Dr. Jill Biden and Hillary Clinton: How Community Colleges Can Build A Modern Workforce

Published May 12, 2022, 4:00 AM

Graduation season is here, and soon a new generation of leaders will take their energy, their ideas, and their desire to take action out into the world to help solve the challenges we all face. The more opportunities we provide for more people to pursue higher education, the better off we all are.

This special episode of “Why Am I Telling You This” features a conversation between the sitting First Lady of the United States and community college educator, Dr. Jill Biden and Secretary Hillary Clinton from the 2022 Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) meeting about why community colleges are one of the great cornerstones of America’s education system, and the important role they play in shaping the leaders of tomorrow.

Started in 2007, CGI U has brought together more than 11,000 college and university students together to create change in the U.S. and around the world. The 2022 CGI U meeting, hosted in partnership with the American Association of Community Colleges, included more than 400 student leaders, representing 70 countries and more than 200 schools, all with ideas to tackle the innumerable challenges students have faced throughout the COVID 19 pandemic, and to make the world a safer, healthier, and more equitable place for all.

In two thousand seven, my foundations started the Cluton Global Initiative University Program or c g IU, to bring college and university students together to create change in the US and around the world. Our annual meeting was a special one as we joined with our virtual host campus, the American Association of Community Colleges, to bring together more than four hundred student leaders from around the world, representing seventy countries and more than two hundred schools. So why am I telling you this? Because graduation season is here and soon a new generation of leaders will take their energy, their ideas, and their action out into the world to help solve the challenges we all face. And the more opportunities we provide for more people to pursue higher education, the better off we all are. On today's episode of Why Am I telling You This, you will hear a conversation between Hillary and Dr Joe Biden, who continues to teach at a community college is first Lady, about why community colleges are one of the great quarterstones of America's education system and the important role they play in shaping the leaders of tomorrow. I hope you will come away from this episode like I always come away from c g I U and from every trip I take to a community college, feeling much more optimistic about our future. Hello, and thanks to all of you for joining us. I'd also like to thank each and every one of you from the c g I YOU class of for coming together to take action on some of today's most urgent challenge. I thank you for more than three commitments to action you've made, and I'm grateful that, in addition to fulfilling these projects, you're still looking to do even more. We need your energy, your action, your creative cooperation. We need them urgently. While we made significant progress in fighting the COVID nineteen pandemic, deep inequities still exists around the world, and access to vaccine and care here in the US. The pandemic also has ripped off the cover of long standing disparities and injustices and virtually every aspect of American life. Meanwhile, the existential threat of climate change continues to grow, and democracy is under assault all around the world, of course, most painfully and glaringly in Ukraine. The number of displaced people and refugees worldwide is higher than it's ever been and rising, and it seems that all across the globe. People are pulling away from those who are different, putting our future at greater risk and making it harder and harder to solve the challenges and seize the opportunities right in front of us. In the face of this growing wave of divisive tribalism, you offer one of the best examples how I think our world ought to work rooted in what I would call inclusive tribalism. You come from all around the world. You represent different schools and just about every demographic distinction you can think of. You're proud of the specific schools you attend and the parts of your identity that make you the unique person you are. But the fact that we're proud of who we are doesn't mean we can't come together as a larger community focused on turning ideas and the action for the greater good. That's inclusive tribalism. We all have unique perspectives, we all have something different we bring to the table. What we have in common is that each of us can make a difference in the lives of people in our community and around the world. And because of that ability to make a difference, we each have a responsibility to act to make good things happen, and to do it together. While the challenges our world faces today are quite steep, c g IU has always been about what we can do, not what we can't do. By bringing diverse partners together to take action and achieve results, we can create a culture of possibility in the world hungry for hope. In this moment of both peril and promise. Your generation can be the engine of profound transformation. But it will take hard work, termination, cooperation, and innovation. I believe you'll rise to the challenge and I'm looking forward to an inspiring meeting. Hello everyone, and thank you for tuning in for this really important conversation. Community colleges are close to my heart and at c g I you, we have seen their power in preparing the leaders of tomorrow to tackle our biggest