Recruiting Women into Nontraditional Careers at Central Lakes College Brainerd and Staples campuses

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Recruiting Women intoNontraditional
CareersatCentral Lakes CollegeBrainerd and
Staples campuses
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Presenters

• Geri Pohlkamp
• Career Projects Coordinator
• gpohlkam_at_clcmn.edu
• Kim Pilgrim
• Associate Director, META-5 Displaced Homemaker
  Program, A Women Work! Affiliate
• kpilgrim_at_clcmn.edu

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Minnesota
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Duluth
Brainerd
Staples
Minneapolis/St. Paul
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What we do

• Career Workshops for Women
• Career Exploration Camp
• 2000
• Pathway to Nontraditional Careers
• 2001
• Focus on Nontraditional Careers
• 2002

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Who we serve

• Single parents
• Displaced homemakers
• Low-income women
• Limited education beyond high school
• No high school diploma
• Nontraditional in age

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Barriers to education

• Belief system
• Support systems
• Financial Situation
• Walking through the college door
• Negative home life and self-talk

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Where we get the participants

• Women Work! clients
• Workforce Center clients
• Current college students who are unsure of their
  career
• Public advertising
• Newspaper
• Radio
• High school students
• Brochure distribution

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How we do it

• One day of information awareness
• Two days of business tours relating to the
  classroom careers they will be experiencing
• Two days of hands-on classroom experience

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Day OneInformation Awareness Day

• Specific program information is presented
• Description of support services available at the
  college
• Financial Aid information
• Process of application and enrollment

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Days Two and ThreeBusiness Tours

• Tour businesses relating to the careers
  participants will experience on their hands-on
  days
• Former graduates and program advisory council
  members are used when available
• Small group tours no more than 8 women

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Days Four and FiveHands-on classroom experience

• Participants spend six hours in classrooms
  working on projects and gathering information
  about each program
• Each participant experiences two different careers

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Hands-on classroom experience

• Carefully choose the instructors
• Female when you can
• Put time and effort into this part
• Participants should be able to take something
  home from each career area they experience
  something they made

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First part of classroom day

• Instructors should explain the career
• Job opportunities
• Placement rates
• Expected wages
• Where the jobs are
• Safety issues
• Show and explain the machines and tools

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Second part of classroom day ...

• Instructors and classroom helpers (former
  graduates or work-study students) assist
  participants in their projects. Participants
  actually do the project themselves. They fully
  experience the career program.

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Welding

• Design a project, draw it on CNC (Computer
  Numerical Control) machine
• Program CNC to cut out the design from a sheet of
  steel on the plasma cutter
• Grind the cut-out to smooth the edges
• Weld the pieces together

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Drawing the design
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Cutting out the design
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Grinding the cutout to smooth the edges
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Using the Press Brake
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Welding
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The final project
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Auto Body Repair and Painting

• Students learned about mixing paints and
  different kinds of paint and fillers

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• They chose colors and painted sheets of steel
• Some painted their projects from Welding

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• Participants were able to put the final touches
  on this car that was repaired and painted at the
  college

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Engineering

• All aspects of engineering were described via a
  computer program

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Science

• Participants mixed chemicals and conducted
  experiments
• Homemade soap was made by some participants

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Science

• Participants completed experiments with
  chemicals, dry ice, rocks, and burners

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Computer Careers
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Computer Careers

• Participants took apart a computer, looked at all
  the parts, identified them and then put the
  computer back together. It had to work when they
  were done.

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Each participant received a computer took kit
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Additional Career Programs

• Program participation is determined by
  availability of instructors and enrollment
  options for students

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Horticulture and Landscaping

• Participants built a retaining wall, planted
  shrubs, worked in our greenhouse transplanting
  plants and shrubs
• Participants were able to take shrubs and plants
  home with them. Some made floral arrangements
  too.

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Automotive Technician

• Participants learned how to change oil and change
  a tire
• They learned how the transmission works and they
  learned how the motor works
• The participants were able to connect vehicles to
  the computer to diagnose problems
• Participants took car tool kits home with them

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Mechanical Drafting

• Participants were shown the process of drawing a
  design - blueprints, programming the computer for
  Machine Trades and making the product that was
  designed.
• Participants took home their blueprints

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Machine Trades

• Each participants cut out two cubes from a block
  of steel
• Dice were made from the cubes through drilling
  and grinding

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Law Enforcement

• Workshop participants learned how to dust for
  fingerprints
• Participants conducted Field Sobriety Tests on
  each other
• Breathalizer testing
• Organic Analysis Crime Lab

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Continued Support

• We cant give these women hope for their future
  during the workshop and then forget about them
  when it is over

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We continue with

• one-on-one support
• referrals to the appropriate resources
• counseling
• career advising
• social program information
• being there for them when they need someone to
  talk to or discuss their educational options.

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Statistics

• 110 women have attended in three years
• 60 women enrolled in college (55)
• 27 women (of the 60) enrolled in nontraditional
  career programs (45)
• 50 of participants enrolled in other career
  programs or liberal arts program at CLC
• 5 have enrolled in other area colleges

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How much does this cost?
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Amount spent each year

• 2002 (38 women)
• 8,360
• 2001 (31 women)
• 6,895
• 2000 (41 women)
• 9,047

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Budget Items

• Where the money is spent. . .

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• Instructors
• Between 150 and 250 per day per instructor.
  Include fringe benefits in budget
• Cost has gone up over the last three years. Pay
  is based on average pay per instructor at our
  college. They must work during their summer
  vacation so pay is increased slightly compared to
  their regular salary.

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• Advertising
• 150 per newspaper (2 runs)
• Used six area newspapers
• Brochures
• Cost varies from about 500 to 1,000
• Varies if professionally developed or if we
  develop it

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• Food
• Approx. 12.00 per person per day
• Snacks in the morning, lunch and afternoon snack
• Transportation
• Bussing approx. 500

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• Classroom Supplies approx. 2,000
• Tool kits
• Steel
• Chemicals
• Paper
• Plants and shrubs
• Paint
• Miscellaneous, etc.

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• Career test booklets and supplies
• Approximately 600
• Inspirational/Motivational Speaker
• 300 to 600

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Funding

• Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technology
  Education Act of 1998 grant funds
• Women Work! Affiliate (Meta-5)
• College support through staff time and in-kind
  funds
• Private Foundation Grant (Bremer Foundation)
• School-to-Work Grant funds

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Quotes from evaluation surveys completed by the
workshop participants
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The best part of this workshop was

• A reason to get up in the morning
• Being with women only was not threatening to me
• Meeting new people and learning about different
  careers
• For me it was taking apart a computer and
  putting it back together. I never thought I
  could do that.

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• Welding was the best. Id never done that
  before.
• Being able to do the hands-on projects not
  just watching someone do it
• The teachers had an enthusiasm for teaching and
  they made sure each person participated

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• We learned through hard work and perseverance,
  that we could land a well-paying job
• Visiting the different work places, we got to
  talk to the people working and they explained
  what they did. It gave us a chance to experience
  the business before we actually worked there.

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• We walked away with a lot of ideas about our
  future making tomorrow look brighter

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The real voyage of discovery consists not in
seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes

• Marcel Proust