From left, emcee Shandee Dixon and panelists Renea Perry, Alando Simpson, Michelle Singer and Shean Ipanto.
Portland State brought together dozens of regional workforce, community and agency partners for a conference in May to begin building a shared vision for a more sustainable and inclusive workforce in the region.
“The role PSU plays in this effort might seem obvious,” President Stephen Percy said. “In a few weeks, we will hand diplomas to thousands of Oregonians who will enter the workforce full of hope for the future, and the vast majority of our graduates stay in the region and in the state. But, beyond our role as an educator committed to preparing those students for meaningful careers, Portland State … is committed to being the place where different partners come together to think through the programs, collaborations and projects required to develop a truly innovative workforce.”
The Future Ready Oregon Conference was supported by a capacity-building grant PSU received from the Higher Education Coordinating Commission’s Future Ready Oregon Workforce Ready Grant program.
The grant supports efforts to establish the Center for Internship, Mentorship and Research (CIMR), a student opportunities hub in the under-renovation Vernier Science Center that will be focused on building a diverse and Indigenized climate-focused regional workforce that centers Indigenous values, preparing leaders for the broad sectors of health, technology and manufacturing.
“Our climate focus is really to acknowledge that climate change, our current climate reality is affecting everything — every discipline, every workforce sector that someone can think to draw a box around,” said Suzanne Estes, a biology professor and associate dean of undergraduate engagement in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “As we’ve heard from communities, this fact really calls for a reimagining of workforce that develops and positions more Native and BIPOC people as leaders and advisors with real decision-making authority and letting them define and tell us what the needs are, what the new jobs are and how to train for those.”
The conference featured a panel discussion on workforce trends, needs and opportunities.
Renea Perry, executive director of Portland All Nations Canoe Family, said that those going into climate and green jobs need to be able to understand their interdependent, non-hierarchical relationship with the land and waters.
“Everything that we do impacts someone or something else and as they change, it circles back around,” she said. “There is a base knowledge within our workforce training to build kinship and to understand the root causes and understand that Indigenous communities know what they need. We have tried-and-true ways of adapting and living with the land and waters.”
Michelle Singer, project manager for the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board’s Healthy Native Youth project, and Shean Ipanto, senior program manager for community and social health at Kaiser Permanente, both spoke about the need for health professionals who can provide culturally responsive and community-centered care, particularly in areas of mental and behavioral health.
Alando Simpson, CEO of COR, the only B-Corp waste company in the U.S., said shifting toward a circular economy — reducing waste while boosting recycling and reuse — can bring about more equitable outcomes for BIPOC communities.
“We can create economies in our own backyard, we can create more workforce opportunities in our backyard through the green economy and with a sustainability lens,” he said. “We have to ensure that we’re creating models that are sustainable, localized and taking care of our most important constituents and people that we share this community with.”
The panelists also chimed in on the most critical workforce needs for the region, including providing skills development and hands-on learning for workers and ensuring that workforce training opportunities are designed to address critical community needs. To that end, Simpson said it was important to build and sustain a diverse workforce to create an environment where employees feel safe and can rely on others who share similar backgrounds, traumas and challenges as sounding boards. He shared an example of investing in an employee who has in turn built a team.
“He’s taken a lot of chances and risks on folks that didn’t necessarily have the experience or were just interested, and it’s been very humbling seeing the impact that he’s been able to have on the lives of individuals who were jumping into this new field,” Simpson said. “It’s my responsibility to continue to support and invest in that.”
Estes said the PSU group will apply learnings from the conference and other outreach with BIPOC communities to develop and expand programming for CIMR. Future efforts include:
- Further incorporating Indigenous knowledge and approaches to the center’s leadership, procedures and processes;
- Scaling the Climate & Community Resilience Internship Program and adding undergraduate research opportunities; and
- Growing and enhancing Native student pathways and transfer student pathways into high-impact internships, mentorships and research, including a new community mentorship program that will place students in paid mentorships with BIPOC professionals working in climate-related fields.