What better way to retain talent than to bring regional prospective employers together and let college students and graduates get to meet all of them? Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne is hosting the annual Northeast Indiana Career Enrichment (NICE) Fair, Wednesday, April 11, from 1-5 p.m. in the International Ballroom of the Walb Student Union.
More than 80 employers and over 160 recruiters will be present due to the efforts of collaboration between eight accredited colleges and universities. Check out the website for more information.
I ran across this video by RSAnimate featuring Sir Ken Robinson, an internationally recognized leader in the development of education, creativity, and innovation. This video, titled “Changing Education Paradigms,” depicts an interesting perspective on education and how the culture of education has changed over time. The Animate states that every country on earth is reforming public education and goes on to provide two reasons why: economic and culture. People are trying to figure out how we educate our youth to take their place in the economies of the 21st Century while also trying to figure out how we educate them to have a cultural identity and provide them the opportunity to pass down the cultural genes they have to generations to come.
Sir Ken Robinson’s perspective on education is very interesting. I found myself thinking “Wow, no one has said it like that before.” I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.
Until next time,
Erica
The Partnership staff helped area Mayors, WorkOne Northeast, and the Talent Initiative kick off the 21st Century Talent Conference on Wednesday, October 5. Regional Mayors Suzanne Handshoe of Kendallville, John Schultz of Decatur, Tom Henry of Fort Wayne, Norm Yoder of Auburn, John Minch of Berne, and Richard Hickman of Angola, along with Senator Kruse stood behind this effort as we brought together over 200 area educators and business persons to talk about the importance of developing a top-rated workforce. The event was headlined by two dynamic keynote speakers; Ian Jukes; Director of InfoSavvy Group, an international consulting group that provides leadership and program development and Dewayne Matthews; Vice President of Policy and Strategy for the Lumina Foundation.
The conference’s main goal: educate the region on the BIG Goal and importance of education and business to work together to achieve this bold initiative. The BIG Goal; first developed by the Lumina Foundation for Education (out of Indianapolis) challenges the region to increase the proportion of American’s with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60% by the year 2025.
Why does this matter? While the unemployment rate in Northeast Indiana and across the nation is still high; we have employers with jobs openings that they are unable to fill due to the lack of appropriate skills and education. This trend is only just beginning and is projected to get much worse.
The conference touched on a broad spectrum of issues related to developing our 21st Century Talent. John Stafford, Director of Community Research Institute for IPFW, and his business panel discussed the current reality of the workforce in Northeast Indiana. Mark Michael; President and COO of Fort Wayne Metals, and Scott Maddox; Site Executive for Northrop Grumman Corp. talked about the current and long-term skill needs of their companies and the difficulties of finding those skills in our region today.
Leonard Helfrich, Director of the Talent Initiative, shared “What is Happening Regionally”, highlighted programs of the Talent Initiative and other strong regional programs.
Ian Jukes keynote address titled, “Disruptive Innovation,” illustrated the rapid nature of change in today’s world and the critical need for the evolution of training and education to keep pace with this change. Jukes stated that “everything has an expiration date; including education… get ready for the reset button, it is time for a complete overhaul.” The audience enjoyed his enthusiasm and ideas about change.
So here comes the question of: are we heading in the right direction? According to the various business owners, politicians, and educators who attended, the answer is a firm “yes!” We, as a region, need to change now before we get left behind. Dewayne showed the importance of education and how the previous recession accelerated a longer-term decline in middle-skilled, middle-waged jobs. According to studies, 735,000 working-age adults have attended college, but don’t have a degree. Wow! This just proves that we need to act now and the BIG Goal should be the driving force of our action.
By: Erica Hahn, Vision 2020 Project Coordinator
Photo By: Daniel Scheerer (Pixel Perfect Photography)
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The Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership was formed in 2006 to help build a globally competitive economy in Northeast Indiana. It is a public-private partnership focused on generating business leads and building regional capacity through product development and effective regional collaboration. In 2010, the Partnership launched Vision 2020 to bring the region together around five key areas for economic growth: 21st Century Talent, Competitive Business Climate, Entrepreneurship, Infrastructure and Quality of Life. Through its combined efforts in business development and capacity building, the Partnership supports its 10 member counties: Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, Wabash, Wells and Whitley counties.
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