PEORIA, Ill. – Illinois Central College president Sheila Quirk-Bailey says she can’t say enough good things about how much the college’s Apprenticeship programs have grown in just a relatively short period of time.
“Over the past year, ICC and our partner apprenticeship employers have enrolled 103% more apprentices, than the cumulative total of the previous four years,” said Quirk-Bailey. “These apprentices engage in ICC coursework, while concurrently being employed, and retain jobs with those employers post-completion.”
ICC’s Peoria campus hosted an National Apprenticeship Week signing ceremony Tuesday. Students signed paperwork to be apprentices at three of the program’s partner employers: Caterpillar, Liberty Steel, and Alcast.
To hear Peorian Kianna Pittman tell it, being in the apprenticeship program at Illinois Central College, and in turn working at aluminum casting company Alcast, has been the best thing that could happen to her.
“Knowing that a 17-year-old woman coming from straight out high school, can go in and have a team behind her, and believe in her, and put their all in to me, and see me succeed, means so much to me,” said Pittman. “A lot of people don’t have that backbone, that support system.”
Becoming an apprentice is something Daniel Mariscal – who, up to now, has worked in state and local government – is looking forward to.
“I found that, for whatever reason, my intellectual curiosity was not being, I guess, met,” said Mariscal. “One thing that I always wanted to do was get into technology.”
So, Mariscal is studying being a Local Area Network administrator while being an apprentice at Caterpillar.
“Not only does it build technical skills here, but you at ICC are building business acumen that really is needed for long-term success,” said Henry Vicary, Director of Community Relations, Caterpillar. “Together with ICC, Caterpillar has been providing those real-world learning opportunities to college students sometimes early in their education. A partnership like this pays dividends for a long time.”
Officials say enrollment in classes related to apprenticeships have gone up, too, and there’s more proof that while a two-year or four-year degree is not necessary, some sort of post-secondary education or training is, or is at least helpful.
