Professor Van Ry

Everyone wants to be innovative, though few people actually achieve innovation. Frankly, in today’s world of higher education, few institutions are capable of flexibility, much less innovation.

The juxtaposition is that our “customers” — the companies which hire our students — are constantly innovating.

That is particularly true for companies involved in manufacturing, in which innovation is essential not only for growth, but for survival. At the same time, the ability to innovate boils down to a company being able to employ a workforce capable of executing and carrying out innovative ideas. A talented workforce makes up a company’s frontlines in the battle to survive and prosper.

It is no secret that providing a continual pipeline of qualified new workers to companies is a challenge. More, most companies look to their local community residents to fill these roles, as they should. These workers are longtime members of the communities, they raise their families there, and, yes, the workers typically go to school in that community.

Most of the workers are not graduates of four-year universities. Instead, they earn degrees and certificates from local two-year colleges. In that light, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that any community with a vibrant manufacturing sector should have an equally vibrant community college system. <Read more.>

Via Community College Week.