NSCC courses cater to industry trends

By JAMIE JAMIESON

BEVERLY _ North Shore Community College President Wayne Burton couldn't have been happier Dec. 6, the day he cut the ribbon on the college's new Applied Technology Center in the former Kelly Infinity dealership on Rantoul Street in Beverly.

The building is jam packed with specialized classrooms where students can be trained for high-paying jobs in a year or less. The programs might not have been possible had it not been for the active participation of North Shore businesses hungry for trained workers.

Saturn sent over a cut-away car to help train auto mechanics in the latest computerized technology, for instance. And Ricoh and others sent over equipment for the certificate course in office machine repair. The new certificate programs include a course in fiber optic networking technology, and an industry approved curriculum in computer operated machine shop technology.

The curriculum in this new building will change to suit the job market. Where industry feels the need for workers, NSCC will be able to provide training. Hearing there are shortages of fuel oil burner technicians and a growing need for well-trained heating, ventilation and air conditioning technicians, the center is ramping up certificate programs in those areas.

This venture is a new branch on the community college's tree of programs, and it involves a certain amount of risk, Burton acknowledged.

"We're very willing to take risk and make an investment here because we think it's important for the region," he said. "I think it's a partnership that can work."

NSCC seems to specialize in changing with the times and seizing opportunity when it presents itself. A little more than a year ago the school opened its Institute for Corporate Training and Technology at the Cummings Center, just down the street from the new Applied Technology Center. The idea was similar _ train students in the latest technology at the very center of demand, the Cummings Center.

And by the way, in July 1999 the college assumed the administration and management of the College Division of the Essex Agricultural and Technical Institute in Danvers, adjacent to its Ferncroft Road Campus.

If this makes it sound like NSCC has become a vocational school, abandoning it's role as an entry point for students aspiring to earn a college degree, don't be fooled.

At the same time career oriented training has flourished at NSCC, the college has also expanded its honors program, which has sent students on to success at Wellesley, Smith, Williams and Brown, as well as more commonly chosen schools such as Salem State, Northeastern University, and the University of Massachusetts.

Total credit enrollment at the two-year school is 6,285, up by 184 students, an all-time high for the 34-year-old college.

Registration in the college's corporate and community education division programs rose five percent over last year. Approximately 11,000 full and part-time students of all ages now take credit courses in 95 associate degree and certificate programs, and in close to 500 sections of corporate and community education courses.

"I call it our circle of service, from the very high end honors program to technology training to GED high school equivalency preparation," Burton said.

Burton took over the presidency of NSCC in July. Prior to his appointment he served as dean of business at Salem State College, where he was responsible for integrating the regional Small Business Development Center Network with academic programs.

He is also president of the Salem Harbor Community Development Corp., is a past chair of the Salem Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Committee and has served on the Governor's Regional Economic Development Task Force for Northeastern Massachusetts.

More recently, Burton was appointed to the national advisory board of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Burton said he first experienced "linkage between college and business" in his work at Salem State, where he was responsible for integrating the regional Small Business Development Center Network with academic programs. It was there that he deployed the Small Business Development Center as the centerpiece of the Enterprise Center at Salem State, a business incubator linked to academic programs.

"It's something people used to talk about but not do anything about," he said.

He's proud of the new Applied Technology Center and its ability to serve the needs of both students and business. But he's equally proud of the college's recent project retraining about 40 employees laid off from Barry Electric in Lynn. The workers trained for new careers at the Cummings Center campus. "We should be doing more of that," Burton said.

Now is the time to expand non-credit vocational programs, Burton said. "In the context of a low-unemployment economy, we are a primary source of workers," he said.

Wherever there is opportunity, the college should seize it, he said. He steps in at a time when the school has seized plenty, breaking ground on a $20 million classroom building on its Danvers campus, announcing plans to expand its Lynn campus, adding facilities in Beverly, and taking on the added responsibility of managing Essex Aggie.

The school has a broad constituency across the North Shore. It would be easy to lose focus, but Burton has a clear view of the school's mission. It is not a business, he said, though it must employ business techniques to survive. Its purpose is to provide education to those who need it most, and have the least opportunity to get it.

"It's not a business to us, it's a calling," he said.

If the college has a product, Burton said, it is "the degree of intellectual growth a person experiences," a commodity that defies measurement. "Education is inherently uneconomical."

He also has a market that is hard to define.

"As a leader, while I have to focus on a diverse region, I also have a diverse audience within the college," he said. "Sometimes we have to remind ourselves we are unified."

While conventional wisdom in the business world is that "you can't be everything to everybody," Burton said he takes a different view. "I'm proud of the fact we try to be everything to everybody. We have an incredible buffet of programs we offer." That's clearly a challenge, he said, given the scarce resources on which a public community college must survive.

To thrive the college "must adopt business techniques and we're doing that," he said. The growing partnership with business interests is part of that effort.

"It's a wonderful moment in history," Burton said. "Those who believe in personal empowerment" can link hands with the business community. NSCC's students and the industries who want to hire them have a mutual stake in the future. That, said Burton, can be "healthy and productive" for both.