 So with that, without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and introduce everyone. So Dr. Irwin Gunchandi, I was trying, Dundani, I'm sorry, Gunchandani is the U.S. National Science Foundation's inaugural assistant director for technology, innovation and partnerships leading to newly established, leading the newly established TIP directorate prior to becoming the assistant director for TIP. He served in various leadership roles at NSF since 2012. It's a long time. Dr. Amy Lloyd is assistant secretary for career and technical and adult education in the U.S. Department of Education. Prior to joining the U.S. Department of Education in 2021, Amy was vice president for Jobs for the Future. And Patrick Burke is the program lead of the American Rescue Plan Good Jobs Challenge at the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration. Prior to joining the Department of Commerce, Patrick served as program officer at ECMC Foundation, we're bringing him very well. And then my colleague, Shailen Jotishi, is senior advisor for education, labor and the future of work. He heads up New America's initiative on the future of work and innovation economy and supports our work around community college's workforce innovation. And we'll be some of your points of contact here on our team. So please welcome our amazing panel and give them a nice round of applause. Well, thanks so much, Iris. And thanks to all of you for making the trek out to DC. It's a beautiful fall day. So if you haven't already, after reception, take a walk down to the White House. It's right down the street. We're super excited to be kicking off this work with you all. And we know as a key part of this work is thinking about, you know, federal opportunities to fund the innovations that you're trying to bring about to align some of those policy changes that we've been talking about with some of the priorities that federal agencies are thinking about. So we're super excited to have this very distinguished panel here today to shed some insight on some of those opportunities that are down the pike. So to kick us off actually, maybe a little bit of a temperature read of the room, raise your hand and it's okay if you don't know, but raise your hand if your college has received funding from the National Science Foundation. Okay, okay. This one's a little bit cheating because hell, but raise your hand if you've received funding from the Department of Education's Octet office, you know, okay, okay, Birkins, not very many. Come on, friends. And lastly, raise your hand if your college has gotten funding or connected to the Good Jobs Challenge, Department of Commerce. Okay, I think I think I take the prize. Everyone wins the popularity contest. So clearly, you know, this community of practice that we're building out starting today, the launch of our cohort already has a lot of alignment with what the work of our federal agency partners are doing. And there's also area to expand that footprint. So super excited to get the conversation started. Wait a minute, I didn't ask my last question. Raise your hand if you'd like more funding. So let's go ahead and get started here. So I'm going to ask all three of our panelists, Erwin, Amy and Patrick to actually just introduce their role and their part of their agency so that we can get a little bit of a level set on on where they're coming from. And maybe we'll start on this side with Erwin and then Amy and Patrick. All right, sure. Well, thanks very much, Shalen, for having me having this panel. It's really a treat to be in front of all of you this morning and to be able to have a conversation with our nation's community colleges. I think one of the things that we often stress at NSF is you are in many ways an untapped treasure trove because of the talent that you bring in, the expertise that you bring in, and what you do to try to train that talent for a variety of different types of jobs and hopefully put them on a trajectory for success themselves as well at all different points in their careers. So really great to be here this morning. I think by the show of hands, many of you know the National Science Foundation. I'll just give sort of the 60 second spiel, obviously, National Science Foundation. It is confusing sometimes because we have foundation in our title. And so I've had many folks say to me, well, you're part of the federal government. I didn't actually appreciate that. But NSF is part of the executive branch of the federal government. We are an independent agency stood up back in 1950. And our mission is to further basic research in all areas of science and engineering sort of uniquely positioned to do that. In fact, unlike our colleagues at NIH or Department of Energy or Department of Transportation, where they have certain mission foci. In our case, it's really about trying to expand the frontiers of science and engineering. And I think duality to that is thinking about STEM education. I think we in many ways view ourselves with all due respect to my colleagues at other agencies as a leader in the federal government when it comes to STEM education and really trying to be able to support research that allows us to better understand how we train, how we learn in the STEM fields, and then to also try to be able to take those learnings and bring them to practice at some level of scale. So that's a little bit about NSF, our budget. Actually, this past year grew appreciably from 8.8 billion dollars to 9.9 billion dollars. It was the single largest growth in NSF 73 year history from year to year. So for all that talk of Washington not being able to get some things done, we can get some things done in a positive way. And we're putting those resources to bear on what I described, research, education and workforce development, and also the infrastructure that we need to be able to support that research and workforce development. And some of that is around capacity building at your own schools and colleges and universities all across this country. In terms of my role then, just very briefly, as I said, I've been at NSF for I guess a long time, since 2012. But I was for many years in the computer science director at NSF. So we are divided up into, historically, it's been seven directorates, each covering a different area of science or engineering, biological sciences, computer science, math and physical sciences, and so forth. There's also a directorate focused on STEM education research and workforce development activities, although that is obviously pervasive across all of the disciplinary areas covered by the directorates