Manufacturers, Liberal Arts Colleges Have Reasons to Collaborate
Manufacturing and higher education, two industries that are core to America’s historic prosperity, face growing existential threats. One space where the two collide is in the small towns and cities comprising rural America. In these communities scattered across the nation, we find relics of the past and possibly the key to their future: small liberal arts colleges struggling to enroll enough students, and small to medium-sized manufacturers desperate for talent that will allow them to grow and innovate.
In towns like the one I call home, Meadville, Pennsylvania, manufacturing and higher education until recently never collaborated. They merely coexisted.
Outdated Preconceptions
Public perception is at the heart of the struggle for both industries. Images of the smoke-filled air and sooty factories of the early 20th century still hold too much weight in the minds of young people looking for viable career paths that channel their interests in technology and sustainability. For higher education, the value of a four-year degree is under relentless attack despite decades worth of data that still demonstrates the long-term financial benefit of a degree.
At the core of the liberal arts is a belief that a breadth of knowledge makes you more adaptable, agile, resilient and capable in whatever you do. The liberal arts stress creative problem-solving and critical thinking, two skills that industry partners routinely identify as crucial. Liberal arts colleges also have vast infrastructures that small-to-medium manufacturing companies couldn’t afford to construct, much less staff and maintain. And herein lies the opportunity: collaborate to build an educational and research and development ecosystem that can transform businesses, institutions and communities.
To best serve the regions in which they exist, institutions of higher education need to hold on to the core virtues that have sustained them while also designing and implementing increasingly nimble and responsive programming that exists outside of the traditional four-year model.
Strategies for Meaningful Collaboration
The areas in which liberal arts colleges and industry can most meaningfully collaborate are industry-specific and industry-led training programs, research and innovation toward employment pathways, shared technology use, emerging technology exploration and investment and start-up incubation.
In the spring, Allegheny College’s Allegheny Lab for Innovation and Creativity (ALIC) explored the training needs of our region's advanced manufacturing sector by working with 13 manufacturing companies. The data we gathered unequivocally showed that agile, responsive, industry-defined a la carte training would be more effective than extended, complex programs. Manufacturers noted that the cost of long-form programs was too high and too old-fashioned by the time it was deployed to accurately reflect the realities of the contemporary industry. Additionally, online platforms didn’t give incumbent workers or underemployed individuals adequate skills development opportunities.
For instance, instead of an 18-month program in mechatronics, industry leaders said they would prefer a program broken up into components that allowed both incumbent workers and underemployed individuals in the region to tap into singular, stackable and affordable courses rooted in the liberal arts strengths of critical and creative thinking, which could provide immediate and meaningful impact within an organization.
At the ALIC, we then developed courses across highly technical areas, from training in industry-specific software suites like Mastercam to business leadership courses. On the other end of the spectrum, ALIC is offering technical math fundamentals to fill the void in mathematics competencies noted by all of the nearly 20 manufacturing partners surveyed. These courses are capped at 12 students to provide individual attention and increase student success. This fall, we launched 15 industry-designed microcredentials for four-year students and are combining a la carte courses in pathways to create new offerings that are strategically personalized for employees at specific businesses. About 50 students participated in the pilot program, which included course content directed by industry leaders, and every student experienced career advancement as a result of their participation in the program.
Manufacturers also told us that because of staffing pressures and an inability to hire qualified—much less trained—individuals, internally led research, development and subsequent innovation had come to a standstill. We’re developing facilities to promote collaboration between industry and our historic college. Like other innovative institutions such as Kettering University in Flint, Michigan, and EWI in Buffalo, New York, training and research are co-located, and individuals on different educational journeys interact meaningfully on industry-driven problems. By building an R&D and innovation engine, employers have access to a captive base of qualified individuals ready to make an immediate impact in their operation because of the hands-on, applied research opportunities afforded to them.
Another area for improvement in our advanced manufacturing community is the need for more equipment to build internal production capacity. A concrete example is how we make our highly sophisticated manufacturing tech available to our community. For instance, our DMG Mori DMU50 5-axis CNC can be used in off-peak hours for “shared use” or leasable time for production by industry partners. This grants them affordable capacity until they can make the infrastructure investment in more equipment. At the same time, the institution can drive additional revenue.
Building on the shared use concept, institutions can leverage their business, economics and marketing programs to create small-business incubators and accelerators, focusing on emerging technologies related to core industries. By utilizing faculty and staff expertise, student research and the technical capabilities of facilities owned by the institutions, organizations and individuals can be empowered to develop innovative solutions toward broader economic development.
Allegheny College isn’t alone in doing this type of work. There are compelling examples across the rust belt.
The NWPA Beehive Innovation Network, which Allegheny is part of, and their start-up assistance model support business expansion and development in northwest Pennsylvania by leveraging institutional know-how and resources to help entrepreneurs innovate and companies reconfigure for future success.
Kettering University and EWI – Buffalo Manufacturing Works help manufacturers accomplish world-class research by centralizing emerging technologies and providing equitable, affordable access for small to medium-sized organizations without the internal bandwidth to meaningfully explore fields like automation and direct-energy deposition processes.
The Center on Rural Innovation in Harland, Vermont, is helping build tech economies and creating a more equitable economic future for small towns in rural America—success stories that are emerging from their work with partner institutions using Economic Development Administration funding.
For higher education, the potential benefits of collaborations with manufacturers include ensuring tangible career outcomes for our students via applied research opportunities. These opportunities can lead to internships and jobs in a complex skill-focused job market, while also expanding the institution’s potential revenue streams.
Industry partners can expand their research capacities and begin to innovate rather than just sustain. Additionally, when industry leaders become involved in designing and implementing educational offerings, they can ensure that training programs accurately reflect their needs. This industry-led training effort allows incumbent workers and underemployed regional populations to fill crucial roles within organizations.
If the United States is to continue to be the global leader in driving innovation, collaborating with higher education in unexpected places and unexpected ways will lead to shared prosperity. By re-examining our preconceptions of manufacturing and higher education and working together to design agile and responsive systems that reflect real-world needs, our communities and the people living in them will thrive.
