Expanding the Talent Pool: C of O adds engineering program

Robert Weddle: Drury’s architecture program has an informal link with Crowder College.

Russ Moffett: AIA chapter will market Springfield at student career fairs.

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The collective voice of College of the Ozarks students clamoring for a new program has been heard.

The 2016 fall semester will mark the inaugural class of the Point Lookout institution’s latest offering – a four-year general engineering program – brought about by requests from prospective, current and former students.

“A lot of folks went through the pre-engineering program here and went to another school to finish their degree,” said new program director Mark Nowack, noting C of O’s transfer agreement with Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla. “They expressed a wish that they could have done it all here, and it’s been a long-held interest for the college to address that.”

Declining to disclose the program budget, Nowack said Missouri S&T, along with engineering programs at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., and John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Ark., served as models for C of O’s program. The model would teach a core skill set of mechanical and electrical engineering, with civil and agricultural focus areas.

The implementation of the program comes at a time when national student interest for the profession is on the rise. Total national engineering enrollment for 2014-15 was more than 569,000 students, up 6 percent from roughly 537,000 the previous academic year, according to the National Science Foundation. Nowack said graduate output is increasing alongside strong demand from employers.

“Certain disciplines tied to specific markets can fluctuate – petroleum engineers, for example, are worried about their jobs right now because the price of gas is down,” Nowack said. “But on the whole salaries are up, which is always an attractive thing for students.”

Anderson Engineering Inc. President and CEO Neil Brady said while the company already seeks out new employees from similar programs in place at Missouri State University, more students entering the workforce creates a deeper pool of local talent from which to choose.

“One of our biggest challenges is to find people here, so another program couldn’t hurt,” Brady said. “It’s hard to compete with bigger markets, and when students go to school outside the Springfield-Branson area it’s difficult to get them back.”

Supplying demand
Redirecting an outward flow of graduates to the area’s workforce is a similar concern for the local architecture scene, said Russ Moffett, American Institute of Architects-Springfield chapter board president and The Vecino Group LLC architect. Having made a modest gain in membership to around 165 from a post-recession low of 120, Moffett said increasing the area’s viability to both students and businesses in other markets also is a top priority for the chapter in 2016.

“We have a lot of great programs in the area, but even a lot of Drury (University’s) students leave to go to other cities,” Moffett said. “And I don’t think Springfield is on the radar for a lot of students outside our area.”

This year, rather than architecture firms marketing themselves individually, Moffett said the local AIA chapter will collectively pitch Springfield as an employment destination to program students at the University of Arkansas and Kansas State University.

Robert Weddle, dean of Drury’s Hammons School of Architecture, said Arkansas and Kansas produced most of the area’s architects up until 10 or 15 years ago. Since that time, he said, more of the school’s graduates are staying close and Drury is piquing interest from students outside of the Ozarks. Architecture enrollment is roughly 160, which is about 20 students below the peak in the last five years. Inquiries for more information about fall 2016 courses currently number over 600.

“May 2015 graduates had multiple offers before graduation and employment levels for that class are near 100 percent,” Weddle said, noting the program graduates roughly 30 students per year. “There is a lot of enthusiasm and interest from local firms. They almost can’t wait for the students to graduate.”

Nowack and Weddle agree the onus on their respective programs in producing the next generation of professionals is to train them for a new work environment. In architecture, Weddle said that training involves learning the digital design techniques that will replace traditional blueprints and drawings, such as building information modeling and using virtual reality headsets to make 3-D renderings for walkthroughs.

“It’s the kind of thing schools can lead on because we have time to experiment with it and can get the hardware in a development stage from the developers cheaper than what it would cost a firm to get it,” he said.

New model students
At C of O, Nowack said engineering degrees would have a larger requirement for general education credits than comparable programs at model schools, in the hope that a greater focus on communication skills will improve student employability upon graduation.

“As firms become smaller, every employee needs to be a little more versatile,” Nowack said. “The feedback we’re getting from the industry is that they want good, well-rounded engineers – not just someone who can crunch numbers.”

As C of O launches its new offering, Drury also will embark on a new offering this fall in the form of an animation program. Although intended as a traditional arts and letters-oriented degree, Weddle says there is a logical crossover between animation and architecture in terms of design skills, and Drury faculty already are developing a collaborative process for the coming semester.

Currently, the missing piece for Drury is engineering. Although the school has an informal relationship with Neosho-based Crowder College’s engineering program – a team of students from both institutions competed together on a project at the U.S. Department of Energy’s biennial solar decathlon in Irvine, Calif., last fall – Weddle isn’t ruling out the possibility that Drury’s architects may one day work alongside C of O’s engineers.

“I don’t know of any discussions at this point, but because we don’t have an engineering program we need to find those relationships,” Weddle said.

With roughly six months until the inaugural class officially starts, Nowack said there is still much to be done. He plans to hire another instructor and a laboratory director, finalize the curriculum, obtain computer-aided design software and reach out to local employers who could create internship opportunities.

“We’re still in the preliminary stages of seeing who has interest, but we’re also years away from providing the students who would be good for that,” Nowack said, adding C of O would seek accreditation from the Baltimore, Md.-based Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology Inc. around 2020.

“If the economy remains good, that will be perfect timing for the first round of graduates,” Nowack said. “If we graduate 25 a year, that would be great for the long term.”