Every time the Spy prepares to interview Chesapeake College president Cliff Coppersmith, we anticipate that the final video will be around five minutes. But since we began interviewing Cliff in 2018, we’ve never succeeded in that modest goal.
The reason is that President Coppersmith has a special way of taking a subject like dual enrollment, for example, and makes it sound so dang engaging. This unique skill was no doubt developed while he was still a college history professor early in his career.
With our most current chat, Coppersmith applies that skill to the challenges related to workforce education, and he doesn’t hesitate to use the word “crisis” in the same sentence. Up and down the Eastern Shore, there is an unprecedented gap between high-paying trade job openings and qualified young people to fill those positions.
This sobering dilemma is finally getting real attention from the federal and state governments, not to mention the five Mid-Shore counties that support Chesapeake College. With a new stream of project support grants at all levels, the Wye Mills community college has never been more serious in recruiting, educating, and sending into the workforce some of our best non-college-bound teenagers a real chance to live and work where they grew up.
This video is approximately nine minutes in length. For more information about Chesapeake College please go here.
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