as well. But in the last, so for a long time I was in the computer and information science and engineering directorate, served as the deputy there sort of stewarding a billion dollar budget around the frontiers of computing and research and workforce development. But for the last three years or so I've been really focused on the eighth directorate that NSF has now stood up. A new unit called the Directorate for Technology Innovation and Partnerships, or TIP, T-I-P. It is authorized in the Chips and Science Act legislation that Congress passed and the President signed into law last year. And we can get into more specifics I think, but our goal really, and if I had one sentence to describe it, it is to accelerate progress in technology to advance societal, national, geostrategic challenges, climate, clean energy, critical infrastructure, issues of equity or inequity. But to do so in a meaningful way when it comes to harnessing the geography and the demography of innovation that exists all across the country. I think there's a real appreciation within NSF, in Congress, in the administration within NSF, that we need to do a better job of engaging with all of you. We need to do a better job of engaging with every corner of this nation in all different types of institutions to really be able to lift up talent, create opportunities everywhere, and harness that innovation spirit anywhere in the country. And so as we talk about some of the specifics around this new directorate, I can go into more detail around that. And I'd be remiss if I didn't flag Erwin actually joined us a couple of weeks back alongside Deputy Assistant Secretary Brent Parton from Department of Labor and Deputy Assistant Secretary Christina Killingsworth from Department of Commerce for a webinar around how to maximize federal investments in emerging technology workforce development. For those of you who are at the forefront of some of these new areas, so we will include that recording in our follow-up materials as well as just an additional resource. Dr. Lloyd, super excited to have you here. I would love to learn a little bit more about your role and, you know, Octa's work and please take it away. Sure. Thank you. Qashay. Buenos dias, hi everyone. I would be surprised if only the small fraction of you who raised your hands were actually the ones who were only connected to me. I think all of you are connected to the Department of Education, obviously through things like Pell Grants, but I have the honor of serving our great nation as the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education, known as Octa. We do love a good acronym. And Octa, in my work, everything sits at the intersection of education, workforce development and economic development. And I would argue that community colleges in so many ways are the heart of accomplishing all that my office seeks to do, all the change that we seek to engender in the world, all the education and resources and support that we want our workers and learners to have, lead to you. So in Octa, I have the joy of managing two anchor programs. One is the Perkins Program for Career and Technical Education. So I hope that you all are connected to Perkins funding. Okay. I'm seeing more heads nod. That spans secondary and post-secondary. And I know one of the things we can talk about today is more innovative and flexible uses of Perkins. But how do we think about building multiple systems of career pathways that really help everyone to fulfill their endless potential through, start, I have friends who say, Amy, college is a really expensive career exploration program. We want to start earlier. And we need you to really help us shape what career and technical education is and could be, and be essential partners for all of that. And I'll talk a little bit about a new initiative that we've launched called Unlocking Career Success, which again centers community colleges in the United States. So CTE is one of my anchor programs. Title II of WIOA, again, another great acronym, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which funds adult education and family literacy. And I know many of you, because I've been to many of your institutions, also are working in adult education too. So my hope is that you're connected to my work through Perkins or adult ed. The other two big bodies of work that my office leads on policy are community and technical colleges. So if you have not connected with me so that my team and I are coupling with what you're concerned about, we really are here to support you to lift you up. The Biden-Harris administration is all in on our community colleges being the engines of innovation and economic development and workforce development that we know you are. And then the last policy area that I oversee is correctional education. So this includes alternatives to incarceration and kind of the preventative side, supports for people who are incarcerated to receive adult education, CTE, and now with full power in statement for people who are incarcerated this year. We're very excited to have more equitable higher education opportunities for people who are incarcerated. And then of course smoothing that reentry for our returning citizens coming back to our communities. And we know that education and workforce is so essential to the success of people who have experienced incarceration or who are justice involved to land back on their feet. And so in all four of my areas, I feel like, again, you are at the center. And I will say, like we know over half of our nation's baccalaureate holders, myself included, have community college backgrounds on our transcripts. I went to two different community colleges. And I want to make sure that we are telling the story of strength and power. You put the heart in our communities, especially in our rural communities. You are often the hub. I often describe our nation's community colleges. In fact, as a power strip, a power hub, you know, where you plug in a lot of different devices. Like K-12 is plugging into four years in the whole world of transfer, business and industry, community-based organizations, local government. You are the power hub for our communities. And so my role at Ed is to really think about how we can partner better with you and lift up the great work that you're doing and ideally also make sure that we're funding it appropriately or that we're connecting you to innovative and creative, more flexible uses of existing funding as well. So I love my work in Octay and I look forward to the discussion. Thanks so much. And really appreciated the call out on