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Higher Education
Higher education also improves the economic lot of multiple generations of Floridians. Sixty-five percent of the children of college graduates get college degrees, while only 15% of the offspring of non-college grads go to college, according to FSU Provost Dr. Lawrence Abele.
Yet there are challenges to delivering strong and successful programs. Money is one of them.
Betty Castor, president of the University of South Florida, says, "Florida's higher education system is still in the building stage. We're developing areas of word-class excellence, but we're still growing, and we need support--from government, students, and private sources."
Access to higher education is another challenge facing Florida. With only 29.1% of Florida's 19-year-olds in college, a rate 10 points behind the national average, and the number of high school graduates rising to peak at 125,000 in 2007, J. David Armstrong Jr., executive director of the State's Division of Community Colleges, says, "Historic approaches are not working."
In announcing a joint program with the State University System to make it easier for Floridians to obtain college degrees, including a plan for concurrent-use campuses, Armstrong stated, "We have agreed to join forces to simplify access for the student and to work efficiently for the taxpayer."
A third challenge is relevance. Dr. Ann McGee, president of Seminole Community College in Sanford-Lake Mary, says that with so much of education tied to information technology, the quick obsolescence of learning is an issue. McGee says SCC is partnering with the Florida High Tech Corridor Council to re-design curriculum. "We must package education in transportable and easily changed pieces," she explains.
Preparing the Technical Workforce
McGee says Florida's public higher education system "enjoys good architecture." She explains, "We prepare students to transfer to bachelors, masters and doctoral programs but at the same time we have a commitment to technical education."
To prepare students more quickly for higher paying, high tech jobs, and to meet industry's need for skilled technicians, the Tech 4 High Technology Industrial Educational Consortium (composed of the University of South Florida, University of Central Florida and Valenica, Brevard, Seminole and Hillsborough Community Colleges) partners universities with community colleges, industry and private funding sources.
The consortium recently received a $1.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation, matched by $1.3 million from corporate partners, including Cirent Semiconductor. The community colleges will specialize in specific high tech areas, and the partner institutions work together to provide a complete curriculum. Courses are beamed to all participating colleges and universities through distance learning technologies.
USF and Hillsborough Community College are developing joint curricula in vacuum technologies, hazardous materials, applied fluid dynamics and related fields that complement microelectronics. USF engineers will facilitate this effort by developing and augmenting HCC's expertise in these areas. The project gives community college students unprecedented access to expensive, high-tech equipment currently unavailable in most community colleges because of the cost of developing a complete laboratory.
Workforce training takes place onsite at corporate partners. McGee says Seminole Community College is training 190 employees of Phoenix International in software use and Web site development under a Quick Response Training grant from the state.
David Armstrong points out that workforce development begins in partnering with public schools. Through dual enrollment programs, students can pursue technical training at community college while still in high school and in some cases receive the AA degree and a high school diploma at same time.
The Emergency One Corporate University at Central Florida Community College in Ocala is another example of how Florida's community colleges are providing innovative services to business and industry. Emergency One, a leading manufacturer and marketer of fire and rescue vehicles, pays course fees for its employees to receive customized training at CFCC, making the company more competitive in hiring and retaining workers. And the benefits flow both ways, according to Dr. Charles R. Dassance, CFCC president.
"Programs like our partnership with Emergency One keep our faculty cognizant of what's happening in the business world and how we need to respond to changes occurring there," Dassance says. "We share a lot of the same problems and issues. While we're concerned about Emergency One's success, they're equally concerned about ours."
Concurrent-Use Campuses Annually, 75% of 26,000 associate degree grads transfer to state universities to earn the bachelor's degree, but the 25% for whom there is no place constitutes the state's degree-access crisis. One answer is collaboration: putting state university programs at community college campuses. "It's a common sense solution," says Armstrong, "offering more degrees to more people without substantial increases in new construction costs, and serving people placebound by jobs and family."
Some concurrent-use operations already exist. Lake City Community College is already partners with Florida State University, and in St. Petersburg, under-used facilities of the University of South Florida have since last August been filled with hundreds of lower division students receiving instruction delivered by St. Petersburg Junior College. Upper division courses and programs from USF are expected on SPJC sites this fall.
