Representatives from Bellevue College and Washington State University recently traveled to Chicago to meet with local universities as part of their ongoing discussion of a BC/WSU partnership.
Russ Beard, the vice president of IT at Bellevue College, joined Colleen Kerr and other representatives from WSU on the fact-finding foray on Dec. 15-17.
During the WSU-organized trip, the group visited and met with representatives from DePaul University, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Chicago City Colleges. Each institution has different partnerships that the group felt they could learn from.
“As this conversation has become more serious, in terms of the conversations between the two university presidents and the regents, I said, ‘If we’re really serious about this, we need to go and see what else is happening in other states,’” said Kerr.
In particular, they were interested in learning more about models such as the University of Illinois system, which is similar to City Universities of New York. The former has several similarities to WSU, including the fact that both are land-grant colleges and therefore receive state funding and benefits.
The University of Illinois at Chicago also works with community colleges, including the seven community colleges and six satellite sites that make up the Chicago City Colleges.
Leadership from BC and WSU are still working out what the partnership between the two would entail. Kerr said that she couldn’t discuss the specifics of how anything might transfer to the BC/WSU partnership, but that they are jointly agreed that they want to create a new institution that helps students get four-year degrees.
“The whole point is to seek out institutions that may have done something similar,” said Beard. “We’ve established fairly well that no model fits exactly what we want to do, but some bear a resemblance to what we want to do.”
But, Kerr said she did walk away from the trip with many points of inspiration. Specifically, the ‘Colleges to Careers’ program at the City Colleges of Chicago was of interest to Kerr.
Through the program, the City Colleges form partnerships with industry leaders to better align curricula with the demands in growing fields. Bellevue College has informal relationships with local industry leaders to help guide their curricula, but is consistently working on workforce development and developing the right business relationships, according to Albert Lewis, vice president of economic and workforce development at B.C.
In the coming months, representatives from both schools are planning on visiting more colleges from which to glean ideas. The discussions about the universities’ partnership are ongoing.