storytelling. I mean, that's also something that we're really trying to build out from this work, which is why we're actually going to do a follow-up blog from this very session. Patrick, onto you, would love to learn about your role at the Good Jobs Challenge. Sure. Thanks for having me. Again, I serve as the program lead at the Good Jobs Challenge. I work at the Economic Development Administration, which sits under the Department of Commerce. And we just heard a little bit about growing departments. So we went from about a 200 million a year agency to in 2022 did about $3 billion in award funding. Just a little growth. Yeah, a little bit of growth considering. So not surprised if you all haven't worked with us before, but we're starting to gain a little bit more traction in the space. And part of that is due to the American Rescue Plan. Commerce has also been a large benefactor of the Chips and Science Act. So happy to talk more about, I'll do my best to talk about things going on it. NOAA related to that, the Chips team going on. We were talking backstage, kind of, I guess backstage, behind that door. In the hallway over there. We were talking about just like all of this strange and kind of eclectic things that the Department of Commerce does from the census to NOAA to all of these different ranging things. But there's a lot of exciting things going on. EDA, obviously we're focused on economic development. Economic development means a lot of different things. Like the thing that we always say is workforce development is economic development. And when those two communities are not talking, it's to the detriment of the folks who live in that region. And for us, that means a whole host of things that we work on. And it's basic infrastructure, building a training facility, building a road to that training facility, water treatment facilities. But it also means workforce training. It also means disaster relief. So we're not the first ones in, that's FEMA, whenever there's a disaster, but we're the next ones after them who come to kind of help think about what is the plan going forward for this community to look like to rebuild that economy. So with the Good Jobs Challenge, I'll spend a little bit of time talking about that. For those who don't know, we had $500 million to award in 2022, which we spread across 31 states in Puerto Rico to 32 awardees. At the center of all of those is some community college a part of almost every single one of those projects. And that's fairly consistent across a number of EDA investments. We have in some cases the system is the lead, so in the case of the California Community Colleges. Sometimes the lead of that grant is the actual community college, this is in the case of Miami-Dade College or Illinois Central College or Dallas College. Or in other cases, they're the backbone awardee, as is the case in Chicago with the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership, where the training provider is Olive Harvey College and they're the backbone leading the transportation distribution logistics program. And in other places, if they're not any of those, they're certainly a training provider. So I think that when we're using a sector-based approach, we know that community colleges are going to be connected at some point. And the opportunity in which we're not doing that is a missed one. So we're happy to share more about the work that we're doing, not just at EDA but across commerce. But happy to pass it back to you. Fantastic. Super helpful, Patrick. And actually a perfect tee-up for my next question. As you all know, part of the cohort is really thinking about how we can enact these institutional level policy changes to better align the workforce offerings at colleges with regional economic development work, sector-based strategy, tech-based economic development, whatever that might look like in your community. So my next question for our panel is, all of these colleges here are going to be spending the next 18 months or so thinking about how to better align their workforce portfolio, credit, non-credit, how it may manifest at their institutions to regional economic development needs. Each of you outline some of these priorities and even funding opportunities. But if we could talk a little bit more about your agency's vision for aligning workforce development to economic development and some funding opportunities and opportunities for engagement for community colleges to fit into that vision. And maybe, given the theme of the question, we'll start here this time with Patrick. There's just a host of different opportunities that exist right now at the Department of Commerce. I'll start with EDA. Well, first of all, good jobs challenge part two was put into the president's budget. So obviously we don't know where that will land eventually, but the hope is that we have an opportunity to do that again. In terms of the other programs that exist at EDA, the big ones that folks have probably heard of recently were tech hubs in re-compete. Tech hubs is an opportunity to increase global competitiveness in some of America's cities across the country in specific high growth industries. So recently, just I think a week or so ago we announced those initial designees which we're really excited about. The other program is the re-compete pilot program and that program is designed to find high need cities and locations that have the opportunity for growth. And what that means is trying to close particularly the prime age employment gap, so that 25 to 54 age range and finding those highly distressed communities that can benefit from significant funding to close that gap. We're in the midst of that review process now, those applications just came in. But I think the key things to remember and to consider with those programs is that as we've seen in the Good Jobs Challenge, these are oftentimes the early stages of these applications and the idea that all of the partnerships are fully coalesced at the time of the application submission as folks who likely submit many federal applications know there is still time to get involved with these various partnerships, even if you weren't a part of the first phase of the application process, I think it's good to look up what is the things that have been designated in your region or your area or who submitted a recompete application for your area and see if there's a way to also get involved in these large projects. Tech Hubs is about 500 million, they were appropriated for 10 billion, so the hope is that more and more Tech Hubs funding is still to come. Recompete is $200 