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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Cooper visits Wrightsville Beach to promote student workforce initiative

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Staff Report

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper (D) visited Wrightsville Beach this week to join New Hanover County Schools and other businesses across North Carolina for Students@Work Week at the Blockade Runner Beach Resort. This initiative provides middle school students with exposure to potential careers in their local communities along with some of the technical and soft skills needed to be successful in those careers.

The 2018 Students@Work initiative includes more than 160 employers and approximately 29,000 students statewide. On March 20, the Blockade Runner hosted a worksite visit by a group of 22 students from Charles P. Murry Middle School who toured the hotel departments and learn about the many types of jobs available in each.

“From seasonal jobs to lifetime careers, we will expose these students to the wealth of work opportunities that exist in travel & tourism and specifically the hospitality industry on the North Carolina coast,” said Gretchen Madden, Blockade Runner’s Human Resources Manager.

Career Awareness is the first stage of work-based learning. Work-based learning includes career awareness efforts like Students@Work and expands into career exploration and career experience. These efforts strengthen our state’s talent pipeline by enhancing important employability and technical skills.

Students@Work is a joint initiative between the North Carolina Business Committee for Education (NCBCE) and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Throughout the week, students will hear from guest speakers or take part in job shadowing and worksite visits that help connect what they are learning in the classroom to local careers.

“Real-world experiences like visits to worksites and guest speakers at schools help students uncover jobs they may not have even known exist,” Gov. Cooper said. “We’re working to make North Carolina job ready, and opportunities like Students@Work are a critical first step for students towards a successful career pathway.”

Governor Cooper will visit three Students@Work events over the next two weeks, including at the Blockade Runner Resort where local students will learn about hospitality careers, at Mission Hospital in Asheville where local students will learn about health care careers, and at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord where local students will learn about sports marketing careers.

Students participating in Students@Work 2018 will be exposed to careers in the education, energy, finance, health care, hospitality, legal, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, retail, and technology industries along with careers in the public sector. There will also be a virtual component aimed at expanding access to schools in more rural parts of the state, piloted in partnership with Nepris. Through virtual Students@Work events, industry leaders from businesses such as Novozymes, Google, IBM and UNC Hospitals will talk to students from across the state, explaining what they do and answering questions.

Since 2011, more than 176,000 middle school students have participated in the Students@Work program, which is a partnership between the North Carolina Business Committee for Education, a nonprofit housed in the Governor’s Office, and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

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