Since the 1960s, Greenfield Community College has provided Franklin County with a seat at the higher education table. That table is now extending into Hampshire County, providing a fuller range of opportunities to students living in the only Massachusetts county without a community college of its own.
This is part of an effort by the two-year college to provide educational opportunities in the Pioneer Valley, including college classes and workforce training. It’s a welcome addition in Hampshire County, the home to a number of prestigious four-year colleges and the state’s flagship university.
“It became evident that Hampshire County is underserved,” GCC President Robert Pura said. Following conversations with different leaders in Hampshire County, GCC has better defined what it can and should do.
And in looking at Hampshire County, GCC officials also wound up talking with their counterparts at Holyoke Community College about what they could both bring to the table, leading to an agreement in which GCC would step into Amherst and Northampton while HCC would serve Ware.
“The fact that we were invited by those communities is significant to us,” said Pura, “We’re opening the door to more students who can’t get to the Greenfield campus because of (lack of) transportation or work or family issues.”
This fall, introductory college courses in English composition and statistics and microcomputer software skills were offered at Amherst Regional Middle School. This spring, GCC is offering a number of evening classes in environmental studies, psychology, American literature, English composition and nutrition on the Smith College campus in Northampton. The offerings include a grant-funded course for early childhood and after-school educators.
Academic courses, are just one part of the community college’s mission. Greenfield Community College has been a leader in workforce training and certification that fill the needs of a different educational sector.
In Franklin County, Greenfield Community College continues to build on inroads it had already made to the south. The college has been offering its Licensed Practical Nursing program in Hampshire County for more than a decade, using locations such as the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Leeds and now leased space in Florence. But GCC may return to its roots at Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School in Northampton with a move to a new vocational training center now being built.
In a similar vein, GCC also offers nursing education and home health aide training at the Northampton Career Center.
“It’s clear that many people who live and work in those communities are not college-bound, and we want to work with folks in those communities to provide access to programs they need,” Pura said. But the head of GCC, for one, sees room for growth.
“We’re talking aggressively with them about building programs that serve that community in collaboration with Smith Voke, not unlike some of the work we’ve done here in Franklin County Tech School,” said Pura.
One of those connections has been through a collaboration among Tech, Greenfield Community College and the Franklin/Hampshire Regional Employment Board, called the Middle Skills Training Initiative. That is 12 weeks of training that prepares participants to work on computer numerical controlled precision machining equipment as computer numeric control operators.
All of these initiatives serve people who don’t necessarily meet the profile of someone looking to enter a four-year college.
“Anything they can do on an outreach basis will be really appreciated by people,” said Patricia Crosby, executive director of the Franklin-Hampshire Regional Employment Board. “Most working people who are really struggling to get a job aren’t going through the Five Colleges.”
But they are seeking an education that will help them find more satisfying and better paid jobs. The expansion of GCC’s table makes room for just that.