million, so still also another significant amount of money. There's also exciting work going on at NOAA. So NOAA, for those who don't know are doing some really exciting coastal climate work, also in the good jobs front, and that application is still open through November. So if you're looking for opportunities to get engaged and you're on a coastal area thinking about clean tech, energy, climate resilience, that's an application that is still open for a couple of weeks still. So keep that in mind. And then kind of the biggest thing at the Department of Commerce is chips. I'm sure everybody has heard to a certain extent about that. We have really thoughtful people on that workforce team at CHIPS. For those of you who know Rachel Lipson, she wrote a book about how community colleges are the engines of America's economy, and she is a part of that really thoughtful workforce team. So I think more and more information is to come out about that work at commerce and with CHIPS. So those are just some of the key exciting things, but I think like we have a number of different priorities that have rolling programs as well. So those are kind of our big marquee things, but as I mentioned, like we want you to think of EDA as an opportunity to partner on a whole host of things. Whether there's been a recent natural disaster that's come to your region, or you're looking to build that road, for example, that you just can't do with the state and local money. The good thing about EDA is we have a pretty good ground game. We have an economic development representative in the territory. We have regional offices as well across the country. So if you don't know who your EDR is, for example, that's probably a good person to get to know, because they're really interested in focusing on what are the needs for your community, and they're from that area or in that region, so they know the partners and players. So I think that those would be just some things that encourage folks to learn more about. Very helpful. Amy? I can say that I joined the administration because Secretary Cardona is deeply committed to career-connected education for all. And because the Biden-Harris administration, especially with the incredible investing in America work that we have from American Rescue Plan, Chips in Science Act, Inflation Reduction Act, Biperson Infrastructure Law, we have so much exciting funding in the system right now for workforce development. And if economic development is workforce development, it's going to be a huge contribution to our education. And I would argue, like the foundation for our nation's vitality is what we're doing in our education system to connect all learners and all workers with meaningful career pathways. And so the secretary in our early conversations charged me with helping the agency reimagine the educational experience that our P-12 students go through to better prepare them for success in life beyond. And it's not just about unlocking career success. It's connected to career and technical education as the foundation, but it's our vision for reimagining high school across the board. And frankly, community colleges, you have to be partners in every aspect of it. We have a vision that Secretary Cardona really sees as the opportunity for our lasting kind of transformation and education, especially while we're in the wake of the pandemic, things are still a little malleable. I was hopeful that that radical disruption would be a big part of it. And I think that's what we're doing. We've had long-standing deep inequities by race, by class, by gender, by geography, by ability to disability status. Whole host of intersectional identity elements have influenced people's access to opportunity and the pandemic deepened and widened those, but also shown a light on it. And so we're recognizing we need to make sure every single student in our country, while in high school, ideally through dual enrollment in partnership with you, ideally their first math class, their first English class so that they don't get stuck in those cycles of DevEd that we all know are so hard to emerge from. So how do we circumvent developmental or remedial education? Let's back that into high school. And ideally two career and technical education courses or something connected to students' career aspirations. So how do we strengthen dual enrollment across the country? And I know our community colleges are increasingly focused in your, oh yeah, okay, more hands than Perkins. Okay. And so how are we reimagining community colleges as spaces that are blurred between high school and post secondary for high school students to engage in? So that's first and foremost, two meaningful real world hands on, hearts on, minds on, work based learning. And how are our high schools partnering with you and partnering with business and industry to create a continuum of work based learning experiences so that our students can get out of that vicious cycle of needing to have work experience to get a job but needing a job to get work experience. And how do we make sure that students in high school are starting to expose themselves to intergenerational networks of social capital places where they can demonstrate their knowledge and skills in practice ideally paid work based learning experiences so that it's more equitable so students who have to work to help support their families are able to engage in an entry level after school job that's not connected to their future aspirations and how does that work based learning then connect in high school to what students can do with you and community colleges. How are you continuing that deepening exposure and engagement in the world of work? Three, industry credentials, short term credentials. I imagine this is something that will come up in our conversation today is how do we think about the wonderful world of short term credentials, literally over a million of them now in our country. Not all are created alike and I often think that employers sought credentials not employer recognized credentials because employers might recognize that are over a million credentials are those the ones that are real proxies for the skills that employers are seeking that they're putting on their job descriptions that are really going to be something that allows our students to broker their skills in the labor market and enter with some confidence knowing that they have what it takes to get a first job and then four and this is frankly in many ways meaningful post-secondary and career advising, navigation supports so that students can make and their families can make real