Los Medanos College is in the process of getting fully on-board with an educational program known as the New World of Work. According to their website, the program aims to meet the, “essential employability skills required in our emerging global economy.”

Faculty and staff have created a “think tank” to determine the best ways to implement the program into LMC and is among over 50 California community colleges to do so since the program’s founding in 2012.

Workforce Development Counselor, Camille Santana helped to pioneer the think tank which appears to still be in the early stages.

“I am passionate about this curriculum and having it accessible to all students as these 21st Century skills are going to help students obtain and retain quality jobs that are going to pay well,” said Santana. “More and more jobs are being lost to Automation and Artificial Intelligence.”

New World of Work initially got feedback from companies and came up with a list of 10 competencies and attributes, also known to the organization as the “21st Century Skills,” employers have had trouble finding.

The ten competencies and attributes the New World of Work organization is trying to harvest according to their website are: “Adaptability Digital Fluency, Analysis/ Solution Mindset, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Collaboration, Empathy, Social/Diversity Awareness, Self-Awareness, Communication [and] Resilience.”

With the main concern being workforce development, Santana showed deep interest in the coursework.

“The curriculum has been intentional about identifying the skills that are least likely to be automated which is very important to me and our students’ success and longevity in the workforce,” said Santana.

Rachel Anicetti, Director of Transfer & Career Services at LMC and member of the think tank showed excitement with regard to the opportunities the program, which gives badges that link up to social and professional networks to help make participants more attractive to recruiters.

“LMC wants to prepare our students for the life outside of college as much as we can, and supporting them in developing skills, and training them in how to speak about these skills to employers,” said Anicetti. “That’s why we’ve brought a group of faculty and staff from across the college together to work towards the goals of integrating 21st Century Skills into the campus.”

Moving forward, the World of Work Think Tank hopes to conduct some focus groups to gain feedback and find some of the best ways to tackle these challenges.

“The think tank is in a fairly early stage of development, and we’re still in the stage of developing outreach and partnership strategies with the rest of the campus,” said Anicetti.

The World of Work Think Tank will be meeting every third Tuesday in CC2-222 from 4 to 5 p.m. For more questions contact Camille Santana directly at [email protected].