Since it was founded in 1912, Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) has played an integral role in the region’s economic growth. It’s evolved alongside the industries it supports, guiding generations of students into stable, family supporting careers. Now providing more than 200 programs at campuses in Downtown Milwaukee, West Allis, Mequon and Oak Creek, the career-centered college has helped these communities keep pace with a century of innovation.
“MATC is an essential part of the workforce,” says Willie Wade—vice president of community relations for Employ Milwaukee. “They always have been and probably will be even more as we move into the future.” As an open-access institution, MATC connects students of all ages, backgrounds and skill levels with targeted career pathways. Today, between mounting workforce demands and rapidly transforming industries, the school’s job is becoming more crucial and more challenging than ever before.
Meeting Workforce Needs
As the worker shortage looms, Wisconsin businesses need qualified professionals to adapt and stay competitive. “The employers coming through the technical college doors are desperate to keep up with the pace of change,” says Conor Smyth, director of strategic advancement for the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS). To meet that challenge, cookie-cutter curriculums will not suffice. MATC engages the business community and consults workforce data, tailoring its coursework to fit demonstrated needs. Programs are linked with advisory committees to make sure students are being trained according to current industry standards.
“We’re always working with employers, and they’ll often reach out to us,” says John Reiss, an instructor in MATC’s renowned culinary arts program. “We always encourage them to come in and talk directly to our students if they’re recruiting.” In the classroom, culinary students get hands-on training and learn the management skills necessary to run a kitchen or a business. And, while classes simulate real-world scenarios, Reiss explains, it’s also important to experience the real thing. “We really encourage them to have a job and be working part time because one reinforces the other; just going to school isn’t enough,” he says.
To help students find those jobs, MATC’s on-campus “JOBshop” reviews résumés, conducts mock interviews and hosts job fairs. Employers can also post job opportunities online. The multi-channel approach works: A survey of 2014-’15 graduates found that 89% were either employed or in school within six months of graduating.
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Reiss says some culinary arts graduates go on to work across the country and internationally, but the majority remains in southeastern Wisconsin, supporting local restaurant and hospitality businesses. Even then, he says, the program is nowhere close to meeting the region’s demand for talent. “There are so many jobs out there at all different levels that, right now, nobody can keep up,” he says.
A Bridge to Employment
The greater the call for trained workers, the more important vocational education becomes. “Everyone who is able to work, we need them to be working,” Smyth says. “Not only from a ‘this is the right thing to do’ perspective. This is an economic imperative.”
Since full workforce participation is the goal, it’s in schools’ interests to be as accessible as possible in every respect. MATC is open-access—more affordable than a traditional four-year college (fall 2016 tuition for an associate degree or technical diploma program was $1,777)—and all four campuses can be reached by bus. Also, Wade explains, MATC students can often gain credentials and marketable skills early on, allowing them to find entry-level work and earn a living while continuing their education at a manageable pace.
Filling the worker gap means welcoming everyone from high school students (who can complete college courses in their senior year through the dual-enrollment academy) to retirees exploring a second career. It also means creating opportunities for people who might have been held back by language barriers or low educational attainment. MATC’s pre-college education school offers GED (General Equivalency Diploma) preparation, basic skills training and an ESL (English as a Second Language) program that trains learners from dozens of countries at six different levels.
Instructor Alexandra Topping says that ESL students may also attend job fairs, make appointments at the JOBshop and are kept informed about other MATC departments. While many students go straight to work after completing the ESL, some, such as alumnus and business owner Gloria DeAngelo, pursue more opportunities within the school.
DeAngelo was in her late 20s when she moved to Milwaukee. Although she was born in Wisconsin, she explains, she had lived in Mexico since early childhood and did not speak English. She enrolled in MATC’s ESL program (eventually transitioning to culinary arts) and, after several years of school, went on to work as a baker at El Rey. She now owns Gloria’s Cake Shop and Café (2531 W. National Ave.) and, as a part-time culinary instructor at MATC, she’s able to continue her relationship with the school that she says gave her “the keys to open every door.” “MATC changed my life,” she says. “It gave me the opportunity to do more and the confidence to keep going.”
Stories like DeAngelo’s show the value of an institution that not only trains students but actively helps them overcome barriers to success. Such obstacles are especially common among people with disabilities—who represent nearly one-fifth of the U.S. population—but face much higher rates of unemployment and poverty on average than non-disabled people do. MATC is a critical resource for connecting these individuals to a workforce that urgently needs them.
“We have a shortage of people who can do contract work or technical work, and it’s important that people with disabilities can do those jobs as well,” says Brian Peters, community access and policy specialist at IndependenceFirst. “MATC is often the pathway for that type of employment.”
Universal Accessibility?
In the summer of 2016, political advocate Dorothy Dean was doing voter registration at MATC’s Oak Creek campus when she discovered that the women’s restrooms were not wheelchair accessible. She contacted Peters, who visited all four MATC campuses and found that Mequon and Oak Creek both had bathrooms that weren’t accessible—despite the fact that wheelchair logos present indicated they were.