choices about their futures it's all about self-determination how can students and families know the labor market, know their passion and interest in how that intersects with their future prospects we know that good jobs, good jobs require post-secondary education beyond high school increasingly and into the future that will only continue to accelerate but what we're trying to do is elevate the role of the sub-baccalaureate space the powerful, rewarding world of workforce credentials of our community and technical colleges of pre-apprenticeship and registered apprenticeship programs and help our students and families see that as a first-class option to a really rewarding and joyful future and so dual enrollment, work-based learning industry creds and career and college advising are the four keys that we see every single high school student not just those who are in great CTE programs and should get and should be building institutional affiliations with our community colleges while doing so and so then we think about how we ensure that our community colleges are connected, we think about the transfer challenges that many of you are probably content with and how our students navigate the complexity of our higher system in general but we're starting with where we have every single student which is in our high school space and really need community colleges to be leaders and active partners in that work and if anything all of this has to be reverse-engineered from business and industry, from our employer needs and we know that even the best real-time LMI never mind the traditional labor market information from Bureau of Labor Statistics that doesn't capture the full array of the federal investments from investing in America quite yet because most of that's lagging or based on the technology that pulls from job descriptions online, the economy is radically shifting has radically shifted, the world of work has radically shifted and how are we ensuring that we're not just using these great LMI sources but also thinking ahead to what students opportunities will be given the funding that's coming through investing in America out to every state and out to every community and so really thinking about how our community colleges play again that power hub role to help everyone come together around a shared agenda to make sure that learners and workers are prepared for the future and that they have permeable pathways and multiple systems of on-ramps and off-ramps over their lifetime to engage with you because it's no longer the you go to school, you go to college, you get a job you retire the end, it's back and forth learning and work over one's lifetime in ways that even my generation and certainly my parents' generation did not experience but my daughter, absolutely she's going to change occupations 15 times over her lifetime industry sector is 5 to 7 times over her lifetime and you are going to be the ones who are going to be helping her on her way and so I think about how do we create a more sustainable responsive education workforce ecosystem so that we really can be more responsive to economic development. Perkins foundational funding formula goes out to states, states determine how it's allocated across post-secondary and secondary from state to state, there's a lot of variability in how that's done and then how that's funding is used, there's a lot of variability too and there's a ton more flexibility in Perkins than I think most states are actualizing, would love to think with you creatively and then we also formula funds and then states compete on the adult education side for that funding and many community colleges are recipients of the adult education and family literacy funds, many or not, I would love for more community colleges to play roles there and then I can talk about other grant opportunities and things but I could also take it the whole time so I'm going to pass it over to Irwin. Yeah, really really great Flagster Dr. Lloyd, just a couple of call outs, we have at New America our partnership on advancing youth apprenticeships in which we can build out the best of dual enrollment with the best of apprenticeship programs so if any of your colleges are interested in resources around youth apprenticeships come find our team after we can connect you with PIA, we also have an upcoming event at Trident Tech College around building community college capacity to be apprenticeship intermediaries that's a free event, this is a super cool project that our community college team is working on so thinking about the themes around work-based learning and employer engagement I just wanted to flag those two resources up as we kick off our cohort work and I think the last piece you mentioned Amy around jobs of the future and thinking about emergent sectors and regional innovation is a perfect segue for Irwin quick show of hands because I'm a nerd I know this off the top of my head but how many of you are part of the regional innovation engines program at NSF if you know a handful so Irwin would love to learn a little bit more about how NSF has been building the capacity of community colleges and regional innovation, workforce development for some of these new emerging tech fields can I actually ask a question also can I get a show of hands how many of you are familiar with the NSF ATE advanced technological education program that's kind of what I was expecting so I think that what I'm going to say actually largely builds on a lot of what Amy and Patrick have already said I think you're going to see a lot of similarity in some of the themes that have been articulated so far especially I cannot agree more about this notion that first of all to answer your question directly Shailen in the case that workforce development drives economic development period hard stop full stop and we need to recognize that more so in this country we need to acknowledge that and then based off of that we need to take the steps that we can to incentivize and drive that pathway forward so if you take that as sort of a bedrock then I think some of the principles that I just heard Amy articulate for example the notion that it's no longer a pipeline it's much more about pathways individuals all of us in fact we come and go in terms of our touch points with education and sometimes we might be engaging with the community college sometimes we might be going to work sometimes we might be engaging with a four year university back at a community college I mean those touch points and that those pathways if you will I think are something that we need to be also mindful of and