Recently, Greenfield Community College hosted the GCC Foundation Annual Celebration. which included a conversation to explore resiliency and the ways we can work together to strengthen our community for the future Our speakers, Katie Allan Zobel, of the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, and Lily Mendez, of the Mass Mentoring Partnership, provided insights and very powerful testimony about the ways that we can work together to meet basic human needs of the most vulnerable populations in our community and to prepare for a changing economy at the individual, institutional, and community level. Local radio personality Monte Belmonte moderated this important conversation, bringing a perspective that reminded us of what we all have at stake and what we can accomplish.
As we consider the many ways in which the world is changing, GCC’s role in preparing the current and future generations of citizens and leaders who can respond to local issues is critical. The changing economy means that the college has to evolve so that it can adequately prepare our budding entrepreneurs, technology enthusiasts, teachers, healthcare professionals, artists, and scientists. In an age where college debt is crippling our young people, GCC’s commitment to keeping the American Dream alive for middle and low-income students is more important than ever before.
While GCC is preparing students for their professions, it must also respond to the changes in our community and do its part to ensure our resiliency. Like many communities across the country, ours is aging. With our retirees living longer, they are looking to the college for programming, for ways to stay connected to the younger population and engage in the community, and for ways to give back. Our older adults have so much to give and they are calling on GCC to serve their needs. They contribute to our resilience and are helping us prepare for a changing world.
We may not know what the future holds, but we do know is that the future is human. Human creativity, ingenuity, empathy, the ability to work across cultures and geography are increasingly important. GCC must build on its extraordinary legacy — our legacy as a community — to prepare the critical and divergent thinkers with the level of digital facility, quantitative literacy skills, and professional expertise that our community needs.
Talk to any health care leader, manufacturer, farmer, accountant, banker, IT professional and they will tell you that the world is changing. Rural America is changing. Our region is changing. By building stronger ties with the people and organizations we serve and those that serve us, we can better understand how to collectively use our intellectual, economic, and environmental assets to become a stronger and more resilient region that can survive and thrive through the 21st century. GCC must do its part to become an even more adaptive institution because that is what the community needs.
We thank you for your commitment to this community and we look forward to working together to strengthen our future.
Leigh Rae is president of Greenfield Community College Foundation Board of Directors. Yves Salomon-Fernández is President of Greenfield Commuhity College.