GUEST EDITORS PAGE

Here we are again for our second guest editing gig. This issue is a pleasure to put together as it features the work of a respected and prolific organization - CAEL, the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning.

CAEL was founded in 1974 under the auspices of the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in Princeton, New Jersey. At the time I was a fledgling assistant professor at Mercer County Community College, down the road (and down market) in Trenton. Little did I know that our paths would cross several times in the intervening years. When I was on the board of NCCET back in 1999, discussions about CAEL and the Council's mutual interests first percolated to the surface. By then I was also editing the Catalyst and an article by Pamela Tate appeared in Volume XXVIII. She subsequently was a keynote speaker at our 2000 conference in Jacksonville. A former Vice President of CAEL, Tom Flint, served on our Catalyst editorial board for several years. When I needed to know what was going on in the adult education field, I looked to CAEL, its publications and website for the information I needed.In fairness to AACC, the web sites of the Department of Education's Office of Vocational and Adult Education and the National Center for Educational Statistics are just as dated. I guess it takes a long time to count all those adults.They also say there are 5 million noncredit students in community colleges (again the numbers are from 2006 data). The non-credit number, aside from being incredibly rounded off, has been suspiciously the same for the past couple of years. Because credit students must be reported but non-credit reporting is optional (especially if there's no state or local funding for it), it's possible they can tell you how many credit students there are but only guess about non-credit enrollments. Either that or maybe they just don't care - credit is where it's at!PS - If I don't see you again in these pages, it's been a pleasure.How many adult learners are there in America's community colleges? It's a tough question to answer. Visit the AACC web site and you can download their Fast Facts sheet, which is a little slower than I'd like (the statistics are from 20072008). Among the stats: the average age of a community college student is 28. Stop by your local campus on nights and weekends and I'll bet the average age looks considerably older.So let's get real for a moment. According to AARP (and they should know), by 2015 nearly one in five workers will be 55 or older. Furthermore, the socalled "baby boomers" (those born between 1946 and 1964) have 77% of the financial assets and 57% of the discretionary income in our economy. They see retirement as a transition rather than a termination. More AARP statistics: 8 out of 10 baby boomers plan to work at least part-time, 5% anticipate working full-time at a new job or career, 35% will work mainly for interest and enjoyment, 23% will work mainly for the income, and 17% envision starting their own business. Hell, I've retired twice and it still hasn't worked - I keep flunking retirement.Anybody see a trend here? Anybody see a potential training and retraining market? CAEL does, and I suspect the NCCET membership does as well.So thanks to CAEL for all that they do and thanks for allowing us to showcase these articles, all of which are valuable to NCCET practitioners. Hopefully, the two organizations can work together in the future to help our grownups survive in an increasingly youth-oriented society.

PS - If I don't see you again in these pages, it's been a pleasure.