A Unique Workforce Partnership Forging Change Across the Northeast Since 1995

Next Step Umbrella Competencies

The Next Step Program competencies represent strategic skills required of America's workforce to be successful on the job, and are recognized by many academic accrediting groups as a basis for program evaluation and effectiveness. These have also been identified by anthropologists through organizational focus groups across many organizations, including Bell Atlantic.

A consortium of twenty-five colleges in Six Northeastern states agreed to embed the competencies within common course content in an A.A.S. Telecommunications Technology degree program for Verizon technicians. Faculty and curriculum leaders continually meet to decide how to implement the competencies to meet or exceed the expectations of their program partners. The Program Review Process provides assistance, feedback and identifies best practices as partner colleges develop their action plans.

The Faculty curriculum committees work similar to academic departments that stretch across six states in the Northeast. Verizon provides laptop computers to facilitate the development of a learning organization of students and faculty to achieve the program objectives. Accredited in all six states, the degree program, its courses and its competencies were developed by the participating colleges and their faculties, in partnership with Verizon and its Technical Unions:

CWA (Communications Workers of America)
and
IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers).