Continuing Education & Workforce Development at FCC

Continuing Education at a community college can mean many things to Frederick County residents and employers. It is extremely rewarding to know the programming provided in CEWD, and the College as a whole, provides opportunities to cultivate lifelong learning in Youth, Workforce Training, Adult Education, Community Education and Learning in Retirement. This past year, the Continuing Education & Workforce Development (CEWD) division continued to make strides in supporting our role at the college in providing basic skills training, workforce education, and community education. Here are a few we think the business community of Frederick County would find of interest.

Construction and Applied Technologies Institute: FCC has moved oversight of the Construction Management and CAD career certificate and associate degree programs under the oversight of Chuck LoSchiavo. Mr. LoSchiavo has overseen the College’s Building Trades programs for several years. Adding these two academic programs to his portfolio bring a synergy in program management and industry connection. Employers interested in engaging with students in these programs, participating in advisory meetings, and learning more about the program can email Chuck for an appointment.

Hospitality Culinary & Tourism Institute (HCTI): HCTI completed the process for the American Culinary Federation (ACF) Post-Secondary Accreditation for its Culinary Arts certificate and associate degree programs. The American Culinary Federation, Inc. (ACF), is a professional organization for chefs and cooks, based on promoting the professional image of American chefs worldwide through education of culinarians at all levels. ACF Accreditation represents the national standard of excellence for chefs and provides graduates a recognized credential as Certified Culinarian® to enter and advance in the culinary and hospitality field with employers of choice. The College expects to hear the results of their self-study and site visit in early 2020.

Career & Technical Training: We added two new courses in cybersecurity programming with cloud computing to the Spring schedule. CompTIA Cloud Essential and Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Foundations are short-term workforce courses that are the preferred cloud certification for business professionals and non-IT staff. In addition we continue to serve the Information Technology sector of Frederick County with the grant-funded Tech Connect IT education program. These instructional programs in network engineering and IT user support have served over 300 students and provides hands on training, industry recognized credentials, and workplace experiences for eligible students.

Business Solutions: This year, we welcomed Caitlin Brandenburg as our Business Solutions Manager. Ms. Brandenburg brings years of business development experience to the college. In the year that Caitlin has been a part of our team her role has expanded to include Strategic Initiatives. Caitlin’s role is critical in serving Frederick County employers and agency partners to develop customized training solutions to upskill, retrain, or provide compliance training. In addition, she is exploring partnerships and grant funded opportunities to expand the College’s role in regional workforce development. If you’re interested in learning more about this area, please email Caitlin for an appointment.

Adult Education: This year the College’s Adult Education department received a state grant to provide basic skills to individuals employed by Frederick County businesses to strengthen employee growth and promotion opportunities. Employers with non-native English speakers in their workforce who could benefit from English language acquisition, increased reading and writing skills, civics education and workplace preparation skills may be eligible for 60 hours of contextualized education that increases skills in the workplace. These classes can be customized to the employer’s needs and offered at the workplace site at their preferred schedule. Employers interested in learning more about this grant funded opportunity, should contact Angel Marshall for more information.

These highlights represent a sliver of the opportunities Frederick Community College provides for county residents and employers to engage in lifelong learning. If you’re interested in learning more about these or any of our other workforce training and career programs, please reach out! I’d love to hear about your workforce challenges and how the college could be a partner in developing solutions.

Patricia Meyer
Associate Vice President for Continuing Education & Workforce Development
Frederick Community College
(240) 629-7905
pmeyer@frederick.edu