I am Jeff Rea, your host for Economic Outlook.

Welcome to our show.

We hope you make plans each week to join us as we discuss the region's most important economic development initiative, career and technology.

Education can give your child what's needed to succeed for life, technical skills, academic skills and employability skills.

In addition, for a technical education of students, see how their learning applies to the needs of employers.

We're taking a closer look CTE in Southwest Michigan with an eye towards how that could fuel economic growth.

Coming up on economic outlook, K-through-12 schools in southwest Michigan and their higher education partners are working hard to give students hands on technical experiences to better prepare their students for future career success.

That work has employers excited and will fuel economic growth in the region.

Joining me today for discussion about those efforts are Chris Machiniak, the assistant superintendent of career and technical Education, and Berrien RESA and Jeremy Burleson, the associate dean of regional campuses at Lake Michigan College.

Welcome, gentlemen.

Welcome.

Thanks for having us Yeah, guys, thanks.

Thanks to having you here and appreciate that.

Some great discussion.

We've talked a lot about technical education, how important it is to the community.

We want to really highlight some of what's going on in southwest Michigan.

So I appreciate you both being here for that.

Chris, let me come your way first for somebody who's not familiar with Berrien RESA.

Tell us a little bit about what it is.

So Berrien RESA is the Regional Education Service Agency for Berrien County.

We we work with our districts across all things special ed, my my own wheelhouse with the career and technical education, along with some consultants for the different education programs and whatnot from early on services all the way through the end of our special ed services at age 26.

Great.

And Jeremy, come your way.

Let's talk about Lake Michigan College.

If somebody is that familiar with the campus and some of what you're doing.

Talk and tell us a little about the college.

Yeah, So Lake Michigan College is essentially an associate degree institution.

Our main campus is located at the Napier campus in Benton Harbor And then we also have a campus in South Haven as well as Niles.

And so in the Niles campus specifically, we deal with a lot of dual enrollment students, but we also have a lot of nursing programs.

As far as health, health wise, we have CTE programs.

And then the traditional arts and sciences as well.

Great.

Thank you.

All right.

We'll get in a little bit more.

Chris, come back your way a little bit.

So.

So as I mentioned in your title, this Career and Technical Education Focus.

Give us a little bit of a state of current tech technical education in the K through 12 systems.

Give us some highlights on what's going on there.

Well, specifically in Berrien County, we have we have a consortium based model.

So what that means is we don't have a tech center per se.

We like to consider ourselves a tech center without walls.

So we have all of our districts within county work together.

We run 67 current programs this school year.

Those programs range from agriculture marketing to automotive to welding and aviation science.

So we're all over the board as far as what seat programs we offer, as far as what where they are.

We've got programs housed in many of our local districts.

We, as Jeremy mentioned a minute ago, we've got programs housed in both LMC and SMC on their Southern campuses for us.

And we even use one of our local airports for our aviation.

Science class.

So what we do is we set up a shared time system for our students.

So we have about 400 kids this year leaving their home district, going to another district to attend a CTE program to take advantage of those opportunities.

And next year, right now, we're at about 470.

We've already begun scheduling out for this coming year.

So we're at about 470 kids looking to take advantage of an opportunity that isn't necessarily under their district roof.

Great.

No, thank you, Chris.

I'm going to stay with you for a quick second because like, I think this space has evolved a lot.

I'm an old guy, so it's evolved a lot since since I was in high school.

But talk to a little bit about sort of the appetite.

Like, I feel like maybe CTE runs a little wave There's a portion in time where people think everybody should go to it, and then there's a piece where people said, No, no, you should take a different track.

And it seems to have picked up in popularity in recent years.

Just talk to us about just sort of where it is in terms of popularity amongst students and parents.

Well, I think it's become very popular in the last, let's say, let's say ten years or so.

It really kind of that pendulum swung back for many years.

It was it was going to a four year college.

How you were going to get to a four year college mission, merit curriculum and everything else was written around that kind of target.

What we've seen since, though, are the number of skilled trades jobs that still require a higher level of education than high school.

But you've seen that demographic that works in those areas.

