Influencing Career Technical Education from Outside the Classroom

Innovating education and workforce development through business

By Jerry Schmits, Trane Technolgies

THE IRONY WAS LOST ON NO ONE AT A RECENT conference of the Association of Community College Trustees. In New York City, the nation’s commerce capital, the underlying message of the keynote address couldn’t have been any clearer: If you don’t partner with industry in a meaningful way, business will replace you and we’ll all suffer. Among the conference participants, there was little surprise.

Advanced Manufacturing is widely accepted as the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its rapid development presents industry leaders and educators with a new set of challenges. Emerging technological breakthroughs are occurring at rapid speed in areas such as robotics, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. The Internet of Things (IOT) provides the pathway for these technological breakthroughs to be synchronized across industries and educational disciplines at a rate of speed unimaginable just a few years ago.

Technological progress, however, is not guaranteed. It requires a workforce with skills beyond those gained from traditional educational instruction. Business leaders understand this challenge and are eager to support educators in filling that gap.

Marni Durham is the Assistant Superintendent at Butler Tech, a career technical education institution serving students and adult learners in Southwest Ohio. “The speed of business moves much faster than the speed at which educational changes can be made,” she says.

Durham, interested in recently announced major regional investments in chip manufacturing and electric vehicle battery plants, is working to address a question: “Who’s going to work there and what skills will those workers need?” She’s counting on industry partners to help answer those questions. Butler Tech is developing new facilities in Hamilton and Middletown that will provide career education to support workforce skills development for Advanced Manufacturing and Aviation.

“Our students will be working alongside those in the electric vehicle aircraft industry to influence our curriculum for the upcoming needs of the aviation industry,” she says. “Skills learned will better prepare our students for their career path, whether the next step is post-secondary education or direct entry into the workforce.”

Sitting at the intersection of industry and education is The National Coalition of Certification Centers (NC3), a nonprofit organization working to create industry-recognized certification and curriculum intended to bridge the educational gap.

“NC3 originated when we were approached by Snap-On Tools – they saw a void in the workforce,” says Matt Janisin, Vice President of Gateway Technical College in Kenosha, Wisc. and one of NC3’s founders. “Job candidates had plenty of educational accolades but had no understanding of the most fundamental elements of our business.”

That initial engagement resulted in a college-level certification program on the principles of torque. More importantly, it signaled a paradigm shift in the relationship between industry and education.

Marni Durham, however, sees this shift in a different light.

“We used to ask kids what they wanted to be when they grow up,” she says. “Now we’re asking them when you grow up, what problems would you like to solve?” NKY