Re-imagining competencies in North Carolina community colleges: integrating certifications into academic programs at two community colleges

Once a community college graduate completes an associate’s degree, the institution is committing to the public that the graduate possesses a prescriptive set of knowledge, skills, and abilities either gained through, or enhanced by, their college attendance. At most institutions, these skill sets are assessed almost exclusively through internal measures by the same faculty who delivered the course content. But what if the institution could also provide the student, and their future employer, another level of assurance regarding the quality and depth of instruction? In this disquisition, we present two different approaches to address increasing the integration of credentialing into the curriculum programs at a community college. One strategy examines intra-institutional articulation between continuing education and curriculum, while the other presents a method to integrate external certifications into curriculum programs as a validation of established learning outcomes