challenges. And there is a leader who knows a lot about the importance of community colleges, and that is Dr Jill Biden. Dr Biden, or as her students like to call her. Dr b has spent her entire career in the classroom, teaching high school and then community college students. She continued teaching even as she became second Lady and then First Lady of the United States, and today she teaches English at the Alexandria, Virginia campus of Northern Virginia Community College just outside Washington, d C. When we were thinking about who we would dream of have ing at this c g I, you, we could think of no one better, uh to talk about the role community colleges play and equipping students from all walks of life with the skills and opportunities they need. So I'm going to start by asking Dr Biden. You've been a community college professor for almost thirty years now more probably even more, and you said that when you moved from teaching at a high school to Dell Tech, something clicked for you, and you've continued teaching the whole time that your husband, President Biden has been in public service. So what is it about this job, Dr Biden that is so special to you. Well, first of all, you know, thank you so much for inviting me to join you today. Hillary, and you and Bill and Chelsea are doing such great work here at c g I. But I was especially excited to learn that this year you were partnering with an organization that I really worked with for so many years, the American Association of Community Colleges. And I used to call community colleges America's best kept secret. But with organizations like yours and a a c U shining a light on all the incredible ways they serve students, the secret is now out. But to your question, you know, I have been teaching high school English, I guess for I don't know, maybe thirteen years. And one of my colleagues, uh said to left to go teach you to community college and called me up and said, Jill, this is the best thing ever. You got to come teach a community college. So I waited until there was a job opening, and then I applied and got the job. And then, uh, I have to tell you, Hillary, I mean I went and Dell Tech, where I started, was different than anything I had done before or because it was the first time that I had taught adults. So many of my students, as you well know, we're working, Some had children, some were taking care of their parents. So when we talked about literature, they had, you know, so many life experiences. They talked about their travel, their jobs, their families, and you know, my life was a little different than theirs, but I saw so much of myself in them, and that I really connected with my students because here I was teaching full time at three children, and I was going to grad school, so I knew what some of these struggles were and how hard it was to try and sort of juggle it all. And I think that's what makes community colleges so unique. You know, they serve students from every walk of life, and they meet students where they are and I have students, and this is one of the really great things about teaching at the community college, especially here in Northern Virginia, is that the diversity, I mean, and the different cultures. I have students this semester from all over the globe, like Ukraine and Honduras and Ethiopia, and you know, I think I learned more from them than they probably learned from me, because they write about their lives and their stories, and uh, they just add so much more richness to to the classroom. So you know. Uh. But when I started teaching at the community college, I realized that a lot of my students, especially women who were returning back to school, didn't have a lot of the support I had, And so I thought, geez, we have to have a women's mentoring group on campus, and I found that, UM, many of the women who came back maybe didn't have some of the skills and technology. Uh so many of them had matth anxiety, UM, and they were, you know, just trying to juggle it all. So when I mentored the students, I felt like I was really making a difference. And Hilary, I don't know whether you know this, but some of these uh you know, I especially talked this one woman, UM who left her husband. She was abused, She was living in her car with her children. She got into a shelter. They saw how smart she was. They got her into the community college, and uh it changed her whole life. So UM, I mentored her and I helped her write an essay, and then she got into a four year college and now she's an accountant and she has this great life. And there's so many stories like that. I mean, there's just hundreds of them out there. They're just a place for people to get a second chance, or to advance the skills that they already have, or change careers. I mean, they really do so much, and UM, I just can't say enough about them, as you probably can tell. So anyway, uh, that's why I love teaching at community college and I love hearing you talk about it, jil It really it warms my heart so much because it just is conveyed so clearly, and at the end when you said it's really a second chance for so many people and how they need a little bit of help and a little bit of support to be able to find themselves, I just I just love hearing you talk about it and your experience I think goes right to the heart of why we are partnering with the community colleges in our country. Well, you know, like you said, we all need a little help sometimes, and you've seen that for yourself. I mean, you put eighteen million cracks in the ultimate glass ceiling. But that comes with a lot of uncertainty and questions. So, Hilary, did you have mentors and you know what were