They're aging, so they're getting quickly to the point where they're going to have these openings and they've got to find the skilled, skilled mindset, skilled set from these students coming out to be able to fill those positions.

So manufacturing is an easy one.

The manufacturers of back in our day, where we think of those dark, dingy kind of shops that that no longer exists, one of the main main areas that we promote is getting our our kids and our parents and community members to go on different tours or watch different, you know, highlight videos.

Those types of things are really showcasing what takes place in those manufacturing facilities.

And it's it's shifting into robotics, into electrical, into, you know, you know, these these brightly lit collaborative areas as they're working through.

So it's really talking to us, working on communication plans, trying to get that information out in front of our parents and community members.

So then it promotes to the kids itself.

Great.

Jeremy, let me come your way.

So Chris talked a little bit about kind of this pathway.

Even as kids are doing training, you put you're in a critical piece and it and what it sets for both of you is the partnership that exists from K-12 into higher ed and what you're doing.

Talk to us a little bit about sort of the next steps after they sort of are working in infrared tech, but then maybe coming to somewhere like Lake Michigan College.

Yeah, that's what we've really started to focus on is the trend from getting the two year associate's degree needing that full associate's like like Chris was alluding to.

Is it is it's kind of changed a little.

A lot of people are coming in to do short term training, Something like phlebotomy, which is something we offer at the Niles campuses, is something that can get at the, you know, the in Chris's area, nine through 12.

But then after that, they can come to the college area and get another certificate on top of that.

So a lot of our students are coming in, say they want to get phlebotomy.

They do their they receive their certificate.

They go into the field, into that hospital or wherever they're working.

And a lot of times that employer will then pay them to come back to school and say, get a CNA certified nursing certificate or even medical assistant.

We'll be offering medical assisting down at the Niles campus as well.

So they call them stackable certificates or short term certificates.

And that's really where a lot of our our students have have a tendency to be going.

That's the trend right now.

Great.

Jeremy, I'll stay with you for a second.

So to talk to, you know, terms of programing.

What are some of what are some of the hot topics, some of the programing at the college, for example, where you have the most students enrolled?

And yeah, so right now, if you look at the traditional associate's degree, of course, our nursing program is probably the most popular.

Second would be our business program.

But if you look at something like we run out of the Niles campus and soon to be out of the South Haven campus as well, we have trucking, which is a three week program, and we all know the need for for truck drivers right now in our area as well as areas throughout the nation.

And I mean, we have I have that class booked out for months because there's so many students that want to get into something like that.

So it's kind of running the entire gamut right now.

You know, we have all that to your all the way down to the short term with a three week program like trucking.

Great.

Chris let me come your way because you have this unique challenge, right, of, you know, trying to figure out programing that's going to meet today's employers needs.

Right.

And today's employers, these are really all all across the board right?

And they're ever changing.

You're trying to prepare kids to be successful in jobs that some of them don't even exist yet today.

Talk to how you how you how do you decide where you focus on on your efforts on the current taxpayer?

Well, so, you know, I think you hit it dead on.

Is is it It's always flexing back and forth.

Right.

It's always, always a moving target with with what we have, really.

It's about the relationships that we build within our classes and within the community.

So each one of our programs, every one of those 67 programs I mentioned earlier, has an advisory committee that is a handful of industry members that come together to really work with that instructor and that district around what is necessary to go over in those classes.

So we all have our set curriculum, but that curriculum is flexible enough to really target local need interest, skill set.

So really kind of emphasizing those types of relationships at that level.

And, and, and Jeremy alluded to it the getting into the point where we can we can bridge into companies and now they're paying for that further education and whatnot and really capitalizing on what Jeremy sees the relationships between us and LMC and then those industry members at that level.

So we really, really looking at that long term pathway goal for our kids to where do they start?

We can work through those stackable credentials that are available at this point and get them on on site in the job in a career path where they can take a couple different, you know, directions once they get there.

But really just having those opportunities out in front of them as they grow.

Guys we're going to take a quick break on our call, George Lepeniotis my co-host is out in the field to share one of those real life stories about what's going on in this space.

So, George, let me toss it with you.

