Page 10 - BusinessWest March 20, 2023

EDITORIAL >>
The Pandemic: Three Years Later
Three years.
It seems like much longer than that, obviously. That’s because the pandemic years, at least the first two, seemed like dog years, each of them four or five years rolled into one.
That’s why so many people who were on the fence decided to retire, including a large percentage of the region’s college presi- dents and a good number of its nurses. Who could blame them? It was a difficult and, in many ways, exhausting time.
But as we’re set to mark the three-year anniversary of the day when everyone packed up their computer and went home (March 24 seems to be the consensus day), we have to say there is cer- tainly some credence to that old saying — the one about how what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
We’ve said that before in regard to the pandemic and its after- math, but it bears repeating.
First, though, we need to note that this pandemic did kill a lot of businesses in this region, many, if not most of them, in the retail and hospitality fields — businesses that saw people stop coming to their door and simply couldn’t adjust to that changing landscape.
Which brings us back to those that could adopt and did sur- vive. They are better are off for it, and they are now even better able to withstand change, even rapid, profound change that alters how business is done forever. These businesses have learned to communicate better, to find new and often better ways of doing things, to work together to solve real problems.
Over the past three years, we’ve told countless stories about
EDITORIAL >>
companies and nonprofits and how they battled through COVID. They are all different, but there are many similarities. Mostly, they involve people looking at a very difficult situation and simply get- ting creative.
They couldn’t do things the way they always did them, so they had to find other ways. They had to dig deep, overcome adversity, and create solutions. That’s what being in crisis mode — which is what colleges, hospitals, and, yes, many other kinds of businesses were in for at least two full years — is all about.
The challenge, and the opportunity, for businesses now is to continue to apply those lessons and maintain that spirit of prob- lem solving and finding new ways of doing things even when the pandemic is essentially over. And from what we’ve observed, there seems to be a good bit of this going on.
Companies are not going back to the way they did things, because that doesn’t make sense anymore — be it with regard to technology, remote work, hours of doing business, recruiting tal- ent from outside the 413 ... all of these things and more. Instead, they are shedding that ‘this is how we’ve done it, so this is how we’ll continue to do it’ mentality.
And they are certainly the better for it.
Looking back, this is what the most successful businesses came away with from the pandemic — an understanding of not just how imaginative and resourceful they can be, but of how imaginative and resourceful they must continue to be moving for- ward. BW
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A Step in the Right Direction
Gov. Maura Healey presented her first budget a few weeks back, and it contains some proposals that could help the state navigate its way out of an ongoing workforce crisis.
Chief among them is something called MassReconnect, which would fund free community-college certificates and degrees to Commonwealth residents who are 25 years and older and have not yet earned a college degree.
Based on initiatives in Michigan and Tennessee, MassRecon- nect actually goes further than those programs by covering more than just tuition; it also covers mandatory fees, books, and vari- ous support services. It is designed to remove barriers to getting the college degree that is needed to succeed in most jobs today, and it holds significant promise to do just that.
So do some of Healey’s other proposed investments in higher education, including a 3% increase in public college and uni- versity base spending, as well as $59 million to stabilize tuition and fees at the University of Massachusetts and other public institutions.
But it is free community college that is getting the most atten- tion, and rightfully so. In fact, Senate President Karen Spilka has been working on legislation to achieve just that, saying that reduc- ing the cost of getting a degree will help close equity gaps and build a more educated workforce to meet the needs of important industries in Massachusetts..
Indeed, while the bottom-line cost of a community-college edu- cation is much lower than at four-year schools, it is still a burden to many and a roadblock when it comes to attaining not just a job, but a career. In that sense, this proposal could open doors to individuals who have seen them closed for one reason or another, while holding considerable potential to bolster the state’s 15 com- munity colleges and the state’s economy as a whole.
Indeed, the Commonwealth’s community colleges, long con- sidered a key component in any region’s economic-development strategy, and especially here in Western Mass., have been strug- gling of late, and for many reasons.
Smaller high-school graduating classes are just one of them.
A strong job market has traditionally had the effect of impact-
ing enrollment at community colleges — they thrived during the Great Recession, for example — and that pattern has held for roughly the past decade or so. Meanwhile, the pandemic certainly hasn’t helped.
This region needs its four community colleges — Berkshire Community College, Greenfield Community College, Holyoke Community College, and Springfield Technical Community Col- lege — and it needs them to be strong and vibrant if it is to cre- ate, and maintain, a strong pipeline of workers coming into fields ranging from healthcare to cannabis to hospitality.
Meanwhile, community college serves as a place to start one’s secondary education. Many graduates of these schools move on to four-year colleges and degrees that lead to a wider range of job, and career, possibilities. But first, students need to begin.
That’s why this proposal holds such potential. It is designed for non-traditional students, those who haven’t started in college, or who have started but haven’t completed, for one reason or another. These are the individuals who hold the most promise for bringing some real relief to the region’s ongoing workforce crisis, one that is impacting businesses in every sector of the economy.
The concept of free community college has its skeptics, and some will wonder where the money will come from and whether the state can afford to do this.
Looking at matters from an economic-development lens, how- ever, one could argue that the state can’t afford not to do it. BW
10 MARCH 20, 2020
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