Guttman Community College has been selected as one of four CUNY community colleges to participate in the Grow with Google Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) Career Readiness Program to help Latinx students prepare for the workforce through digital skills and career workshops.
The partnership with Google and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) deepens Guttman’s commitment to providing students the skills necessary to thrive in the workforce. The College has taken an innovative approach to career learning since its inception a decade ago by integrating this learning into the curriculum. Guttman has always served Hispanic students in large numbers and as of Fall 2021, 49% of the student body identified as Hispanic. The Grow with Google HSI Career Readiness Program, built in partnership with HACU and Google, will be integrated into Guttman’s Career Roadmap Program developed by the Center for Career Preparation and Partnership (CCPP). Grow with Google will offer outstanding online learning modules to build critical skills for career readiness and success.
“Guttman Community College’s Center for Career Preparation and Partnerships sees the Grow with Google Program as a way to expand access to high quality, industry-informed career competency building for students throughout their educational experience,” said Dr. Niesha Ziehmke, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.
The mission of the Center for Career Preparation and Partnerships is to lead the College’s innovative and proactive model to build industry partnerships, embedding equitable and inclusive career preparation into the curriculum and co-curriculum, and ensuring students successfully transfer to baccalaureate-degree-granting institutions and plan for economic advancement and fulfilling careers.
“We are thrilled to partner with Google and HACU to improve career readiness outcomes for our students,” President Larry Johnson, Jr. said. “This collaboration with two industry giants will have tremendous impact on the kinds of opportunities Guttman students and alumni will be able to attain. I am proud of the work that our faculty and the Center for Career Preparation and Partnerships have been doing to equip our students for the workforce since the College’s inception. It has paved the way for this innovative and groundbreaking partnership. We are eager to expand our investment in our students’ futures and collaborating with Google and HACU is a testament to our institution’s dedication to preparing them for successful careers.”
Guttman Community College has won national notice for its high graduation rates and innovative first-year experience academic model. Guttman is CUNY’s first new community college since 1971. When it opened its doors to students in 2012, its mandate was to reimagine the delivery of a community college education so that a higher percentage of students would complete successfully and transfer to a four-year undergraduate institution. Guttman’s graduation rates are the highest in CUNY’s community college sector. The three-year graduation rate is more than twice the national average, and the two-year graduation rate far exceeds the 4% national average of public two-year colleges in large cities.
The City University of New York is the nation’s largest urban public university, a transformative engine of social mobility that is a critical component of the lifeblood of New York City. Founded in 1847 as the nation’s first free public institution of higher education, CUNY today has seven community colleges, 11 senior colleges, and seven graduate or professional institutions spread across New York City’s five boroughs, serving 500,000 students of all ages and awarding 55,000 degrees each year. CUNY’s mix of quality and affordability propels almost six times as many low-income students into the middle class and beyond as all the Ivy League colleges combined. More than 80 percent of the University’s graduates stay in New York, contributing to all aspects of the city’s economic, civic, and cultural life and diversifying the city’s workforce in every sector. CUNY’s graduates and faculty have received many prestigious honors, including 13 Nobel Prizes and 26 MacArthur “Genius” Grants. The University’s historic mission continues to this day: provide a first-rate public education to all students, regardless of means or background.