Thanks, Jeff.

I'm here downtown South Bend at Beacons Children's Memorial Hospital.

I'm joined by Sarah Paturalski, vice president of nursing.

Sarah, thank you for being in.

What you described before we went on air is a very special place in the hospital.

It is.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, Well, tell us a little bit about first off, tell us about Beacon.

We all know it as Beacon, maybe Memorial Hospital.

Tell us a little bit about the system.

Sure.

Beacon Health System, fast growing system in south and southwest Michigan and northern Indiana as Three Rivers Hospital, the most recent to join our family just above us in the Michigan border.

Down here, we have Memorial Hospital, South Bend, Elkhart, General Beacon Granger, our community hospital of Bremen.

And then I hosted a medical practice.

That's awesome.

Where we stand today is in the atrium of the Children's hospital.

This is a facility that I've heard before described as one that we're blessed to have in a community this size.

And it's also one that you guys are very proud to work in.

We're very, very proud.

We are lucky as a community to have this here at Beacon.

We take that very seriously at Memorial and at the Beacon Children's Hospital.

We know what it means to our community.

We carry that weight heavily.

We work hard to make it great for our patients and families and make it.

It's a really special place because it helps them have care here at home.

And they're yeah, such a big part of that healing process is being near the ones you love.

So as we talk about the hospital, we're here talking about something very unique today, and that's CTE education, a little bit of a curveball, but something that you're involved with.

So first off, for our viewers, I know a lot of our viewers have seen our previous shows on CTE, but CTE is a technical training that high school students can be involved in and Beacon hosts.

Uniquely, the Niles Community School's CTE program.

Tell us a little bit about what that means.

Yep.

We're really excited that we get to help provide experiences for kids in the city program in southwest Michigan.

While it is a different state from where we are standing right here today in South Bend, it's really close by.

We provide a lot of care to patients in southwest Michigan, so this wasn't a huge leap for us, maybe a little bit more for them, but not for us.

On the beacon side, I happen to live in southwest Michigan, got connected with the instructor.

I heard there was a need and said, Come join us at Beacon.

Well, you and I have that in common.

I live in southwest Michigan and get my care here.

So it's it's part of our fabric right?

Our show is about Michiana and that border.

Doesn't really we don't feel yeah, it's wavy.

That's a good way to put it.

All right.

So the program brings high school students here to experience it.

What is the benefit to the students?

The benefit the student is exposure and really digging in and seeing health care from first point experience.

A lot of these kids have never been in hospitals in their life, and so were their first experience, which we think is really special too.

And so we welcome them junior year and then we welcome them senior year again for a more intensive program.

But we're really here to provide exposure to them and let them see health care from their own point of view and from our nursing staff as well.

And when the kids are here, what is it that they're actually doing?

I can and and I can imagine that they're administering IVs or anything.

Well, they are not.

Okay.

I know they're not particularly when they're here junior year.

It really is just about letting them see what do we do and how do we do it?

What does a nurse do?

What does that look like at the bedside with the patient?

So they are in the rooms with patients.

They are just following the nurse.

They're observing the patient care assistant to see how care is provided here.

Senior year, it's a little more intensive in that we welcome them for an internship and they're here 4 to 5 days a week and they are providing care elbow to elbow with the patient care assistant or the nurse after they've been validated.

So they really do get to do they really get to become part of our care team.

And I know every semester you have a different number of kids, but you often have a significant number.

As those kids finish the CTE program, they go on potentially if they want to stay in the field, they go on to become nurses.

A lot of them do.

For the seniors that are graduating out of the Niles CTE program right now that are in the health care Allied Science program.

I would say more than half of those kids have already declared nursing as their major next year in college, which we're so proud of.

It's really exciting.

Now, that brings me to that probably this follow up part of why this is such a great partnership.

There's a benefit to the hospital as well.

And that benefit, as you said, something about the million nurse shortage or yes, there is a million nurse shortage.

It's in our nation.

It's going to continue for more than a decade and probably beyond that.

But at that point, perhaps we won't be talking about it anymore.

