Rockland Community College To Teach Cannabis Business Management

ROCKLAND COUNTY, NY — As cannabis is legalized state by state, Rockland Community College is looking to tailor business courses to the needs of the new industry.

RCC is part of the Hudson Valley Education and Workforce Consortium, six community colleges that have been adding micro-pathways, a new way for students to quickly gain credentials for work that they can stack up toward a degree.

SEE: RCC Clicks With New College Trend

"We are at the very beginning of the fourth industrial revolution. A bigger wave, given human intellectual capacity and tech capacity. How are we weaving that into our everyday life and consequently our work?" Kevin Stump, Rockland Community College's vice president of economic mobility and workforce innovation, told Patch. "Microcredentials are a tool that allows us to build more responsive programs, and tap into students' interests while meeting the needs of employers. Key to success is that they’re stackable into a college degree."

The community colleges in Dutchess, Orange, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster and Westchester counties are partnering with the Education Design Lab, a national nonprofit that focuses on new learning models for higher education and the future of work.

As the Hudson Valley Education and Workforce Consortium, they are part of the Lab’s third cohort in the nationally recognized Community College Growth Engine Fund initiative, designed to accelerate economic mobility for new learner-earners.

"We on the talent development side, community colleges particularly, are getting ready to meet the demands of an entirely new industry," Stump said.

New York legalized recreational marijuana use in March 2021. A string of openings is expected in the coming months, the Associated Press reported. CannabizTeam, a staffing and executive search firm, said in a recent study that the cannabis industry would generate 63,000 jobs across New York by 2025, the New York Times reported.

"The workforce needs are not just in horticulture but at every level — finance and accounting, policy, marketing and customer service — any range of jobs that the cannabis industry is going to bring to any of our regions," Stump said. "We're trying to figure out how can we create a micro-pathway that can be stackable into our associate degree in business administration."

Education Design Lab will provide each college with a $50,000 grant to be used to support the initiative. That comes on the heels of an investment in the consortium made by SUNY to support the development of workforce pathways in advanced manufacturing and to reinforce the Hudson Valley’s workforce strategy to support emerging needs in the cannabis industry.

"The work of the Hudson Valley Education and Workforce Consortium aligns directly with that of the regional economic councils so that we in the community college system can align our workforce development programs and employer partnerships into any incoming economic development area," Stump said.

One of the college's interests is business management pathways that can support small business owners or future small businesses. Those will start to accelerate over the next two to three years, he said.

"As we begin to understand the different employers that are going to be coming in, that will inform what pathways we build. Of course that includes horticulture, tech and finance ... You don’t get many opportunities to ensure we’re working with business partners from the very beginning."

New York gets to learn from other states, he said, and one of the things Colorado and Massachusetts made clear is that this is not just about farming and retail. "It's a full-on sector with all sorts of different jobs and pathways. You don’t often get to build pathways from scratch for an entire sector."

That's the other good thing. As cannabis businesses start up in the state, the consortium can learn from them what's needed in terms of workforce.

"The good news about community colleges is we can be super flexible and nimble and responsive. It’s not like we have to wait two years to design a program," Stump said. "The process to get a degree approved is a very long one. These shorter programs that can stack into existing degree programs are really valuable. Once we’re clear with the employers what’s needed, we’ll be able to offer these quickly."

The microcredential should help adjust the longtime misalignment between higher ed and the needs of an ever-changing workforce, Stump told Patch.

"It meets learners where they are," Stump said.

Stump, who joined the college in his current position early last year, is in charge of leading the establishment of a new division to advance economic mobility and workforce innovation, redesigning institutional research functions to strengthen the organization’s data infrastructure, culture, and practice, designing and executing an institutional approach to career readiness and adopting a pathways framework to ensure every workforce development program includes stackable college credits, and developing a regional partnership and employer engagement strategy.

He previously worked at the Education Design Lab and prior to that at Jobs First NYC. He received his B.A. from SUNY Plattsburgh and his MPA from Marist College.