The growing need to close the gap between what employers need and what the current Rhode Island work force offers was the focus of higher education and work force development efforts in Rhode Island in 2011.
The skills gap is one reason for the growth of reform efforts at the elementary and secondary school levels across the state.
Yet in 2011, the lingering recession and its attendant high unemployment have generated an urgency to improve the training of state residents for technically complex jobs that are there as the “knowledge economy” grows.
Technology companies routinely train workers once they get on the job, often to keep their skill sets up to date. But Atrion Networking Corp., in the midst of sustained growth and forecasting more, made the decision to invest $12,000 to $15,000 each for 13 recruits, hiring – and paying – them to just “go to school” for six months.
In its own 2011 growth spurt, Medfx could not wait for six months. It needed 20 people for its health care/IT business, but found only two who were Rhode Islanders, despite looking specifically within the state first.
Government-sponsored programs cannot train workers quickly enough nor impart the skills needed to take on high-tech jobs, IT companies say, but efforts are under way to improve federal and state programs.
At the R.I. Department of Labor and Training, a new boss took over in 2011, Charles J. Fogarty, former lieutenant governor. His top priority is “to make the Rhode Island work force the most skilled and nimble in the nation,” he said. He wants to improve cooperation and coordination among the various parties engaged in job training.
Under his watch, DLT tailored a training program for former employees of the A.J. Wright chain of retail stores, which went out of business in late 2010. Rhode Island College took on training duties for 80 Wright workers, the first time the college worked exclusively with the employees of one company. “I’m so excited to study something that will improve my life,” said Aracely Hernandez, of Johnston, one of the trainees.
Community College of Rhode Island won a $3.4 million federal grant in 2011 to provide technical training to 600 workers in a 36-month period, the only such grant in the state. The program begins in January 2012 and involves 20 stakeholders, including Lifespan, the Governor’s Workforce Board and businesses such as Atrion.
Career-training is nothing new to New England Institute of Technology. What is new is the September opening of NEIT’s third campus in the state, a $100 million project that saw the school take over the 265,000-square-foot corporate headquarters built for Brooks Pharmacy in East Greenwich.
Another new facility opened in 2011 – Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School headquarters in the Knowledge District of Providence. The $45 million conversion of a former factory is the first permanent home for the state’s only medical school, which began awarding degrees in 1975.
The year brought news of two key changes in university presidents. Ruth J. Simmons will step down as Brown’s 18th president at the end of the academic year, after serving 10 years. She will continue at the Ivy League school as a professor of comparative literature and Africana studies.
In October, Donald J. Farish, an educator, attorney and scientist, was inaugurated as the 10th president of Roger Williams University, a 55-year-old school on the Bristol waterfront and home of the state’s sole law school. •
