The City of Chicago along with nine other large urban cities is conducting a national conference to create partnerships between urban community colleges, businesses and industry, secondary schools, and government to prepare students in urban communities to enter and succeed in the technical workforce. With the increased use of technology by corporate America, industry can no longer accept people who lack technical skills. Urban community colleges and their high school partners are uniquely positioned to assume a lead role in preparing the workforce necessary for industry to remain productive in urban areas. Partnerships between industry, urban based public schools, and community colleges must be established that have as a central purpose the preparation of students for technical careers and access of students to other careers which depend on use of technical information. The conference is involving city mayor s offices, business and industry, the Superintendent of the public schools, and Chancellor or President of the community college system in nine major urban cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Baltimore, New York, St. Louis, and Detroit). To set an agenda for such a highly visible national workshop, a national Steering Committee is taking the lead in planning and coordinating the effort.
