Southeastern Wisconsin employers can provide feedback through our survey to help determine the most urgent upskilling needs in our region

MILWAUKEE (April 17, 2024) – The Higher Education Regional Alliance of Wisconsin (HERA) recently secured $1.5 million in federal funding to accelerate the development and implementation of new microcredential programs, helping employees throughout Southeastern Wisconsin learn new skills to advance in high-demand careers.

This funding will allow HERA, an alliance of 17 Southeastern Wisconsin higher education institutions and partners, to develop at least 20 new priority microcredentials to serve 400-plus users during a one-year pilot phase in 2025 — with the potential to expand the number of course offerings and students served in the future.

HERA and its member institutions will focus these efforts on specific skills in high-demand, high-impact fields that are experiencing talent shortages in the region. Based on labor market data and input from employers, HERA identified priority areas such as information technology, including artificial intelligence and data analytics; health care; business; and education.

The funding comes through a Congressional Directed Spending allocation with the support of Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“HERA was founded with a belief that our region’s higher education institutions can accomplish more together than any one institution could do alone. Today, that belief in the power of collaboration has led to a significant milestone: a federal-level investment that will greatly increase our capacity to develop new microcredentials that support career advancement and economic growth in Southeastern Wisconsin,” said Dr. Vicki Martin, chair of HERA and president of Milwaukee Area Technical College. “By developing flexible and affordable education options with a focus on high-demand, high-impact career fields, we will help more people in our region advance their careers.”

Microcredentials are an emerging trend in higher education. Often delivered online with flexible scheduling, these programs focus the educational expertise of academic institutions into shorter, stackable, skills-based non-degree credentials. A microcredential course can typically be completed in 2-4 months.

Microcredentials are particularly relevant to current employees who are looking to learn new skills and advance their careers but are unable to return to school on a full-time basis. And they can greatly benefit employers, who must constantly train workers to meet the ever-changing challenges of today’s workplace to remain competitive.

This new funding will amplify innovative work that already is happening at HERA institutions and will draw on the expertise that can be found throughout the 17 HERA institutions. Since 2021, the number of such non-degree credentials awarded by HERA institutions has grown by more than 36%. Last year, HERA launched a microcredential portal that brings together all offerings from HERA members – providing a strong starting point for the work to come.

The cost to develop new courses has been one of the main factors limiting additional expansion of microcredential offerings by HERA institutions. The additional funding will accelerate development of new microcredentials at HERA institutions, with HERA increasing its role as a “one-stop shop” for engaging with employers to further identify the greatest needs for additional skills and maintaining a centralized portal for users.

There will be modest course fees for users, and opportunities for employers and industries to fund additional microcredentials with more customized content.

“To maintain their competitive edge in a race that has no finish line, Southeastern Wisconsin companies must ensure that their employees acquire the skills they need to meet tomorrow’s challenges,” said Joel Brennan, president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee and a member of HERA’s steering committee. “Microcredentials are one of the most efficient and cost-effective ways to accomplish this, and HERA and its member institutions are best positioned to lead the way. On behalf of our region’s employers, we thank Senator Baldwin and the Appropriations Committee for recognizing this need and supporting it with a significant investment.”

About the Higher Education Regional Alliance

The Higher Education Regional Alliance (HERA) is a talent producing collaboration among 17 Southeastern Wisconsin public and private, two- and four-year colleges and universities and a network of partner organizations. We are dedicated to closing achievement gaps and educating students today to become an innovative and nimble workforce that meets the needs of the region’s industries tomorrow. This challenge is too large for any one university or college to solve alone, so we are working together. We know that education impacts more than individual lives; it can change the trajectory of our entire region. For more information, please visit herawisconsin.org.

Incoming HERA Chair Dr. Vicki Martin, President of Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC), shares her thoughts on how Southeastern Wisconsin’s higher education community is collaborating to better serve students and the region.

Q: You’ve been involved in HERA since it launched. How have you seen the partnership evolve?

A: First, I have to first say that it’s really been on the shoulders of Dr. Mark Mone at UW-Milwaukee and Dr. John Swallow at Carthage College, who have done just a wonderful job of bringing the group together, putting a structure together that we’ve found has been very successful, and leading and building trust among and between members.

Bringing together all of the two-year and four-year colleges and universities, it would be so easy to be competitive. But early on, we decided that it would be more important to come together with a specific focus around business and industry — to meet the needs of current employers, plus businesses that are thinking about locating here or starting here. It was a great opportunity for all of us to work together collaboratively and to really put aside any of the competitiveness.

Of course, all of our institutions are searching for employees. We want students to come to our institutions. But we also realize that through this collaboration, we can get more accomplished by being more focused, more intentional and really helping business and industry find one easy place to get their needs met.

We have developed a vision and a plan, three goal groups, a communication committee and a business and industry forum. We recently did a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis. We’re adding more community members and leaders to HERA’s membership. We know that K-12 education institutions are an important partner, and we have strategies to get their input. We really want to strengthen our partnerships and work more closely together on key initiatives.

Q: As Chair, do you have specific priorities or areas of emphasis in mind?

A: First and foremost, I want to make sure that we continue to strengthen our partnerships. We’ve had a lot of turnover in higher ed leadership. We need to continue to build those relationships and trust with new leaders. I’m also going to be focused on the value of HERA, for members and for business and community leaders in our region.

I want to move toward accomplishing our vision, which is to build a fully capable, educated and employed workforce and create an innovative and nimble regional talent pipeline. Right now, we are seeing a smaller K-12 population in our region but more jobs available. So how do we attract and retain talent not only at our institutions, but also in our community? We’re also going to keep that bold goal that we have front and center, which is increasing the number of post-secondary graduates in our region.