some of the lessons that you learned from your mentors? Oh? I did, and and honestly, I don't know how anybody gets through life, let alone education, without having people that can guide them offer constructive criticism. One of my great mentors, um was one of my first bosses. When I went to work for Marion Wright Edelman at the Children's Defense fund and you know she, Um, she really not only showed me the good that lawyers can do in trying to defend people, particularly children who often need um some extra help to protect them against all kinds of challenges, but also how to do it um as a wife and mother, you know someone who was, as you said, raising children while while working while tying to make a difference. And I can go all the way back to my sixth grade teacher, someone Mrs Mrs King, who was so encouraging to me. And and it's those memories of people who, yeah, they did their job, I mean, obviously that's part of it, but more than that, they took an interest in the people they taught or that they worked with, and they went the extra bit to try to find out what could help that individual. And and I think that kind of mentoring is so important, and it's important all stages of our life. But you know, for me, obviously, UM, I know that your education is never finished. I'm always learning new things and in the world today, we have to keep learning or we'll fall behind. And as you rightly pointed out, some of the people that you were teaching needed some additional help with technology and a lot of the jobs our economy needs most. And I'm going to put in a shameless plug and say, what a great job your husband's administration is doing unemployment. And I'm so so proud of that. But some of the jobs that um, we're going to need u haven't even been invented. And some of the jobs people are doing now weren't around fifteen or twenty years ago. So, as someone who's been involved with community colleges, how do we keep giving students the education so that they can get the skills they need as the workforce changes. And really there's no better institution in our economy to do that than community colleges. Now, I agree with you, and I think one of the things, um you know, community colleges really have a major role to play in that. And I've traveled to so many community colleges and seen so many different programs, whether they're in clean energy or technology. And I was just at Intel and um at actually the president of Intel went to community college and we connected right away, and here's his company. They're making computer chips and he's hiring community college students, and um, you know, really they it's all about jobs. And so most of my students know that they will have jobs when they get out because there's all these partnerships and um, especially in the healthcare field. I mean, we communities desperately need nurses and e m t s especially during this pandemic, radiologists, ultrasound technicians, and so they all know that they will have jobs when they graduate. That's what community colleges do best to help communities all all across the country. No matter what field it's in, We'll be right back. You know. I've often thought that community colleges could be one of our best exports because it makes such a difference in our education system. Now I agree with that, and you know, I traveled to several UH Latin and Southern American countries and a lot of them are starting UH community colleges because a lot of their communities have some of the same needs that we have. And I love, um, you know, I love how Joe just gets all this and is putting so much money into workforce development. I have to give him my own plug, but nobody, you know, here's it every night at the dinner table when I tell him what's going on, and uh, you know, the kind of programs that we have so anyway, but it's clearly something that you understand as well. And you know, I was so excited to know that c g I You is partnering with community colleges this year and is working further to diversify its global community of student and alumni leaders. So I would love to know what excites you the most about the student leaders coming out of colleges throughout the world. Oh, it's so wonderful to look back on the c g I use that we've held. We used to of course hold them in person, which was really thrilling to actually meet students from all over the world, and then because the pandemic, you know, we had to move to virtual, but we've kept it going and I have to say several things really stand out. I mean, it's a it's a self selected group people here about c G I You, or maybe somebody recommends that they look at it, and so they say, I'd like to do that because I have an idea or I want to meet people from everywhere across the globe. And so the students come often with some specific ideas. I mean we always have um some competitions around ideas for uh new businesses or new job creation we have a a coding contest that we give students a problem and how do they come up with some kind of technical way to address that problem. So I've just been so impressed at the level of curiosity and passion and interest and determination. UM. It's really been wonderful uh to see UH them. And part of why we wanted to focus on UH community colleges this year is because, as you said earlier, a lot of people are going back to school people or they're or they're coming into community colleges after taking time off or or having a different set of experiences in the work world or in their personal life. And you know, we've got so many UM students who are hungry for an education and frankly for the kind of mentoring that you were talking about. UH. So when