Business-Education Collaboratives

Phone: 901-333-4207 | Fax: 901-333-4519
Ralph Chumbley, Executive Director

The Business-Education Collaboratives Department develops and manages partnerships, fosters educational reform initiatives, and develops and manages community-based programs. It provides educational opportunities and services to the community and its stakeholders.

The Partnership for Preparing a Regional Workforce

The Partnership for Preparing a Regional Workforce (The Partnership) is a consortium of businesses, schools and community organizations led by the College. It includes more than 400 businesses, 10 colleges and universities in southwest Tennessee, three public K-12 systems serving more than 160,000 students (Memphis City Schools, Shelby County Schools, and Fayette County Schools), seven private K-12 schools, and 44 community-based organizations.

The Partnership strives to develop collaborative, public-private, business-driven partnerships around targeted career clusters and industry economies that:

create educational opportunities that value the needs of all students and adult learners in the workplace
prepare all students and adult learners with both high academic and technical levels of achievement and performance
help all citizens to secure meaningful lifelong career opportunities

The Partnership supports five major initiatives:

Connecting education and the workplace for students, educators, businesses and community stakeholders
Providing career awareness, exploration and experience for students
Facilitating curriculum enhancement and reform
Supporting school reform (e.g. thematic schools, institutes, quality-in-education initiatives and centers of excellence)
Providing professional development opportunities for teachers, counselors, administrators and educational professionals

For additional information on The Partnership, call 901-333-4214 or email rchumbley@southwest.tn.edu.