Film Festival, the MDC Live! Performing Arts Series, the National Historic Landmark Miami Freedom Tower, a sculpture park and a large art gallery and theater system. MDC has admitted more than 2,000,000 students and counting since it opened its doors in 1960.
For more information about the Right Signals initiative, please contact Dr. Jacqueline Hill Associate Provost, Academic Affairs, 305-237-7601, jhill@mdc.edu.