Expanding and Strengthening our Local Nursing Workforce

Minneapolis College President Sharon Pierce

Minneapolis College President Sharon Pierce

With a dozen years as a practicing nurse and twenty more years in nursing education, I bring a strong awareness of our challenges in health care to my new role as President of Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

While I am new to the Central Corridor Anchor Partnership, I am impressed with the Partnership’s commitment to embracing our health care challenges, and I fully share in the commitment to a vision of a more diverse workforce that reflects the community in which our anchor institutions thrive.  Having met with several of the Partnership’s leaders, I can already tell that we are working together on the right issues, at the right time, and in the right place.

At MCTC, we share a passion for

engaging students individually in planning their futures and careers, and connecting with the wider community of employers and education partners to help our students achieve their goals.

This Anchor Update highlights an MCTC student whose story causes us to reflect on the power of career pathways in helping students achieve their goals. Mursal Omar fled war-torn Somalia with his family as a political refugee, and eventually resettled in Minnesota. When Mursal made his way to MCTC, he found himself in the right place at the right time – he is finally able to think about his future.  Mursal’s transition invites us to think about the transformative power of career pathways support. C3 Fellows connected Omar to a network of professionals and is helping him achieve his goals, as this Partnership has done for many others at different stages of career exploration and job placement.

  I look forward to creating many more such inspiring stories in our work together.