But so the benefit for us, a beacon is creating interest in people in the health care profession and not just in nursing and radiology, people who want to work in the kitchen, people who want to work in the therapy department.

So we really just want to ignite some excitement and passion for kids around the health care profession in general.

And we do feel like a beacon that helping that community survive the nursing shortage is part of what we're here to do.

And if creating interest in young kids in that high school year helps that, we're here for it.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for showing us around today.

Thank you for talking about this and thanks for reinvesting in our community.

So, Jeff, back to you in the studio where I'm sure you've got a lot more to talk about with CTE, but more importantly, how professional partners like hospitals are helping our kids grow and become professionals.

George, thank you.

Appreciate the chance to get an inside look up there.

Appreciate your good work.

So, guys, we're back back on our call here.

So, so great conversation happening about just sort of CTE in southwest Michigan.

Chris, I'm going to ask you so with the right time for kids to be thinking about careers.

Right.

You know, I'm like in my fifties, I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up.

But some have a better feel for talk to us a little about when the right time for people to start doing that.

Jeff it's just that's one of those.

I don't think you can start too early.

The idea is you want you want the kids going through and figuring out what they like, what what engages them as early as possible.

So in elementary, I mean, we have our dress up days and, you know, bringing parents into the into the classroom to talk about their career choices and everything else, that's a type of exploration for the kids right there.

So they start thinking about different things.

Hey, we brought in, you know, so and so.

And that's something that I'm really interested in.

I like that type of things.

So it really kind of starts them on at least a direction of a pathway moving forward.

By the time they hit middle school, they should be trying different experiences through that to where eventually when we get into high school, where we get into our CTE classes, at that point, they're they're practicing their training at those and really kind of honing in.

You know, you can say, I want to be a nurse, but there's so many different avenues you can take under that one umbrella.

So by the time they hit high school, they should really be looking at the details and that that specific path for them moving forward.

So really it starts, you know, and it doesn't even have to wait till school.

We can, you know, parents start it immediately, you know, with the kids as they start moving around the house and whatnot.

And Jeremy, let me follow up on that with you, too, because I think a couple of things happened, right?

Like maybe maybe I enroll at Lake Michigan and I think I like something.

But as I get into the coursework, I don't you're going to or maybe I'm in a job today that I that that isn't exactly what I want to do, but I want to do something different.

You provide some path.

So just to talk about just that, even this evolution not only sort of starting this early, but this opportunity to change and evolve over time.

Yeah, that's one of the things the college is really focused on is trying to get students in IT pathways.

You know, Chris alluded to it as well.

You know, you might automatically think you like nursing, but as you start going along that pathway, maybe Brad Tech is something you're interested in and maybe you want to do stenography, maybe you want to completely switch over and do something like dental assisting.

You know, there is flexiblity for those students, but the sooner that they start to develop that and develop like their their passion for what they want to do, they need to follow that long, but also follow that passion if that changes.

And then by all means, you know, we're here to be able to try to help them fit into something different.

We have a lot of they call them nontraditional students, but we have a lot of people that go to Lake Michigan College right now that are adults, just like you said, that are trying to switch careers.

So they'll take maybe evening classes to try to pursue something different and walk out with a certificate or degree and completely change what they started doing.

That's that's really common around here.

We have a lot of people that come in as a start of a second career, and that's that's something we like to focus on as well.

And it helps the students, you know, from, you know, that 12th grade year when they graduate, they still have more paths available.

It's not just like you're done, you stuck, you've got that certificate.

If you find something else you want to do, it's it's still available for you.

So we'll Jeff some of some of some of the best ones come from the I don't want to call them negative experiences, but I don't know how many times we get, especially in high schools.

We'll have a student take nursing classes and, you know, they fly through the book work, they fly through, you know, all of the the virtual pieces of that.

And they'll get on site and all of a sudden they figure out real quick that, you know what, the E.R.

is not the place for me.

I still want to be healthcare.

I still want to go in that path.

But I have to shift the direction a little bit.

I think that's a great point because I think, like I feel like when I was young and it was like medical doctor or nurse, right?

And and those were the only two options.