Collectively, we serve about 175,000 students in the region. And this work is going to get done in the goal groups, but our steering committee is probably going to lead a lot more discussion about the changes to our environment, and how HERA can really be the catalyst and the solution to what is happening in our region in terms of the talent pipeline.

Q: How would you describe the level of collaboration among HERA institutions?

A: When we look nationally, I can tell you, it’s really unprecedented.

A subgroup of us is doing what’s called the Moon Shot for Equity through the education consultancy EAB – UW-Milwaukee, UW-Parkside, MATC, Carthage and now Gateway Technical College. Our goal is to completely eliminate equity gaps in higher education by 2030 — bottom line, we want to see students of color graduating at the same rate as their white peers. And when we talk to other colleges and universities across the country, this is not a typical collaboration. In fact, they’re very inspired by what we’ve been able to do, and a few of them have started looking at relationships that they have. Our group has come together in ways that other groups have not across the country, and we’re really proud of that.

We just published a joint online catalog of badges, or microcredentials, so our business partners can see these really important, in-demand, short-term offerings to help employees skill up. We see the change – 72% of workers in the U.S. say these alternative credentials are an affordable way to gain skills or experience. Especially younger employees who are beginning to use competency-based portfolios when they apply for jobs, rather than emphasizing broader educational achievement. And we have a lot of adults who don’t want to go through another degree, so they’re looking for short-term credentials and competencies that are really going to make a difference. And we’re seeing more employers looking at and valuing these programs.

We’re working on sharing best practices around proactive advising. It means using data and taking a preemptive approach that anticipates and helps eliminate roadblocks and barriers affecting student success through to graduation. For example, when we see students struggling in a particular course early in the semester, we will add the right support to ensure the student is successful. At our last meeting, we shared the model we’re looking at and asked all our member institutions to adopt it. We also have transfer agreements. We agreed early on that we would use the same platform, so that a student could see easily how to transfer.

No single institution is going to be able to solve any one of the problems that we are seeing. We know from our experience that we are stronger together, and it is going to take a collective impact – learning together, pulling together resources and sharing those resources as best we can.    

Q: As HERA works with industry to help develop the next generation of our region’s workforce, what are we doing well now, and how can our institutions become even better partners?

A: Right now, our strength is in that shared focus and intentionality. Making sure that we’re increasing access through some groundbreaking scholarships and the right supports to help students succeed. Advising is one of those examples. And many institutions have adopted a tuition promise or something similar that helps underserved students from lower-income backgrounds stay on track.

But we can always be more nimble and we can always be better partners.

When we look at Artificial Intelligence, for example, we had goal groups 2 and 3 collaborate with Cathy Heinrich, CEO of MKE Tech Hub. Ten area employers met with higher education institutions to identify collaborative opportunities and next steps. Specific recommendations are under review. One of the recommendations was, could we as a region have one course that would transfer among all of us that lays the foundation for what AI is, so that people have that knowledge base to start? Another piece that came out of that effort is that not all CEOs are aware of how they could benefit from AI or what some concerns might be. This is a great opportunity for us to build upon something new and different that not everybody is necessarily on the same page with.

Q: What are the biggest opportunities and challenges you see in Southeastern Wisconsin’s higher education landscape?

A: We have recognized this since the beginning of HERA: We have got to have stronger relationships with business and industry. We’re seeing what almost amounts to a competition, because they’re not getting what they’re looking for in terms of upskilling and reskilling their employees. And they’re not getting enough numbers coming in.

One of the greatest things we can do is show employers that we can provide value beyond traditional degrees. We can do microcredentials and grow them. We can provide credits while students are working and learning on the job. I think that’s going to become a lot more seamless. We’re beginning to strengthen those relationships and listen more to business and industry, ensuring that they have the talent pipeline that they really need.

When we did a SWOT analysis, we came up with seven buckets. One of them is around equity — the biggest challenge and opportunity for Milwaukee in so many ways. Other opportunities are partnerships around specific employer needs. And we have more competitors, including national online competitors that have grown since the pandemic and competitors like Google offering those quick, easy credentials.

We have limited resources, so we are looking for funding. We know that many funders are interested in these large collaboratives because they move the needle much more greatly in a whole region rather than at one institution alone.

We know there’s a demographic decline of students. We know we have to get more adults back into the pipeline to be reskilled. We know that more and more people are questioning the value of higher ed, and part of that is student debt.

I think having people understand why HERA is important to the region and what we can produce is going to be critical.

Q: Even with those challenges, what makes you optimistic about the future?

A: We already have a strong collaborative. We already have the trust established. We’ve made the commitment, and we have intentionality around what we need to accomplish. We’ve looked at what needs to be done in Southeastern Wisconsin. We’ll continue to grow those relationships and to attract the talent and keep it in Wisconsin.

MILWAUKEE (February 28, 2023) – To help address Southeastern Wisconsin employers’ urgent need to provide new skills to their employees, the Higher Education Regional Alliance (HERA) today announced the launch of a microcredential portal. This new tool will help professionals who are already in the workforce, along with current students, easily find certification and badge programs across HERA institutions that provide in-demand skills for career advancement. 

The launch of this portal is the latest contribution from HERA, a collective force of 18 public and private, two- and four-year colleges and universities and a network of partner organizations in the region that are collaborating to have an even greater impact on students and support the region’s economy. 

Click here for the Official Press Release.