Initiatives

Regional Industry Skills Education (RISE)

New regional partnerships and industry sector initiatives, efforts to target training investments and align technical college and state university programs, and pioneering local industry-driven career pathway models all are laying the groundwork for fresh approaches to connecting worker education to student and employer needs.  But fulfilling the potential of these initiatives amid pressures on federal and state resources will require extraordinary interagency collaboration and even more rapid and intensive innovation.

Joyce Foundation “Shifting Gears” funds will provide the catalyst for such innovation through a new “Regional Industry Skills Education” (RISE) initiative led by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) and the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS), in partnership with Wisconsin’s 11 Workforce Development Boards and 16 technical college districts.  The RISE initiative will dedicate resources specifically to aligning regional partnerships, sector-based programs, and state systems around a career pathways model; to bringing industry-driven career pathways to scale throughout the state; and to providing new career-ladder footholds to low-wage workers with limited skills.

Find answers to some of your questions in What is Rise?  (PDF)

Learn more about the RISE initiative and follow its progress on a new website that is under development at www.risepartnership.org.  (External Site)

Read a letter from WTCS President Dan Clancy.  (PDF)

For more information contact:  Kathleen Cullen - kathleen.cullen@wtcsystem.edu or 608-266-9399