I think both Jeremy and Chris, you both mentioned they're like a thousand different paths that you could take and I appreciate it.

Bring attention.

Let's stay in health care for a second, though, because generally what I think about Corwell Health one of the biggest employers here in Berrien County, when I think on the Indiana side health care is a big thing.

There's so much talk pandemic post-pandemic about the needs in the health care space.

Let's dive a little deeper, Chris, first on just sort of what you're doing in the health care space to try to help help fill that employer need.

Yeah, well, really, you know, and I want to bring up one of our programs that we've had, and this is this program, Professional Health Careers Academy.

The HCA has been around for years.

And this program is a collaboration between Corwell Health, LMC and Berrien RESA, the Berrien CTE programs in that part of the class has the students taking college classes.

Okay, direct direct credit and a couple of dual enrollment classes as part of the CTE class.

It's built right in.

And the the back end for that is the students getting clinicals so clinical round experience in different sites across the county at Corwell and other areas of interest for them.

And it really kind of builds out and showcases to those kids what is available under these under that one health science kind of setting moving forward.

But this class doesn't exist if we don't have the partnerships between Corwell and LMC that we have great Jerry come your way because Chris talks about these partnerships and in particular he mentioned a couple of employers here to talk to you as you're developing programing you're trying to fill need meet, help, fuel economic growth in the area.

Talk about just the importance of those employers and if an employer is watching and has a training or need, what should they be doing?

You know, that's that's a great point.

Just like Chris said, we do the same thing.

We have advisory committees for all of our our specific programs with our CTE classes and degrees and certificates.

We have advisory committees for each one of those two.

When you go to start to build a program, that's one of the things that you have to look at is what does the community need?

In order to find that out, You've got to go and talk to the employers.

So usually that's that's right where we go.

And most of the time, if there's an employer that needs something, we don't have to go to them.

They come to us and they're like, Hey, listen, what what does this look like?

And it might be an instance and I have one advisory committee that I work with where they wanted just the disguise, the limit, and they wanted to do all these things and we just couldn't provide that.

But what I was able to provide in that conversation, what I what I gleaned from that conversation was there are some things that we can do to help their current employees.

I might be able to build an entire program, but what I can do is offer some classes or a small certificate in a couple of different classes that would help educate their employees.

And it's not necessarily you have to get a degree.

Maybe it's just they want some accounting help.

So we have accounting classes so we can try to get those those employees into that area to just maybe bone up on some some new stuff and new things that are coming out.

But you have to have that partnership in order to understand what direction the college is going, what direction the economic development status is for the local areas.

You've got to talk to the businesses.

And that's that's so important, right, Chris And Jeremy, as our time's running down, about a minute and a half left here, Chris, talk a little bit about parents because the parents play an important role in terms of kids going to a certain way.

Talk about the the parental buy in for a different career pathway.

Well, I had mentioned earlier, Jeff, is just how much especially like a manufacturing has changed you know over these handful of years 10, 15, 20 year And really where it's going towards and parental buying is is key.

It's it's the communication that transparency really talking about what steps can be taken from our kids through our programs as far as what goes what exists after our goal, especially it's our goal as K-12 anyway, but we don't want to hand them the diploma.

Okay.

As they're walking across the stage and then not knowing what they're going to do the next Monday.

The whole point is to put them on a path moving forward.

One of our big things that we always talk about is at the end of the day, you will have to have an education beyond high school.

What that looks like really is dependent upon what your interest and engagement level is.

So it's really pushing that on those kids and making sure they know what their next step is.

Is it through LMC?

Is it through a registered apprenticeship?

Is it through a union, or is it going to a four year?

Because that's the direction you want to go, Right?

I think unfortunately, I think we could talk for hours.

We're running out of time here.

I'm grateful for the work that you're both doing and your teams to really help prepare kids for success in the future, and I wish you continued success.

We'll have you back to talk in the future again about what's going on.

Thank you for watching or listening to our podcast to watch this episode again and our past episode, you can find economic outlook at WNIT.org or find our podcasts on most major podcast platforms, which I encourage you to like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

I'm Jeff Rea.

I'll see you next week.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.