Business leaders say college grads need more than work skills
ISU joins Liberal Education and America's Promise campaign
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. - With millions of baby boomers set to retire in the coming years, college graduates will be thrust into roles of greater responsibility at an earlier age than their parents and must be ready to address a new set of job skills, business leaders attending a workshop at Indiana State University said Thursday.
"Those employees will need higher analytical skills and a mix of technological skills and understanding," said Tim Sullivan, vice president of finance at Smith's Aerospace, a $5.6 billion British company that supplies engine components to the aerospace industry in 140 countries.
"They can't come out of school just being an engineer or just being an accountant. They have to know more than just the debits and credits or how to read blueprints. They have to understand how to interact with a very diverse cultural society," Sullivan said.
"It's very important that anyone coming into the business field today enter not only with some specialized knowledge, but also that they come with those thinking skills and communication skills - the ability to get along with other people. Those are the things that are going to magnify and create the synergy within the business to help the business be successful, added Bill Carper, vice president of operations with Columbian Home Products, LLC.
"As someone who is trained in engineering and someone who is working in the business community and hiring the products of your labor, I very much endorse liberal education," Carper said.
The university is preparing to meet the need. ISU President Lloyd W. Benjamin III on Thursday formally announced participation in a national partnership stressing the importance of liberal education to meet the demands of a changing world.
"Indiana State is pleased and honored to join with the Association of American Colleges and Universities in promoting the importance - indeed, the necessity - of a liberal education for all students," Benjamin said in announcing the university's commitment to "Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP): Excellence for Everyone as a Nation Goes to College."
Benjamin announced Indiana State's participation in LEAP during a campus-community dialogue event entitled "The Good Life and the Good Community: The Value of Liberal Education in the Wabash Valley." The two-day session brought business, government and education leaders together on the ISU campus to discuss ways liberal education can help the Wabash Valley and the state of Indiana be more competitive in the global economy.
The LEAP campaign is a 10-year initiative to expand public and student understanding that college and university graduates need much more than technical skills to be successful.
"Indiana State has a long and distinguished tradition of providing students with the skills and knowledge needed to be not only good and productive workers in their chosen career but also engaged citizens in their community and state," Benjamin said. "Our participation in LEAP will build upon Indiana State University's interest in developing human potential to its fullest and to contribute to the economy, cultural vitality and well-being of the state and region."
Launched in January, the LEAP campaign now includes more than 150 of AAC&U's 1,100 member institutions. The initiative comes at what AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider calls a "pivotal moment" in the history of higher education.
"What we see going on in American higher education today, led by institutions like Indiana State and the good work the faculty and staff are doing with community partners, is the emergence of a new design for undergraduate education that is attuned to our time, to our global economy and to the responsibilities we have to a democratic society," Schneider said.
The LEAP campaign is designed to spark public debate about the knowledge, skills and values today's students need; to challenge the belief that students must choose either a practical education or a liberal education; to make visible current inequities that steer low-income students to programs that teach narrow job skills while more advantaged students choose liberal education; and to document national and state progress in providing every student with access to a high-quality, liberal arts education.
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Contact: Ann Rider, associate dean for curriculum and academic affairs, ISU College of Arts and Sciences, (812) 237-2784 or flrider@isugw.indstate.edu
Writer: Dave Taylor, media relations director, ISU Office of Communications & Marketing, (812) 237-3743 or dave.taylor@indstate.edu
ISU Communications and Marketing: (812) 237-3773 or http://www.indstate.edu/news
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