Valencia College: Academic Partner

As an organizational consultant,one of my specialities is designing 5 Start Intern programs to helps clients bridge performance and process gaps. I pull from colleges and universities all over the country and I am partial to the schools in our own backyard. This week I am highlighting Valencia College.

Join me in celebrating 50 Years as a powerhouse educational institution here in Florida. Their annual enrollment comes to 60,883 credit seeking students and makes the school the 3rd largest of Florida’s 28 community colleges in student headcount. (Valencia College 2017)

For the past five years, I have been honored to work with Valencia College in a multitude of capacities. As an employer and on multiple boards. I serve as Chair on the Business Advisory Board with professors from all six campuses (soon to be eight), a member of the accounting and finance advisory board, participate in portfolio review, and recently joined the social entrepreneur club as an advisor.

The professionalism, care, and dedication to learning is part of everyone you meet at Valencia. The professors, administrators, staff, and Internship & Workforce Services staff provide high touch service to employers in our community. What does that mean? It means they keep class size small to connect with students. It means their students come prepared for interviews with the right attitude. It means that from Dr. Shugart, president of the college, to the behind the scenes people on every campus...they take their jobs their core competencies seriously. So I am sharing snippets of facts in this article to test your knowledge about this dynamic academic college.

Valencia is 1st among the nation's 2-year institutions in the total number of associate degrees awarded, 2nd in degrees awarded to Hispanics and 3rd in degrees awarded to African-Americans. (Source: U.S. Dept. of Education)

Why do I love working with this school so much? I appreciate how open to feedback the whole Valencia ecosystem is to innovation, staying current with business industry trends, and maintaining a consistent emphasis on growth and improvement internally and externally.

• Valencia was named the best community college in the nation as the inaugural winner of the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence.

• Valencia’s economic impact on the region is more than $1 billion a year.

• One out of four UCF graduates started at Valencia.

I believe this academic institution creates an environment for students to thrive, professors to connect with their students in meaningful conversations, and administration and staff that seek to support all that connect with Valencia. Entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship programs that are helping to grow our central Florida entrepreneur ecosystem. An emerging Advanced Manufacturing program that is stellar and offers classes in Welding, Computer Numerical Control (CNC), and Mechatronics (i.e., Industrial Maintenance Technician) with Siemens, NASA, and Lockheed Martin as employers. Hospitality and culinary programs that is 5 star and Disney pulls from. Clubs and activities to help students find their voice and be part of change.

This College, Valencia College - all 60,833 students and those that nurture and support them, provides meaningful presence in our central Florida community which ripples everywhere a Valencia student calls home and works throughout the world. This is Valencia, it is made up of us!