cognizant of when we think about how we're laying out investments across the country to be able to enable some of that you know the other thing that all stresses NSF takes great pride in the investments that we've made in programs like ATE driving forward curricular innovation instructional material advancement teacher professional development how do we train the trainers if you will to get folks ready to be able to teach the students we take great pride in that but I think a lot of that is concentrated on just the community college and increasingly we need to recognize that the community college is a part of a broader ecosystem for that local community for that region and how do we support that entire ecosystem and really ensure that the community college is seen as a visible leader in that particular space and so I think that's one of the things that's sort of part and parcel of how we've been thinking about the tip directorate and how we've been thinking about the variety of programatics that we're trying to deploy through the tip directorate so you mentioned the regional innovation engines program you know even before I get there I'll say that for us in tip we sort of have three key pillars that drive our portfolio of programs and investments that we're trying to pursue one is about trying to be able to enable a set of diverse regional innovation ecosystems all across this country and when we talk about diverse right it means diverse in every sense of the word including the types of institutions that are engaging and participating in these ecosystems you know we have programs around that I'll talk about the engines program in just a second but our goal there is to recognize that when we think about some of the pressing technological competition that we have here in the US when we think about some of the societal challenges that we have at the end of the day they take on a variety of different flavors in different parts of the country you know if you're in Nevada for example you're sitting on a lithium mine for instance and that could potentially be a competitive advantage for your region as it has been for one of the engines awards that we've already funded today development awards in a way that is unique and special about that particular ecosystem that we're trying to cultivate and if we can think about these sort of regional hubs that we can lay out all across the country that becomes sort of these hubs of excellence championing R&D, championing workforce development, championing sort of what is the innovation potential for that particular region all of a sudden you can start to really have a transformational impact in terms of economic competitiveness for that region but then that all integrates together the whole is greater than the sum of the parts comes together for a national level economic competitiveness as well and really positioning the US in a way that you know harnesses that full diversity that is sort of our unique lifeblood if you will our unique competitive advantage at the end of the day so regional diverse innovation ecosystems is one pillar the other is around technology development and technology translation we know we have programs that NSF has stood up years and years ago the SBIR program startups and small businesses right the I-Corps program trying to provide entrepreneurial education to talent well again when we think about who's in those startups who's got those entrepreneurial ideas it doesn't just come from a research laboratory it comes from all different corners and it comes from some of the talent that's at your community colleges technical schools all across this country and so creating the pathways for them through our technology portfolio I think is also incredibly important and that's where for us partnerships is sort of a critical word it's in the title of the directorate it's in the name of the directorate for a reason and over the last year we've built out partnerships with Intel and with Micron and with other companies in the private sector because it's critically important that as we think about curricular innovation we think about how we're training the talent we're doing it in a way that's industry relevant and industry current something else that Amy mentioned a few minutes ago as well and then the third pillar for us is really a focus pillar around talent creation and workforce development and here and throughout our portfolio it's about meeting people where they are so many folks think of the National Science Foundation as an agency that supports graduate students because we support research and university labs all across this country. Please keep thinking of us that way that's great but please also think of us as an agency that supports talent creation at all levels at the K through 12 level at the community college level at the four-year university level at the grad level and then also back to something else that was said on this panel at the adult and continuing education level as well right so if you look then at some of the programatics Shailen back to your question we have launched over the last year the regional innovation engines program it actually spans all three of those pillars although we often talk about it in the context of diverse innovation ecosystems but the engines program is really about trying to be able to pull together broad and diverse coalitions that are inclusive of community colleges that allow us to be able to figure out what is that region's competitive advantage what is the secret sauce for that region what are schools and institutions in the private sector and startups and nonprofits in that region really thinking about and could potentially coalesce together and then could significant funding from NSF each one of these engines could be to the tune of 160 million dollars over 10 years 160 million dollars over 10 years is a lot of money right it's not and it is at the same time but 160 million dollars together with together well we would all take it individually but together with together with sort of a framework that speaks to the importance of inclusive partnerships the importance of putting your eyes on a particular prize in terms of that region's competitive advantage thinking through as well how are we going to not just focus on fundamental R&D but translational R&D how are we going to spawn startups and how are we going to make it easier for the flow of people and talent from a university to a company and vice versa right all of those principles as part of that framework together constituting a regional innovation engine that can really become the