Back To WBL and Apprenticeship Projects
Creating Jobs, Exporting Michigan Products to the World
Home to the “big three” automobile-makers—Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors—Michigan is known for the strength of its advanced manufacturing. With support from a TAACCCT grant, a consortium of eight community colleges teamed up to form the M-CAM, a workforce solution designed to help unemployed adults gain skills and find jobs in welding, CNC precision machining, multi-skilled manufacturing/mechatronics, and manufacturing production and assembly (1).
During the grant program, the number of reported employer partnerships across the consortium colleges nearly doubled, from 204 in 2014 to 392 in 2016 (2). This increase in employer engagement led to more WBL opportunities including worksite tours, on-the-job training, internships, and apprenticeship opportunities. For example, Schoolcraft College (Livonia, Michigan) added a credit-based welding internship course to its associate degree program (3).
“It really changes the whole picture for a manufacturer to get the people they need to create products that Michigan wants to produce for the world.” (4)
—Julie Parks, executive director of workforce training, Grand Rapids Community College.
Open Educational Resources (OER)
Find and use FREE Open Educational Resources available on SkillsCommons.
Additional Project Information
- Website: M-CAM
- Webinar: Sustaining Grant-funded Projects for Long-term Success [with Julie Parks, Executive Director of Workforce Training, Grand Rapids Community College]
- Press: Federal grant helps Macomb Community College address skills gap in manufacturing
- Reports:
- M-CAM brochure 2017 targeting prospective employer partners
- M-CAM update newsletter from Grand Rapids Community College (February 2017)
- Final report done by evaluator SPR, report details work-based learning strategies on pp.112-113
- Brochure for Michigan Apprenticeship Program Plus (MAP+): These apprenticeships grew from relationships built during the M-CAM project.
Introduction to M-CAM
Additional Videos
Career Coaching used by M-CAM
- “Michigan Coalition for Advanced Manufacturing (MCAM),” Grand Rapids Community College, n.d., https://www.grcc.edu/workforcetraining/michigancoalitionforadvancedmanufacturingmcam.
- Heather Lewis-Charp et al., Evaluation of the Michigan Coalition for Advanced Manufacturing (M-CAM) (Oakland: Social Policy Research Associates, 2017), https://www.spra.com/wordpress2/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Final-M-CAM-Report.pdf.
- Lewis-Charp et al., Evaluation of the Michigan Coalition, 63.
- Grand Rapids Community College, “Michigan Coalition for Advanced Manufacturing (MCAM).”