Seminole Community College will partner with the University of Central Florida, offering 23 courses from four UCF colleges--health and public affairs, education, arts and sciences and business.
"Students can get bachelor's degrees without leaving Seminole," says President McGee. She says many of SCC's students are working adults--the average age is 28--who need the flexibility and convenience of completing their four-year degree near home and office.
Seamless Articulation At Florida Atlantic University, Dr. Anthony James Catanese, president, says, "Community colleges have a special role to play, and the easier we make the process for them, the smoother is the way of the future."
FAU's campus is adjacent to Broward Community College in both Davie and downtown Fort Lauderdale. The two schools share a joint catalog, joint registration and some facilities, including the library. The goal, Catanese explains, is seamless articulation. "Many students consider themselves to be at both BCC and FAU," he adds.
State University System Chancellor Dr. Adam Herbert, addressing the expanded access plan, states, "From the student's perspective the walls between our public higher education institutions are coming down."
Divisions between public and private schools are also being smoothed away. Nova Southeastern University recently signed an articulation agreement with Broward Community College for an accelerated AA/BS/MS whereby students complete five to six years of course work in four years and graduate with a specialty in exceptional student education. The program will address a critical teacher shortage in this specialty.
Through a collaboration among Central Florida Community College and the independent institutions Saint Leo University and Webster University, a student beginning higher education at CFCC can complete graduate school without ever commuting.
A Solid System of Private Education Florida's private, accredited institutions of higher education serve 120,000 students from a diversity of racial, cultural and economic backgrounds. Gerald Horton, head of the Florida Independent College Fund, points out that private colleges are part of the solution to the state's baby boom bubble in higher education. "There is capacity among the independents to take on an additional 10,000 students each year," he says, "but the money to allow students to attend has to be available."
The Fund, a non-profit foundation, raises money for collaborative programs and scholarships for its 28 members. Currently over 500 students are partially supported by over 40 corporate sponsors. The Fund ranks among the top 10 in the country today, and Horton says he plans to make it number one before he retires. "We need to build a system of private education," Horton says, "to supplement the public system we already have."
Dr. C. Wayne Freeberg, executive director of the State Board of Independent Colleges and Universities, says the board's job is to foster the growth of independent institutions, particularly by recognizing that the nature of educational needs is changing rapidly. "Increasingly, having a degree is secondary to having the knowledge base," he explains.
To facilitate collaborations and distance education, board-affiliated groups offer a non-public college intranet, a library resources network, and a distance education network. The Board's On-line Rapid Response system processes institutions' applications and approvals with a two-hour turnaround. "The private sector has to move quickly if it's to survive," Freeberg says, "because business and industry move quickly."
State Senator George Kirkpatrick, executive director of Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida Inc., says that the 26 members of ICUF are continually working as partners with the state universities and community colleges in providing higher education opportunities to Florida students. ICUF member schools represent 80,000 students, almost 60,000 of them Floridians.
Business Education for Working Adults Freeberg says the fastest growing university in the state is the University of Phoenix. Robert H. Barker, Jr., regional vice president for UOP's southeastern region, says their strategy is to do one thing well: serve the educational needs of working adults.
Course offerings are concentrated in business (graduate and undergrad) and master's nursing programs. UOP classes meet once weekly, at night, supplemented by a weekly study group meeting. Courses run a concentrated five weeks.
Barker explains that UOP is "very in- tune" with private sector needs yet is actively part of Florida's higher education system. "We were one of the first individual colleges to sign the state-wide articulation agreement with community colleges," he points out. A publicly-traded, for-profit company in business for 22 years, UOP has about 61,000 degree-seeking students nationwide with 3,200 in Florida.
Florida Metropolitan University, founded in 1890 as Tampa College, is the state's oldest business college. FMU specializes in career preparation: 80% of its graduates are employed within 90 days of graduation. Dan Moore, chief administrator, says FMU works closely with business, receiving input from more than 30 private industry advisory groups and making extensive use of internships in most of its program. FMU also performs custom training on-site for business, frequently in software education.
In a pilot program FMU is offering distance learning to 200 currently enrolled students and finds it popular with both faculty and learners. Moore cautions that asynchronous distance learning is not for everyone, however. "The student needs a minimum level of initiative and maturity," he says. Moore says FMU's objective in offering the program is to improve student retention and that so far there is higher retention in distance learning than in the regular classroom.
Indiana-based Walden University offers working professionals in Florida convenient graduate degrees, entirely by distance delivery, in education, health services, human services, management and psychology.
International College in Naples offers the adult learner an accelerated B.S. in Management. Students incorporate class projects into their working environment, benefiting employers, and on-line classes facilitate the flexible scheduling of electives.
Southwest Florida College in Fort Myers provides non-traditional adult learners associate degrees through residency, distance learning and faculty directed independent study.
At Lynn University, a private college in Boca Raton, qualified students work for major corporations in marketing, finance, accounting, international communications, graphic design, Web site development and political science, gaining practical experience and insight into the world of work.
Serving the Lifelong Learner Webster University, an international liberal arts college founded in St. Louis in 1915, serves Florida from seven campuses and numerous on-site employer locations. In Florida its offerings are primarily masters' programs in business and related areas, and all are targeted at employed adults--people that Webster's regional director Dr. Tom Janke calls lifelong learners.
"People with master's degrees are prepared to work creatively," Janke explains. The benefit to business, he adds, is not just employees with higher skills levels but, especially when courses are taught on site, employees who are more satisfied with their employers.
Webster University's mission is to offer rigorous, cutting edge education at times that are convenient to adult learners (weekends and evenings), and to do so in a personalized setting of small classes and academic counseling. Janke wants adult learners to experience the distinction between training and education.
Training, says Janke, teaches people to deal with things as they are, while education confers judgment, equipping people to deal with change.
The MBA: A "Total Product" for Corporate Partners Dr. John Kraft, dean of the Warrington College of Business of the University of Florida, says the MBA has become a degree for people with significant work experience. "They see the MBA as a total product--discipline-based, but designed to improve specific skill sets, in communication, leadership or team building, " he explains.
To serve the full-time employed, UF offers a number of avenues to the degree, ranging from traditional, on-campus one- and two-year programs to part-time options running from 12 to 29 months and delivered by three-day weekends, two-day weekends or completely electronically. "It's all the same degree," Kraft says. "It's the delivery mechanism that differs."
Kraft says the diversity of offerings results from input from business, as does the school's focus on benchmarking and enhancing skill sets.
UF has eight industry advisory groups and belongs to an affinity group of 16 public university business schools. "There's considerable dynamism among the top 50 schools," Kraft says. "We're seeing frequent major overhauls of curriculum, and, to insure quality across diverse offerings, an effort to make sure faculty is dynamic too, able to teach across all types of programs."
Florida State University's College of Business offers a "corporate MBA" taught on site at participating businesses with a curriculum customized for the industry served. Classes are held every third weekend for three days, with Internet interaction in-between. Dr. Melvin Stith, dean, says the program currently underway for Tech Data in Clearwater is so popular that FSU will start a second one before the first 2-1/2 year program is finished.
FSU's DeSantis Executive Management Center, just one year old and endowed with $2 million of private money matched by the state, offers management education from the supervisory to the executive level, and conducts research in executive education. The Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship supports entrepreneurs through on-line consulting and Web-based referral to "angels" (equity investors.) It also boosts graduate and undergraduate students' education by providing them real-world access to entrepreneurial projects. Dean Stith states, "We want to make sure our men and women are marketable. We don't make a major decision without involving our corporate partners."
The University of Florida's year-old Executive Education program is another dynamic response to business needs. Dr. Joseph McCann III, director, says that rapid economic growth and globalization make organizations hard-pressed to develop leadership skills in the young managers they must bring on quickly, and to achieve regional perspectives within a multi-national outlook, especially in the Latin American market. In response, UFexec offers businesses non-degree, non-academic customized training, facilitation and learning partnerships, and operates conference centers in Coral Gables and Gainesville.
