Forces joining for graduates

Schools, businesses working to ensure there are jobs

Arkansas colleges and universities are cooperating with businesses and community organizations to ensure that their graduates are prepared to fill shifting gaps in the state’s work force.

Their efforts include developing curriculum with the input of business leaders, creating cooperative internship programs with local companies and emphasizing majors in high-demand fields, such as science and technology.

“It’s important to our economic development process,” said Shane Broadway, interim director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education. “What good does it do to have more people with degrees if those people can’t find jobs?”

The cooperation comes as the state implements a “performance-based” funding formula for its higher-education institutions that de-emphasizes raw enrollment and ties public funding to factors such as graduation rates andstudent retention.

The formula, designed with input from college and university chancellors and presidents, will also allow institutions to base their state funding in part on their ability to graduate students with degrees in fields that are crucial to regional or statewide industries.

The formula will require universities to “earn back” a portion of their state funding by showing improvement in 10 areas. Four of those areas will be mandatory, and the institutions will select the six others from a list of optional factors, which include those related to work-force needs.

The department designed the formula to comply with Act 1203 of 2011, which calls for the new model to determine 5 percent of an institution’s state aid in the 2013-14 school year.

That amount will grow by 5 percentage points each year until the 2017-18 school year, when the formula will dictate 25 percent of statefunding to higher-education institutions.

When designing the formula, each of the state’s 10 public universities identified three “critical needs” for its region’s economy that it aims to fill by attracting, retaining and graduating students qualified in related academic fields, Broadway said.

“You should be doing these things anyway, but I think now you’re starting to see a greater focus of resources,” he said.

A list of those self-identified critical fields reflects the diverse locations and missions of the state’s universities.

Arkansas State University-Jonesboro, for example, listed education, nursing and health professions, and social work among its work-force focuses.

The University of Arkansas at Monticello, located in the evergreen-rich portion of the Delta, listed spatial information systems, forest resources and education.

The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the state’s largest university, listed physical science, engineering and biology. Those three fields fall under the much-emphasized category of STEM education - science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Those fields are in demand throughout the state and are especially emphasized in more-populous areas with larger employers, such as the central and Northwest regions, said Mike Malone, president of the Northwest Arkansas Council.

That regional economic development group’s survey of employers’ needs found a desire for more graduates in computer science and creative fields, such as graphic design and digital media, Malone said in the fall.

“We constantly need to make sure that the employers’ needs are aligned with the type of training, the type of degrees and the types of graduates that we’re turning out,” he said.

Jim Rankin, vice provost for research and economic development at UA-Fayetteville, said the UA’s cooperation with local industry extends beyond emphasizing certain fields of study.

UA steers research projects funded and created by local companies, he said.

Such projects give students a chance to apply their academic skills to real-world situations and give companies a chance to build relationships with students before they graduate in hopes of later hiring them, Rankin said.

“The students are going to look for the best job that they can. We just need to have good job opportunities for them to stay here,” he said.

UA’s research emphasis is closely related to local industries. It includes high-performance computing, which relates to the data-management needs of several Arkansas companies; supply-chain management, which relates to the logistical needs of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.; and American art and humanities, which ties into the recently opened Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.

Arkansas universities’ relationships with employers have even led to the development or strengthening of entire academic programs. And educators’ willingness to work with local employers is helpful in attracting businesses to a region, economic development officials said.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock created its College of Engineering after a technology-company site consultant told some university representatives that a major research laboratory and technology manufacturer had decided against locating in the capital city because the area lacked engineers.

Today, UALR’s College of Engineering and Information Technology partners with companies in the region - including Acxiom, Windstream and Verizon - to design internships, develop curriculum and graduate workers who can help fill out their staffs.

When Hewlett-Packard announced plans to build a facility in Conway, employing hundreds of people at wages well about the state average, economic-development officials said that plans to cooperate with computer science instructors at the University of Central Arkansas sweetened a package of state and local financial incentives.

UCA’s computer science program has an advisory board of local industry leaders, including representatives from Acxiom and Hewlett-Packard, that help guide its curriculum development, said Stephen Addison, interim dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

“We try to work with those industries to make sure ours are the kind of graduates they want,” he said.

Most recently, in response to conversations with local employers, the computer science department developed a special course centered on innovation for upper-level students, Addison said.

Addison and Rankin agreed that its important for Arkansas universities to train students in high-demand fields because its easier for the state’s employers to retain Arkansas graduates than to recruit employees from other states.

“Companies are looking for graduates to come to work,” Rankin said. “I encourage them to develop a relationship with the university. There’s not a better word of mouth than a graduate student talking to their friends.”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 12/30/2012

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