Starting this week, the Community College System of New Hampshire (CCSNH) will begin issuing Professional Badges for student completion statewide. Badges are portable records of completion and indicators of success that are rendered as digital icons and can be included in resumes and other displays of achievement. CCSNH anticipates that more than 800 credentials will be given to students who completed programs through the colleges’ Business and Training Centers as part of this first phase.
“A student who completes a program through the Business Training Center at a community college will still be given paper credentials,” says Dr. Larissa Baia, President of Lakes Region Community College, “and now they will also be able to share their success and abilities with potential employers, friends and family by posting their digital badges on Linked-In, Facebook and other social media accounts. Professional badges can be stand-alone or can be stacked into degrees and certificates to support a variety of pathways into careers,” Baia noted, “which adds to their value.”
As a digital icon, badges will embed details of learning achievement such as a full listing of competencies each badge represents. This will allow those who hold them to have a more rich and meaningful conversation with a potential employer about the skills that each badge represents. “We are excited to see this roll out across all the community colleges in the state. And we believe that digital badging will transform the learning ecosystem for our students and for employers locally and across New Hampshire,” said Tim Sink, President of the Concord Chamber of Commerce.
For more information about Professional Badges and how they can be used by individuals and hiring managers, please email Andrew Fisher: [email protected].
About CCSNH
The Community College System of NH consists of seven colleges, offering associate degree and certificate programs, professional training, transfer pathways to four-year degrees, and dual-credit partnerships with NH high schools. The System’s colleges are Great Bay Community College in Portsmouth and Rochester; Lakes Region Community College in Laconia; Manchester Community College; Nashua Community College; NHTI – Concord’s Community College; River Valley Community College in Claremont, Lebanon and Keene; and White Mountains Community College in Berlin, Littleton and North Conway. The seven community colleges in the system are committed to working with businesses throughout the state to train and retain employees to develop a robust workforce across all sectors and embraces the “65 by 25 Initiative,” which calls for 65% of NH citizens to have some form of postsecondary education by 2025 to meet future workforce demands.