UFexec already has 25 programs underway, including the Americas Learning Alliance. This consortium among UF, 30 top multi-nationals and eight premier Latin American business schools is designing a curriculum for leadership skills which UFexec will deliver via programs in Miami, video conferencing and distance learning.
The University of North Florida recently expanded its continuing education programs with construction of one of the largest university-based conference centers in the nation. The 95,000-square- foot University Center is designed to host leaders from education, business, government, labor and the arts from around the world to meet, study and influence change. The University Center is a highly visible cornerstone of UNF's new Technology Park.
No Walls at All: Learning On-Line Saint Leo University, an independent Catholic university founded in 1881, has 24 locations in five states and Spain, and has been a distance learning leader for 25 years. Its president, Dr. Arthur F. Kirk, Jr., says Saint Leo brings an entrepreneurial focus to its efforts to educate the non-traditional student.
Saint Leo pioneered "distance teaching" a quarter-century ago, taking courses to military bases, and now delivers its Internet degree completion program to adult students all over the country. Designed for people with 30 or more college credits, the program allows them to complete bachelor's degrees in business administration, accounting and computer technology.
Distance learning challenges the traditionally regional structure of accreditation, Kirk says, adding, "We're attempting to establish a standard for how it should be done." Saint Leo's program features not only slick chat room technology in which student, instructor and classmates' messages are color-coded, but also hyper-links in course material and taped lectures streamed over the Internet. Students are grouped in "class cohorts" of 15 for support, and assigned a mentor. Kirk says each course takes months to develop and that faculty is not only trained but also auditioned. "Not everyone teaches well in front of a camera," Kirk explains.
FSU's 2+2 Initiative allows anyone with an AA degree or higher to complete bachelors' degrees in selected programs via Internet-supported distance learning. Course materials are specifically designed for self-directed learning. Each participant is assigned a mentor as a learning guide and receives a package of instructional materials, access to a course Web site and the e-mail addresses of everyone associated with the course.
Florida's 28 community colleges share an on-line catalog of 1,500 courses available through distance learning, Web-based or tele-course, at the Web site: www.distancelearn.org. This initiative serves the placebound student and allows business to offer employees additional or task-specific training, from basic customer service instruction to full two-year degree programs, all by distance learning.
Florida Gulf Coast University, located between Naples and Fort Myers, the state's newest public university, was chartered as a dual-mode university, meaning that in addition to full-service campus programs, many courses and selected degrees are made available through distance learning. Since opening in August 1997, FGCU has developed over 100 distance courses, each with a comprehensive Web site, group conferencing software and e-mail for continuous communication with professors and fellow students.
Palm Beach Atlantic College offers distance learning in continuing education and clinical training to healthcare practitioners in rural areas of Palm Beach County, in partnership with local and regional healthcare agencies.
Northwood University operates interactive facilities in three states, including, in Florida, West Palm Beach. Each classroom facility is completely equipped for interactive audio and video transmission, allowing Northwood to share faculty among campuses, offer classes at sites where enrollment is marginal, and increase the feeling of oneness among campuses.
The Florida Center for the Americas, a private institution under development, will offer accredited Christian theological education partly through distance learning. Dr. Benjamin Alicea-Lugo, chair of the Center's board, points out that the next generation of religious leaders needs education to deal effectively with change and diversity. With theater classrooms in eight population centers and a network of virtual classrooms, FCA intends to reach the most remote areas of the state and will also offer its delivery system to non-religious entities.
At St. Catherine's School, a premier boarding school outside Richmond, Virginia, access to on-line resources is a critical part of their intensive college preparatory curriculum. A new $2 million technology center is one of the South's finest, featuring two computer labs, 22 Internet-connected study carrels and six fully-networked CD-ROM workstations.
