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Camden County College in Camden, N.J., offers an Adult Basic Skills program that’s helped over 1,000 graduates earn their high school diplomas, along with various certificates and credentials. One of the credentials that many have graduated with is the NRF Foundation RISE Up credential.
We spoke with Aurella Green, acting director of the program, and Dr. Robert Hammond, current program manager. Here’s what they have to say about RISE Up.
RISE Up at Camden County College
Camden County College (CCC) offers retail education to its students through RISE Up courses and exams. It also supplements the course with its own instruction and activities to adapt it for learners. RISE Up courses offer flexibility so instructors can make such accommodations.
For example, English as a Second Language students frequently take RISE Up courses and exams at CCC. “Half of our certified associates are ESL students,” Green says. “We put in accommodations for our ESL learners to give them more time.” Students not only gain content knowledge, she says, but they’re also able to practice translating while they’re reading.
Green discusses the many resources CCC uses to help students understand the content they’re learning. “There’s the RISE Up partner projects and success stories,” she says. “Those really help us aid in the contextualization part of our instruction.” They also incorporate videos, role play and other activities to bring lessons to life.
Hammond says contextualizing the content into the students’ world is important for many reasons. By relating and connecting the content in RISE Up to what students are familiar with, students can see that they already know more than they think. “I think it’s important for the students to recognize that they already have some skill sets,” Hammond says. “They understand that these skill sets they learn in RISE Up are connected to what they’re already aware of, and that shows a lot of future success for them.”
RISE Up puts students ahead
During a RISE Up course, learners are exposed to all the variety in retail, from front-line store employees to operations, and even headquarters staffing levels. “Many times, when we start off the course, we have to give a differentiation between retail and what people know as the buying and selling of goods. Most of the time, they think of just selling clothes without thinking of other facets of the industry,” Green says.
“RISE Up is good exposure,” she says. “Once you explain the different facets, they start to make connections with their favorite store, their current employer, their kids’ school, anything that allows them to see where that customer service aspect is.”
“It gives them that seller’s perspective,” Hammond says. “I find that students have uniquely gotten better week after week as they go back into their communities and into the neighborhood and recognize some of the things happening in retail settings.”
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“That’s something we’ve challenged them to be aware of. Be aware of what your environment is all about. Recognize how customer service is always there,” he says. “They really become aware of what’s going on around them for the first time.”
Effects of exposure to retail
Green says this exposure to retail has benefits beyond just understanding the different aspects of retail. “Because they’re adult learners, their mind is always on the next step,” she says. “‘How am I going to grow?’ ‘How am I going to get to where I need to be?’ ‘Does my current job have the level of growth that I need, or should I be looking somewhere else?’’’
“It’s really eye-opening when they start to put the pieces of the puzzle together, and then they start to apply it to their actual lives,” she says.
“I think the best way to have students really learn what their future looks like is what we call modeling, when you can have actual scenarios in class, and they can transfer what they’re learning,” Hammond says. “It resonates with them and shows a great pathway for them, which is important.”
Why it matters
Hammond says that when he first began, he “hit the ground running.” Different people were making sure different things were happening.
“We didn’t really start to think about any type of success in the short term. I was thinking big picture. I wasn’t really thinking about what happens after they take the exam,” Hammond says. “Lo and behold, it hit me after I saw the number of students who took the test and how excited they were. They felt confident about what they were doing.”
“At that moment, I realized that we had just reached a huge milestone, because some of these individuals were really struggling. When they sat down and they took the exam, they were successful. To me, that was a huge success,” Hammond says.
RISE Up is the NRF Foundation training and credentialing program that provides foundational employability skills to help people land jobs and get promoted in retail and beyond.
Our curriculum and exams are industry-recognized and were developed in collaboration with more than 20 retailers, including Walmart, Macy’s, The Home Depot, Burlington Stores, BJs Wholesale Club and Nordstrom. And we’re proud to partner with more than 3,000 training partners across the country.
