In a post-COVID world, community colleges must bridge the gap between education and employment

Community College Daily

Lee D. Lambert

July 14, 2020

“If it can be done online, it will be online.”

I heard a Hyundai Corp. executive make this observation in a meeting with business leaders as the world struggled to emerge from the Great Recession in 2010. It has proved prescient and consequential, as has its corollary, “If it can be automated, it will be.” Out of the economic upheaval of a decade ago, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) – artificial intelligence, cloud computing, automation, and the Internet of Things – has taken hold throughout the 2010s, fusing the digital and physical worlds.

Like some institutions of higher education, Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona, over the past half-decade has responded to 4IR with a strategy that evaluates our curriculum, delivery methods and customers in a new way. This self-examination reflects the need to anticipate the convergence of the worlds of work and learning brought on by 4IR.

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