Governor Deval Patrick shares conversation with NSCC president Wayne Burton during a visit last week. Congressman John Tierney is shown on the left.
Governor Deval Patrick, Congressman John Tierney and the Commonwealth’s Secretary of Education Paul Reville toured North Shore Community College with its president Wayne Burton Wednesday afternoon.
Governor Patrick wanted to view first hand some of the classrooms where coursework is directly related to securing a job.
In his state of the state address Monday night, Patrick announced he was going to present a plan to the legislature for the unification of all the state’s two year colleges.
He said he believed that by unifying them, great gains could be made in pairing up graduates with jobs that are waiting.
“There are presently 120,000 jobs available in Massachusetts with 240,000 people unemployed. If we could achieve getting the 120,000 jobs that already exist, we could cut the unemployment in the Commonwealth in half,” the governor said.
The governor’s comments were inextricably connected to President Barack Obama’s similar promise made in his State of the Union Address a day earlier. In fact, both men seemed to utter the very same idea about making junior college course work more job conscious – in other words – attending junior college can segue into a job instead of a degree with nothing much to do with it.
“Did you talk with someone about this before presenting it Monday night?” a reporter asked the governor.
The governor smiled.
“It was purely coincidental,” he said.
He was overheard speaking with NSCC President Burton, discussing the ins and outs of what is exactly best for the students matriculating at NSCC.
A large entourage followed the small group of high ranking officials during the one hour visit.
Among them was NSCC Vice-President for Student and enrollment Services Donna Richemond.