Keynote Speaker
Dr. Chris Benner
Professor of Environmental Studies | University of California, Santa Cruz | Executive Director of the Everett Program
Coming Together for the Next California: Demographic Change, the Future of Work, and Our Shared Future
California is like America on fast forward. Demographic changes, rising inequality, and dramatic economic restructuring that are contributing to social tensions across the country happened in California first. As a result, California is well positioned to provide leadership in finding solutions to our pressing social and economic challenges. What is the future of work that California students of today are likely to face? Community colleges play an increasingly important role in our economic future. How can we lead with new models that can re-energize the California Dream by making equity central to policy and practice? We will explore what these broad demographic, social, and economic trends mean for educational and training paradigms, and discuss the roles that community college leaders can play in shaping our collective future.
Chris Benner is a Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the Executive Director of the Everett Program. His research focuses on the relationships between technological change, regional development, and structures of economic opportunity, focusing on regional labor markets and the transformation of work and employment patterns. Dr. Benner’s recent book, co-authored with Manuel Pastor, is Just Growth: Inclusion and Prosperity in America’s Metropolitan Regions, which helps uncover the processes, policies, and institutional arrangements that help explain how certain regions around the country have been able to consistently link prosperity and inclusion. Benner’s work has also included providing research assistance to a range of organizations promoting equity and expanded opportunity, including the Coalition on Regional Equity (Sacramento), Working Partnerships USA (San Jose), the California Labor Federation, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, among others. He received his PhD in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley.