COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

The College of Engineering's Role In Reviving The NE Ohio Economy

By George Haritos, dean, College of Engineering

THE DECLINE IN MANUFACTURING IN OHIO has created an opportunity and a responsibility for higher education in the state, and the College of Engineering is seizing on this opening.

Over the last 90 years, the great majority of the 10,000-plus graduates from the College of Engineering have been hired by Northeast Ohio manufacturers. Our graduates have made and continue to make significant contributions to these companies, many of which lead their industries and have helped fuel the local economy. At the same time, several engineering faculty have established consulting relationships with regional companies, offering their expertise to aid the development of new products and the improvement of existing ones. These partnerships with industry have been beneficial to both sides, and they have advanced the College's reputation for graduating high-quality engineers with hands-on experience.

In the last 30 years, globalization has forced manufacturers to become more competitive, their goal being to increase productivity through the use of lean manufacturing methods, downsizing, outsourcing and off-shoring. These actions, however, have led to staff and budget reductions in internal engineering and in research and development. While these moves helped to meet short-term needs, the long-term health of these companies rests on their ability to innovate and continuously improve their product lines – and that requires R&D.
We believe that this situation creates both an opportunity and a responsibility for higher education to step up and fill this R&D void. By building on existing partnerships with industry and forging new ones, the College of Engineering can fulfill important components of its mission and that of UA — to be a valuable member of the community, and to contribute to the development of the regional and state economies. In the process, we provide a richer educational experience for our students. Thus, we have taken the initiative, meeting with several industry leaders, primarily from Northeast Ohio, and telling them what we can offer, often at a fraction of the cost of outsourcing:

• Co-op students and top-rung graduate engineers with hands-on experience
• Continuing education and/or advanced training for existing workforce
• Industry-specific faculty expertise
• Graduate and undergraduate collaborative research focused on industry needs
• Product/process improvement
• New product/process development
• Ready access to talent pool and research results
• Faculty/industry exchange program

In return, our program benefits by:

• Affording the opportunity to students and faculty to apply engineering concepts and theories to real-world problems
• Gaining first-hand insight on the issues that manufacturers face
• Providing our students post-graduate employment opportunities
• More than 85 percent of our undergraduates co-op; 50 percent accept full-time positions with their co-op employers.
• Most of our graduate students seek employment in the U.S.
• Enhancing the college's and UA's reputation locally and globally (several of the companies we work with are international leaders in their sectors)

Our goal is to lead the transformation of the economy of the region, and there many excellent models to follow:

Perhaps the most well known is Research Triangle Park in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, where industry-university collaboration has led to employment growth that has been at twice the national average since 1990. Participants include Duke, the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, community colleges and significantly, the state of North Carolina.

Silicon Valley in California remains the world's largest technology cluster, its backbone being Stanford, University of California at Berkeley and community colleges. But after the booming 1990s, employment growth in the valley has lagged the national average, though the outlook is improving.

Finally, we look to Minnesota, where the University of Minnesota and technical and community colleges have leveraged university-based research and the existing local industry base to nurture several startup companies that are taking root. Employment there is in line with national averages, but the future is bright.

Can Northeast Ohio duplicate this success? We are blessed with many of the resources necessary to so do and, through the leadership of The University of Akron, the College of Engineering and others, people are beginning to realize that higher education must play a vital role in the rebirth of our regional economy.