i see our student body for c g IU, I'm so encouraged, and I know that our world will be in good hands if they get a chance to make their contributions. And and we have hundreds and hundreds of students watching us in this conversation, and I want to underscore something you said because I know some of them really related to the fact that you know they face challenges whether it's finding childcare or supporting their parents while they're going to school, or working a job full time while they're also trying to get an education, but they have to pay the bills, and those challenges got so much more complex during COVID. And so the theme for this c g I You meeting is about building resilience. And you know, that's something that I think all of us have to learn in life, um, over and over again, not just once. And you've been such a role model in so many ways for so many people. UM, and for the students who are watching. Do you have any advice or any message for students today coming out of a pandemic, coming into a lot of uncertainty, trying to make sense of all of it, about how they personally can find the resilience to keep themselves going despite whatever setbacks they face. Well, this has been, you know, such a tough year, and UM, you know, my students honestly just inspire me every day. You know, they had to deal with things that really no other generation has had to deal with. And our world has just changed in so many ways that I mean, heck, we don't really fully understand yet, but but what we do know is you know that you've made it this far, and that says you know. That's what I say to my students. You have such strength and grit, and I hope that you know that you're proud of what you've accomplished, because I feel so proud of them. And there was a poet who once said, what matters most in life is how well you walk through the fire. So my message to the students is, sooner or later, we will all have to walk through the fire, and some of us stumble and fall, and maybe we'll feel alone, but we're never alone. And sometimes people can't see that pain that hides behind your smile, but if we give them the chance, they can help us shoulder the weight of our lives. And I think that, you know, we give our hearts in little ways, like the words we use, the conscious decisions we make to be present, the small acts of iiness. And sometimes I think the most courageous thing we can learn to do is lean on our communities. And I think that's what we give to to each other. You know, It's our our vulnerability, our brokenness, and the chance to be someone else's strength in return. And I think that that's what community colleges are they help students find their confidence and build their skills and feel like they're part of this big family that supports them and they know that, um, they can go out into the world and get great jobs and really and then in turn build better communities. So UM, you know, I'll be back there in the classroom tomorrow and uh, you know, helping them move forward. And UH, like I said, Hillary, I can't say enough good things about the power of community colleges. So thanks for having me today. Oh, thank you so very much. Honestly, that was such an incredible answer, and your students are so lucky, uh to have you in the classroom. And I just think every student watching that answer, UM is going to take something away because they they are going to feel that they have the strength and and ability to continue to pursue their own dreams. And I just can't thank you enough for joining us and sharing your experience and sharing your heart, um with all of the c g I students. Uh, you really are making a difference. And I'm thrilled that more people are going to be able to see and hear what you say and take that to their own hearts. So you make me more hopeful about our future. They make me hopeful. My students make me hopeful. So thank you Hillary for focusing on community colleges. It'll make a real difference. Thank you, Thank you for everything you're doing. Our hearts and our hearts and energy. Go with you, my friend, take care of bye bye. Why am I telling you? This is a production of Our Heart Radio, the Clinton Foundation and at Will Medium. Our executive producers are Craigmanesssian and Will Manadi. Our production team includes Jamison Katsufas, Tom Galton, Sara Horowitz, and Jake Young, with production support from Liz Rafferee and Josh Fornham. Original music by What White. Special thanks to John Sykes, John Davidson on Hell, Orina, Corey Gansley, Kevin thurm Oscar Flores, and all our dedicated staff and partners at the Clinton Foundation. Hi, I'm a USh alexiad There. I'm Senior Impact and Design Manager and a proud alumni of the Clinton Global Initiative University c g i U. President Clinton and Chelsea often say that you're never too young to make a difference. That c g I you were working to engage the next generation of leaders on college campuses, across the country and around the world to turn their big ideas for social change into meaningful action. Through our year round program of mentorship, skills training, and partnership building, we're cultivating a community of more than ten thousand students and alumni who are committed to taking real, concrete steps towards working together and solving the pressing global challenges that affect us all from responding to COVID nineteen to expanding access to clean water, to supporting refugees and so much more. The students of c g I you demonstrate the future of impact. Learn more about this work and see how you can get involved visit www dot Clinton Foundation dot org. Slash podcast

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