University Business - February 2012 - (Page 10)

BEHIND the NEWS P E O P L E W AT C H Soumitra Dutta will be the first dean of a major U.S. business school hired from a b-school outside the country when he starts his position as 11th dean of the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University on July 1. He is a professor of business and technology and founder and faculty director of a new media and technology innovation lab at INSEAD, one of the top-ranked business schools worldwide, with campuses in Fontainebleau, France; Singapore; and Abu Dhabi, UAE. Joseph Thomas is stepping down from the post after a five-year term. The shift will coincide with construction of Cornell’s NYC tech campus. … Rodney Erickson, who began leading Penn State on Nov. 9, Soumitra Dutta 2011, has signed an employment contract with the university that runs through June 30, 2014. The institution’s 17th president, he succeeded Graham B. Spanier, who was fired during the child sex-abuse scandal involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. … Lauren Robel, former dean of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, has been interim provost for the university’s Bloomington campus, since January 31 when Karen Hanson became senior vice president and provost at the University of Minnesota. … The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia has named Peter A. Blake director. He was interim director since April 2011 and was previously vice chancellor of workforce development services for the Virginia Community College System and the state’s secretary of education under Gov. Mark Warner. … Joel Bloom will lead New Jersey Institute of Technology in a permanent position after serving as interim president since November 2011. He formerly served as vice president for academic and student services for 21 years before replacing Robert Altenkirch, who is now president of the University of Alabama at Huntsville. … Effective January 15, Michael P. Archibald is vice president of institutional advancement at Scripps College (Calif.). … The California Institute of Technology has named Brian K. Lee as its new vice president for development and institute relations. … Emmanuel Ago has been named assistant vice president for student life at Manhattan College (N.Y.). —K.D. FUTURE SHOCK U “Smartcollar Colleges”: Educating 21st Century Middle Skills Technologists When asked once to reflect on the role of higher ed in preparing future workers, Bill Gates replied, “Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. ... At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas, but the image is that they all come from the top. I’m afraid that’s not quite right.” Gates reminds us of the importance of practical, real-world learning-by-doing for tomorrow’s science and technology workers. Through a gradual, yet inevitable, process of degree inflation and with the development of leaner manufacturing processes, robotics, and artificial intelligence, yesterday’s manufacturing and technology job skills have given way to higher and more complex credentials for graduates looking for gainful technical career placement. Today, hi-tech industries depend on community and technical colleges to provide 21st Century competencies to vet the next generation of middle skills technology workers—“Smartcollar” jobs requiring more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor’s degree. In our fly over of the nation’s leading public two-year comprehensive technical institutions, several prominent examples emerged, including Northern Essex Community College (Mass.), Oakland Community College (Mich.), and De Anza College (Calif.). Northern Essex, now celebrating its 50th year, specializes in middle-skills career programs like electronic technology, engineering science, computer forensics, and information technology. Graduates of the electronic technology program are well-equipped to continue their baccalaureate studies, or importantly, directly enter the workforce as electronic engineering technicians— middle skills workers who test, repair, and operate advanced technologies. As President Lane Glenn explains, middle skills education can provide career entry employment by closing the gap between high school and associate-degreelevel middle-skills credentials. The college boasts a 94 percent employment rate for recent graduates, with 85 percent staying in the service area of the college—working, living, learning, and raising families. We also learned that applied technology students typically have unmet economic needs that exceed available financial aid in the private market. Typically, public technical and community college tuition may be half the price of private engineering technology schools, yet both offer a regionally accredited degree with full credit recognition at transfer institutions. At the end of the day, what these community colleges have in common is a genuine commitment to preparing students for the 21st century. A Brookings Institution workforce study spoke volumes when it concluded this: “Demand for middle-skill workers will remain quite robust relative to its supply. … Accommodating these demands will require increased U.S. investment in high-quality education and training in the middle as well as the top of the skill distribution.” For more on Smartcollar colleges, see the online version of this column at www.universitybusiness.com. —James Martin and James E. Samels, Future Shock columnists, are authors of Turnaround: Leading Stressed Colleges and Universities to Excellence (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). Martin is a professor of English at Mount Ida College (Mass.) and Samels is president and CEO of The Education Alliance. 10 | February 2012 universitybusiness.com http://www.universitybusiness.com http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - February 2012

University Business - February 2012
Contents
Editor's Note
College Index
Ad Index
Behind the News
Financial Aid
Campus CFO
Education Gateways
5 Things Administrators Must Know About E-commerce Now
There’s an App for That
Internet Technology
End Note

University Business - February 2012