lifeblood of that community and provide for economic mobility to individuals all across that community over a period of 2, 5, 10 years and longer you know when I talk about the engines program folks often say well is this going to be Silicon Valley in different parts of the country and if we're thinking about it through that lens we have already started from a not ideal starting place right because you have different characteristics that compose each region of our nation and we need to understand what's sort of the basis set for a particular region and how do we scale from there and recognize that where I might get to in 10 years in Wyoming could be very different than where I might get to in 10 years in Northern Virginia but we're trying to be able to essentially lift up and create those hubs of excellence if you will in these different parts of the nation we have funded 44 regional innovation engine development awards these are planning grants for up to 2 years of support a million dollars each covering 46 states and territories of the US including Puerto Rico including the Virgin Islands and so forth and we hopefully later this fall we'll be announcing later this winter we'll be announcing a number of engines awards full on engines awards $160 million over the next 10 years or so you know I think one thing that we did uniquely here even before we launched the engines program we did listening sessions and round tables and focus groups with minority serving institutions so we had one with HBCUs we had one with HSI we had one with tribal colleges and universities and we had one with community colleges and technical schools as well and some of you may have taken part in some of those sessions at the outset as well and our motivation there was to really try to learn from you all about what are the pain points how do we create a funding opportunity of this scale and scope that allows you all to be active participants rather than frankly second-class citizens which often happens and all too often happens and so one of the things that we took away from that was what we did with the funding opportunity even before you get to a proposal stage we asked for short concept outlines from each region and we got close to 700 concept outlines covering every state and territory of the US and we published those concept outlines for everyone to be able to see why did we publish those concept outlines believe me it was not easy getting that past our legal team as good a legal team as we have but it's the first time NSF has ever done that we did that with intention because we wanted to be able to put everyone on an equitable playing field to be able to say that I'm a community college in this region and you're a four-year university in this region and you both have interest in sustainable energy you both have put in for concept outlines well rather than compete with one another let's partner together and let's worry less about who's the lead and let's worry more about do we have all of the key components that you need to be able to create a vibrant economic ecosystem and front and center in that for us is our view around workforce development it's threaded all through the funding opportunity for the engines program the other program that I'll highlight I'll stop talking because I guess I could go as two unfortunately but the other program that I'll highlight is a program that we call excellent experiential learning for emerging and novel technologies built a little bit off of ATE but our focus here really is getting back to something that Amy said the impetus that we need to have around apprenticeships, internships work-based experiences practical opportunities for students and really talent not just students but talent right one of the things that's unique about the excellent program at the end of the day is I don't have to be enrolled at a community college yet I don't have to be enrolled at a four-year university I can become a part of a cohort for a particular region that a community college university for-profit company have stitched together and and my goal as part of that cohort is to be able to get some experience in industry or in a government setting for instance and leverage that experience to essentially do that pivot it excites me it motivates me and now I have enough of a basis set to be able to go off and pursue a certificate or pursue a baccalaureate degree or pursue some other kind of degree or certification or other program that allows me to become more marketable myself as a candidate for a future job prospect or even through that internship or apprenticeship opens up the door for that job prospect down the road as well and so we just announced a few weeks ago an investment on the order of about 20 million dollars in maybe even more than that in on the order of about 20 or so projects all across the country regional consortia supporting excellent internships apprenticeships practical experiences for talent so I hope you'll see that sort of threaded through all of this for us is this really intentional focus on you know it's great that we have a program like E and I'm a huge fan of that program so please don't take what I say is any kind of a slight but I think it's important for us to also find ways to not have programs that are just for the community colleges but to help you become a part of that regional innovation economy and ecosystem that we're trying to cultivate and that's sort of how we're trying to intentionally think about some of these investments through tip brilliant super super insightful and I should say you know for a cohort as you all consider engaging with these different federal programs please let us know how we can be helpful at new America and generating resources listening sessions are modules that we'll have in the spring and leading up until the summer we actually plan to go a little bit deeper on what it might look like to build out the kinds of partnerships that Irwin was referencing in his comments and particularly in this innovation economy segment that's an area of work where we're actually building out some dedicated resources for community colleges so you know we're all ears for today and here on out so alright we have about 15 minutes left so I'm going to do a rapid round of questions and then we'll actually have a Q&A period we have two mics we have one mic up here and one mic towards the back please feel free to blind on up if you have a question but first let's get another round of insights from our panel let's see we've gone left to right right to left let's go middle out this time in the spirit