The WTCS conducts a civil rights compliance review every few years to make sure all 16 of the state’s technical colleges are following federal regulations—including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). (MATC was not found to be in violation when it was last checked in 2016.) In their reports, WTCS inspectors note the age of each building and the last time it was renovated. Under the ADA, institutions are expected to renovate when they can, with the resources they have available, and alterations to older structures must be brought up to date with current codes. WTCS Facilities Director Dan Scanlon explains that, because bathrooms are especially costly and difficult to alter, their renovations are often a long time coming.
“Bathrooms can be especially troublesome as they relate to age and code,” Scanlon says. If renovation isn’t an immediate option, he says, he may instead recommend smaller accommodations, like replacing misleading wheelchair logos with signs directing people to a facility that meets modern accessibility standards. Concerned about the lack of accessible facilities on MATC campuses, Dean contacted the college’s leadership and raised the issue during public comment periods at board meetings.
In September, the board formed an ad hoc committee to address the concern and committed $600,000 to renovating the Oak Creek bathrooms. Construction is set to begin in early 2018, according to MATC’s marketing and communications director, Tony Tagliavia. In an email, he wrote that MATC “commits significant resources annually to renovations at our four campuses, including accessibility improvements,” and has partnered with IndependenceFirst to “better serve students and the public.”
“They’re moving in the right direction in terms of the ADA,” says Dean, a former Milwaukee county supervisor who has served on the MATC board. Still, she argues, there is more work to be done. She notes that, as a public institution, MATC is required under Title II of the ADA to ensure full accessibility to all programs, and she hopes the school will continue to make updates that meet those mandates.
Peters says that while MATC has “had some issues historically with improving accessibility,” the board and staff members have recently been “very receptive” to concerns. He recommends that all colleges engage students and community members in making ongoing advancements on this front and points to UW-Milwaukee’s ADA and Accessibility Advisory Committee (ADAAAC), as an exemplary case.
“We wanted the committee to be a central place where information is exchanged,” says Aura Hirschman, a counselor in UWM’s Accessibility Resource Center and co-chair of the ADAAAC. The committee holds regular meetings with representatives from different campus departments and the student body to exchange disability-related information and resources. UWM also has an app allowing users to photograph and report accessibility barriers. “We try to go beyond the written standards and look at universal design,” Hirschman says. “Part of the thought behind universal design is that design for people with disabilities is better design for everybody.”
As educational methods change, “universal design” can be applied to digital resources as well; for example, making sure that all videos are captioned and all websites are compatible with screen readers. “It’s kind of the new frontier of student accessibility,” Peters says. These methods seem to align with MATC’s larger mission of inclusion and adaptability. As Tony Tagliavia wrote, “MATC is committed to serving all students, and we make accessibility for our students and the public a high priority.”
Adapting to Change
MATC’s relationship with the public is a two-way street. Its work is primarily supported by three major main sources: state funds, local property taxes and student tuition. Several years ago, the legislature approved an infusion of $406 million in state funds for the technical college system to replace an equivalent reduction in property taxes. Because this was a dollar-for-dollar swap, the school’s budget was not affected. In the 2013-’15 biennium, WTCS implemented an outcomes-based funding formula and as a result received an additional $5 million, which was distributed throughout the 16 schools. Nevertheless, Smyth explains, resources are strained by increasing pressure to keep up with extraordinary demand.
The worker shortage has worsened in recent years, spurred by low unemployment and an aging population. Employ Milwaukee’s chief program officer, Peter Coffaro, explains that in the Milwaukee area gaps exist across sectors—including healthcare, manufacturing, information technology, hospitality, retail, transportation and construction. “Those are some of the major areas where we see labor needs,” Coffaro says. “Both from a quantity perspective and also a talent perspective.” Without the necessary training, advancements in these fields contribute to the so-called “skills gap.” “Of course, there are still warehousing jobs and line production work, but it’s certainly changed,” says Coffaro, noting that advanced manufacturing can also require proficiency with math, problem-solving, computers and data feedback.
Of course, change has been a constant since MATC’s earliest days, but in recent years, the rate of change has accelerated, leading to unprecedented pressure on technical colleges, which have a dual role as both employers and educators in the age of disruption.
“With demographic changes, changes in technology, changes in the nature of education, the people coming to us have much different expectations than they did even five years ago in terms of how education is delivered and what’s available,” Smyth says. “When you put those things together, the demands on our institution have never been greater.” As employer needs become more specialized, the process of training students (who still enter college as beginners) becomes more extensive, as do the tools they’re trained on. “This is not four walls and a white board,” Smyth says. “This is an equipment-intensive education, so it’s costly.”
Any organization facing soaring demand and limited resources must continually evaluate what its top priorities are. Advocates hope that, for MATC, those priorities will continue to include diversity and full accessibility for students, staff and the community it serves. “MATC is a gem,” Dean says. “We’ve got this wonderful infrastructure and wonderful faculty, and we should be using them to the maximum amount possible.”
