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SLICE Program Highlights Columbia’s Role in Local Workforce Development

Jun. 24, 2009

Columbia faculty and program participants discuss SLICE. (3:30)

Many people don't realize that Columbia University is New York City’s seventh largest non-governmental employer, with more than two-thirds of its 14,000 employees residing in the city’s five boroughs, and nearly 30 percent of its staff in upper Manhattan neighborhoods. While maintaining a community-based, walk-in employment center at 125^th Street and Broadway, the University also supports a growing array of job training, workforce development and small business mentoring programs aimed at expanding economic opportunity for New Yorkers.

A prime example is the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science Service Learning in a Community Environment (SLICE) program, which delivers technology training and job placement for adult members of the local community. Such efforts were a focus of the New York City Global Partners job creation and workforce development summit that Columbia co-hosted on June 25-26.

SLICE is a16-month program offering residents of Harlem and other neighboring communities the chance learn computer skills that can lead to challenging new information technology careers. The 16-month certification program is free to all participants, who learn how to design and maintain websites, interact with clients, work in teams, ask for and cultivate feedback, solve problems, and communicate effectively. SLICE helps its students find employment through a strategic alliance with WorkForce OutSource Services (WOS).

SLICE is one of many job training and workforce development programs at Columbia, including partnerships with the City University of New York to increase the number of Harlem and Washington Heights residents entering the medical lab technician field and The ACE Mentor Program, a not-for-profit organization, to help prepare high school students for careers in the fields of design and construction. "Universities are increasingly central drivers of the urban economy," according to public policy Professor Ester Fuchs, who helped organize the Global Partners summit with Mayor Bloomberg's office, "we not only provide stable employment and opportunities for career advancement, but jobs that will be here in the future. Columbia has both the capacity and the need to enhance the skills of New Yorkers in every community and its current workforce programs reflect this goal."

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