By Evan D. Robertson, Project Associate.
I’ve been as far north as Bird Island, Minnesota. Just two weeks ago, I
can now claim to have been as far north as Watertown, South Dakota.
Watertown sits on the stretch of I-29 between Sioux Falls, SD and Fargo,
ND. Much of the land between Minneapolis and Watertown is primarily
agricultural: the view from thirty thousand feet reveals neatly
subdivided plots of land with undeviating roads vanishing far into the
horizon. As we approached the City of roughly 21,000 people, the plane
took a hard left revealing Lake Kampeska an immense body of water which I
guess I should have expected given the City’s name. Having set a new
record for northerly travel, I was in for a tour of a nationally
recognized, best practice community college.
Lake Area Technical Institute
is a two-year technical college just a few blocks from Uptown
(Watertown’s geographic heart). The Institute was founded in 1965 as the
first technical school in South Dakota. Enrollment during the 2010-2011
school year reached 1,638 students. Only 69 students were from out of
state. Diversity was admittedly an improvement area the Institute is
actively seeking to address. Of the 1,638 students, only 67 were
non-white. Given the demographics of the surrounding community, however,
this is fairly representative. Two of the most surprising statistics:
75 percent of students work part-time or full-time while attending
school and 98 percent of students find employment upon graduating or are
continuing their education.
Lake Area Tech has adopted what I would call an ethos of “learning by
doing.” During our tour, while many students were deeply engaged in
their textbooks (it was finals week), most students were involved in
some form of activity be it diagnosing a mechanical difficulty on an
automobile, repairing diesel engines, tinkering with circuit boards,
programming manufacturing robots, or sending sparks flying by sanding
down metal. This pragmatic mentality is supported by a generous local
philanthropic community and alumni network. Many of the automobiles
students were working on were donated by local residents or by those
that just wanted to get their car fixed. Agricultural technology
students are able to learn on the newest equipment thanks to Lake Area’s
partnership with Case IH. From the alumni, LuAnn Strait (Director of
Institutional Relations) casually mentioned to us that one of the former
alumni who worked for a large global logistics firm donated a Boeing
727 that the company was planning to retire to the Institute, providing
students with a real-world laboratory and indicative of the Institute’s
relationship with the private sector.
All of Lake Area Technical Institute’s programs of study were carefully
considered to ensure that the skills obtained by the student would be
marketable post-graduation. The Institute will only create or maintain a
program of study that has the potential to provide employment for
graduating students. Moreover, programs of study are supported by an
Advisory Board of professionals who ensure that students are receiving
the most up-to-date training techniques and give feedback regarding
graduates’ performance in the workplace. This connection with the
private sector is vital, providing the Institute with tacit information
critical to maintaining their effectiveness and their students’
relevancy in the labor market. This information exchange, along with a
myriad of other best practices (such as providing joint-use classroom
space to the local high school across the street and constructing a wind
turbine for their energy technology students) has earned Lake Area Tech
a top five spot in the Aspen Institute's Prize for Community College Excellence.
As I wrote about in an earlier blog
(apologies for the shameless self-promotion), I’ve been contemplating
how resistant community colleges and universities would be to the
impending release of MIT, Stanford, and other top tier universities’
open source coursework. With the Lake Area experience behind me, it now
seems clear that those institutes who are able to alter the classroom
environment to one that actively engages students and adopts a practice
of experiential, collaborative learning
will thrive in the digital education area. You can replace the lecture,
but you just can’t easily digitize a Boeing 727. You can’t supplant the
pragmatic classroom.
