Carrie Barrick, Coordinator of Career Program Support at Richland Community College, was recently chosen for the National Council for Workforce Education’s New Workforce Professionals Academy. While participating in the academy Barrick will advance her knowledge and skill development through peer learning, mentoring, and developing a network of professional colleagues.
“As part of this academy, I am excited to learn from and with leading workforce professionals at a national level, to implement the absolute best practices we can here at Richland,” said Barrick.
Barrick’s roots in the community are deep. She has been working at Richland for over two years and worked with the Decatur Park District for several years. While attending high school at Lutheran School Association she took advantage of the college’s dual credit program, earning 21 credit hours. She went on to earn her Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics with an emphasis in Actuarial Science and a minor in Finance from Millikin University, graduating summa cum laude.
“I have lived in Macon County since I was three years old and am passionate about our community. When I first graduated college, I had the opportunity to use my sharpened skills in corporate America. Within a year, I realized my unfulfilled purpose to teach, learn from, grow with, and serve those around me. Being part of Richland allows me to interact with such a diverse group of community members and students. My promise to them, is to bring back all I can from this academy and other training opportunities to highlight how special our community is and grow our programs,” added Barrick.
This year-long professional development program is designed and delivered by workforce education professionals who have extensive leadership experience in higher education and with community-based organizations. In addition to the trainings, Barrick will be assigned a mentor from the NCWE Board of Directors or other NCWE leader with expertise in the participant’s area of interest. The academy curriculum focuses on areas including partnership building within and outside of the college; communication, collaboration, challenges and barriers; workforce program funding; employer engagement; data and data analytics; program design and program review; credit and noncredit workforce programming; and goal setting and measurements of effectiveness.
Barrick will be visiting two other flagship community college workforce development programs in the spring so she can learn about their programs as well.