of Biden economics building the middle class that's right so you know Amy you talked about Perkins and you know some folks in the room are familiar with Perkins while decisions around how to allocate Perkins money may vary you know depending on state I'd love to hear your perspective on how colleges can make sure they're maximizing Perkins funds if they already have it or if they will in the future what are some innovative ways that you've seen colleges use Perkin funds to advance a workforce mission in alignment with the economic development big picture absolutely from your second question you asked a little bit about the non-credit credit side and I know in our community colleges we often have the workforce side of the house and then the gen ed side of the house if I could wave a magic wand that would be one house and that we would stop using the term non-credit and instead use the term workforce I mean if I am a student going to a community college like I when I was 19 I got my EMT certificate from a community college that helped me because I dropped out of my four-year program that helped me get a job pay my rent, figure out who I was I had no idea where it sat within the community college context and then I went on to a different community college and earned both gen ed and CTE classes but again I had no idea where it sat in the community college context because nobody talks you through this is on the non-credit this is for credit I would love for our community colleges to build more permeable systems across non-credit and credit and Perkins is an interesting vehicle that can help you do that you can use Perkins for short term credentials you know are not title for eligible otherwise so that's one thing to bookmark and think more about and call me and talk to my office about how you might be creative on that front because I'm seeing lots of eyes go really really last week October 26th caught off the press 24 pages of a program memo I'm sure you all have read it right we released some guidance last week for states to consider because next year 2024 Perkins state plans are due we OS state plans are due these are written every four years and in these plans states determine things like post-secondary allocation and we have a whole section in here on how to reimagine more equitable post-secondary allocation which by and large is premised on Pell eligibility which is great but there are some states like California, Delaware that are proposing alternative post-secondary formula determination to be more equitable to include things like you know TANF or SNAP recipients Medicaid recipients different promise communities like just thinking differently about the students you're serving and making sure that you are representing them in a way and as we're thinking about blurring the lines between high school and community college I would argue that we need to increase our community college allocation because you are increasingly serving our high school students so if you do not have a seat at the table for your state how you're thinking about the Perkins funding allocation and just how you're thinking strategically about Perkins when these plans were written four years ago it was just as the pandemic was kind of bubbling up or not even existent yet so pre-pandemic worlds changed a little bit since then the economy's changed a little bit since then how we think about education and training and workforce development has changed since then all the you know remote hybrid approaches thinking about the industry sectors we're focusing on in the role of innovation now is the time for community colleges to exercise tremendous voice both in the WIOA plan and in the Perkins plan because what was submitted four years ago is no longer the reality in which we all live now and it's not going to get us to where we need to go in the future I don't know about you but in the past like six months I've learned so much talk about life long learning learned so much about AI for example in fact I was just at the World Economic Forum earlier this week talking about AI and the implications and education like TAG is driving us to think differently and we have to be more nimble and responsive to help not only all of us as leaders in these systems but our students in our communities really stay at the leading edge here and so we're really encouraging states through things like 24 pages of scintillating reading to think differently about Perkins and to think about how you can combine or align Perkins and WIOA so that as we're thinking about education plans for a state we're thinking about workforce plans for a state we're connecting those two and I really see you at that essential intersection of those two as well similarly on the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act side of things and adult education and family literacy but also the Title I programs thinking about eligible training provider lists and all those sorts of things there's a lot of conversations that you should be at the table here so while I don't have any new sparkly funding other than I just closed a new grant competition called Career Connected High Schools which builds on the four levers for unlocking career success very excited it was one of only two and the other is focused on student success in post secondary so like both very relevant we received a lot of applications for this grant proposal the President put in his budget a request for $200 million Congress gave us $25 again the President put in his budget request tuition free community college I don't know if you saw that also a big discretionary program on community college workforce so we really are doing our best to continue to center community colleges and we look forward to working with Congress on any sort of short term power work that they choose to continue to put forward which is bipartisan and exciting but the new Career Connected High School grant opportunity just closed and that will be building out proof points of how community colleges, high schools and business and industry can create that ecosystem that Erwin was talking about to really lead all students to brighter futures and so we're looking forward to funding that and continuing to grow that but I would really look to our funding in Perkins and Weohua as sustainable funding for you to think differently and more creatively about so there's a lot of opportunity there call me let's talk super super helpful I will be adding those 24 pages to my metro ride reading list here we go I will take it actually page 15 talks about post-secondary allocation page 15 it is