February is Career and Technical Education (CTE) month, and educators across the country are using the moment to recognize the vital role CTE pathways prepare learners for in-demand careers. The Community College of Aurora (CCA) offers programs to equip graduates with hands-on skills that help drive social and economic mobility and strengthen Aurora and its surrounding communities. CCA’s Digital Content Coordinator, Mike Mestas sat down with Dr. Jim Delung, Dean of Academic Success in CTE, to discuss the significance of the month, and recognizing the opportunities CTE creates. Read the interview, or click the play button below to listen to the interview.

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*This interview has been edited down for clarity and time.

Tell me about the importance of CTE Month and how the recognition of that area of study helps bring awareness to programs like those at CCA.

CTE Month is a time to not just look at CTE programs but look at how education has changed in the last few decades. I think a lot of it’s been driven by CTE. I think it’s a helpful time to just remember how much CTE has changed throughout the years, what opportunities are available for our students. But also, I think historically, CTE has advanced a lot of the innovation and progress we’ve seen in higher education, not only across the country but across the world.

And we look at, for example, apprenticeships. You know, it used to be, people would think of the skilled trades, vocational education as the main space for apprenticeships, and now we’re seeing them go into all sorts of different areas, and I think that makes sense because more so now than ever, we’ve seen students focus on economic mobility, focused on skills. There’s been this kind of grappling with skills-based hiring and skills training in both the public and private sectors. CTE has been doing skills-based work for a long time, so it’s nothing new for us. With apprenticeships, again, very familiar for us but new for a lot of programs.

Give me the big picture of what CCA specifically has to offer for folks to study in a CTE career.

We look at an area like, say, construction, where we’ve got two certificates. We’ve got one in Estimating, which we’re always talking with our industry partners about, “Hey, where are you having difficulty hiring folks?” And so many of them mentioned estimators. It’s a great field to go into, especially if you’re just looking to kind of start to learn about the construction industry and sector, and then now they have the opportunity to stack that with an associate’s degree in construction management and advance their career further.

So I think it really comes down to stackability and career-connected learning, where you can see a pathway to economic mobility. It’s moving into a career rather than just a job.

What might someone expect right out of college with a CTE education background in terms of the careers they might find?

It’s going to vary so much from one program to the next. Healthcare, you know, we’ve talked about how that’s becoming more common for apprenticeships. The healthcare industry is complex. It’s big, sometimes difficult to navigate. But once you start to see kind of what the landscape looks like as a professional, you can identify not only how to better serve your patients but also how you might advance your career.

How can a CTE career improve someone’s social and economic mobility?

It’s amazing how much growth we’ve had, not just in the metro area but in the state. And it’s gotten more expensive to live here. So economic mobility, I think, is more important now than ever for a lot of our students.

I mentioned that estimator certificate earlier. You know, those are project management skills that are transferable to numerous sectors. So I think when we talk about economic mobility, it’s not only getting someone to a livable wage, but also getting them to a point where they have multiple options to advance their career.

Where should someone start if they want to get on this path?

A great starting point is meeting with some folks from our Enrollment Management team. Coming in and meeting with an advisor. Like if we have current students who are thinking about their different options as they start to go further down their path, just making sure that you check in with your advisor on a regular basis, know what your options are. And then I think we have a good collection of events and different types of educators across our college and across our area that can really help tell you what might be the best fit.

Well, thank you for your time. I appreciate you talking to me about CTE Month and all the important things that it can do for people’s lives.

Oh, thank you, Mike.
For more information on CCA and its programs, click HERE.