Nova Southeastern University offers bachelor's, master's, specialist and doctoral degrees to nearly 17,000 students through 50 sites in 22 states and eight foreign countries. Eighty percent of Nova Southeastern students live in Florida, but distance education is an important university service as well. President Ray Ferrero, Jr., says electronically mediated programs not only deliver but also enhance education. He cites the success of Nova Southeastern's "virtual MBA" which in only one year has drawn over 200 participants. Nova Southeastern offers four different master's degrees in computer/information science through asynchronous on-line delivery, and a doctorate of pharmacy through compressed interactive video.
Leveraging the Development Dollar: Collaborations with Community and Industry Nova Southeastern, an independent, non-profit institution, recently announced a partnering with the Broward County Library system. A $41 million joint facility on Nova Southeastern's main campus in Davie will be operated by the college but available to every citizen. President Ferrero says that this is the first collaboration of its kind that he's aware of, but that all participants in education must be willing to look at the system as a whole. "We need overall solutions to our problems," he states.
A recent high profile collaboration is the presentation by Cirent Semiconductor, the Orlando-based microelectronics manufacturer, of two endowed chairs in science to its university partners in the Florida High Tech Corridor Project. University of Central Florida received a chair in computer science, and the University of South Florida received a chair in microelectronics.
According to UCF President Dr. John C. Hitt, in collaboration with USF, UCF played a key role in influencing the creation of 1,000 high-paying Cirent jobs in Greater Orlando and new capital investment on the order of $1.7 billion.
USF president Betty Castor describes the Cirent endowments as an unprecedented vote of confidence in Florida's High Tech Corridor.
"By endowing chairs in computer science and microelectronics, Cirent is strengthening a strategic alliance that gives it a competitive edge. For USF and UCF, these chairs are the latest additions to strong departments that make the universities attractive to students, faculty and business," Castor says.
Dr. Dan Holsenbeck, vice president for university relations at UCF, says 21 UCF faculty members have recently received research funds totalling nearly $2.5 million for joint projects with companies ranging from Lockheed Martin and Honeywell to small, start-up companies working in lasers and optics. Approximately $800,000 in state funds, awarded through the university to individual faculty proposals, generated the $2.5 million total through in-kind grants by industry partners.
State-of-the-art analytical equipment purchased in partnership and sited at the universities allows research advances for both, and enables the universities to configure a curriculum around the availability of that equipment, do research for other, less-advanced companies, and even offer additional doctoral degrees.
Dr. Raymond Bye, interim vice president for research at Florida State's Office of Research, explains that technology transfer--moving research from the lab to the market--is an economic development engine. President D'Alemberte points out that FSU ranks fourth in the nation in royalties returned from licenses on intellectual property, just behind such traditional heavy research hitters as Stanford and the whole University of California, including Berkeley.
The North Florida Technology Alliance is the region's answer to Central Florida's high tech success. Through the Alliance, university presidents, economic development officials and business leaders work to identify the region's research strengths and attract the industries that can leverage them. Bye says the type of project sought would be similar to FSU's current collaboration (through its National High Magnetic Field Lab and the College of Engineering) with Lockheed Martin on magnet-assisted rail transport.
Florida Atlantic University has a 50-acre research park in Boca Raton, grown from three tenants in 1996 to 25 now. About 2,000 private sector jobs have been generated, and FAU is now considering new sites for additional research parks, especially in Dania where their SeaTech facilities opened in January. SeaTech houses advanced work in ocean research and has drawn considerable interest from corporations seeking to site manufacturing facilities for newly patented inventions close to a university research center.
At the University of West Florida, the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition is expected to bring in $9 million in contracts and grants this year. Research at the Institute focuses on cutting edge applications for computer assistance in learning and working, and is of high interest to NASA, the Navy and artificial intelligence firms. The Institute is moving to downtown Pensacola because, UWF President Dr. Morris Marx explains, "We believe we can create an urban enterprise zone."
UWF is part of the Gulf Coast Alliance for Technology Transfer, an economic development consortium whose other members are Florida A & M, FSU's High Magnetic Field Lab, UF's College of Engineering and several major military labs. Marx says that many high tech materials and processes developed for the military have commercial potential, and the consortium seeks to identify and facilitate applications for the marketplace.
