- Bennett to Announce New Growth Model
- State Reaches Settlement With CVS
- Deadline Nearing For National Idea to Product Contest
- DNR to Close Southern Indiana Campground
- Haynes Reports Q1 Loss
- IU Kokomo Narrows List of Chancellor Candidates
- MISCOR Sells Two Businesses
- Randolph County Dairy Files For Bankruptcy
- [UPDATED] ExactTarget Lands More High Profile Clients
Building Our Knowledge Economy – Student by Student
By: Oner Yurtseven - Dean of the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology, IUPUI
Category: Economic Development
The building blocks of a strong economy used to be fairly straightforward. Fertile soil for a thriving agricultural base. A central location for easy distribution of manufactured goods.
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Access to highways and rivers to take advantage of trade and commerce opportunities.
Indiana has all of these assets, and our economy prospered accordingly during much of the last century. But over the last few decades, the rules have changed, and our economy has suffered through the transformation. Indiana – and the United States generally – must adapt or prepare for more tough times to come.
The name of the game today is talent. In fast-growing industries like the life sciences, advanced manufacturing, and information technology, job opportunities follow skilled people. A strong workforce ranks above economic incentives, infrastructure and other factors that lead the most dynamic companies to locate and grow in a region.
In this competition, Indiana has fallen behind. More of our young people drop out of high school than the national average. Of those who do graduate and go on to college, more than a third leave the state after receiving their diplomas. This includes two-thirds of collegians with the technical degrees – engineering, technology, science – that are in greatest demand.
This adds up to a dismal ranking of 33rd among states in educational attainment. But this isn’t just Indiana competing against our neighboring states – it’s also the U.S. against the world. These days, India graduates nearly a million more students from college every year than the United States. China graduates roughly twice as many students with bachelor’s degrees, with six times as many students majoring in engineering.
The technology and manufacturing booms of India and China have been well-documented. And it’s not just these major players; other countries are gathering momentum in the high-tech economy as well – Thailand, for example, is now the world’s number one producer of computer hard drives.
Reasserting our leadership in the knowledge-based global economy may require sweeping policy changes, massive investments in education and training, overhauling our incentives for R&D and commercialization. But in our own corner of the world, here in Central Indiana, we can start chipping away at the problem bit by bit.
At the School of Engineering and Technology at IUPUI, for example, we host several programs that are focused on better preparing young people for high-tech careers. We recently completed our 8th annual Tech Camp program, a 4-day workshop designed to help K-12 educators from Indiana more effectively teach the latest software applications, web design and computer programming advances to their students.
By “teaching the teachers,” this program can make a broader impact on the quality of technology education in the region, helping more young people pursue these interests in college and professionally.
We’re also proud of our Minority Engineering Advancement Program (MEAP), Preparing Outstanding Women for Engineering Roles (POWER) camps, and Pathways to Engineering initiative.
All of these efforts are designed to broaden the pool of potential engineers: MEAP focuses on promising minority students, starting in the 6th grade, and provides mentoring, lab experiences and summer co-op work to lead them towards these fields of study. POWER camps bring potential female engineering students together to explore education and career opportunities – this year’s second annual camp hosted 40 young women.
Pathways to Engineering is a new program that will target students in the Indianapolis Public Schools, creating an “engineering track” starting in 5th grade through an engineering and biomedical science magnet curriculum at Arsenal Tech High School.
With the many engineering concentrations available at IUPUI, these students could ultimately enter advanced manufacturing, technology, biomedical or other growing industries that align with Indiana’s economic development priorities.
On a vast horizon, these programs are just a thin ray of light. But for Central Indiana, where the demand for skilled workers can still be measured in hundreds or thousands, not millions, we’re making an impact. And in our transition to a knowledge-based economy, we need all the positive momentum we can muster.
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