College Focuses on Workforce Development

A 45-year-old man lost his job at a Minnesota electronics company. He had put in 25 years of work when they told him he couldn't come back on Monday. He was one of 150 workers laid off.

He had to find a job quickly. After all, he had a family, a house and a mortgage. He went to Minnesota State College-Southeast Technical for help.

The two-year college retrains students in different fields or beefs up their skills in their current fields. The school uses the latest technology to give young and old students the tools they need to land a job.

Climbing the career ladder

College President Jim Johnson makes sure that people who come to the school's workforce center learn about their options. The school partners with the state's Employment and Economic Development Department to show them what they can do to make themselves marketable.

The college doesn't want them to have to wait 16 weeks to start a new job, so it groups them in classes that start mid-semester.

"Layoffs don't happen on a semester basis, they happen on a daily basis," Johnson said. "If a person's laid off and they've got a family and they've got other types of concerns, they have to get to work."

If they decide to become truck drivers, they take classes for four weeks, complete a four-week paid internship and start work. After a year or two, they could make more than $45,000 annually.

Students who go through the popular nursing program can become hospital volunteers after 40 hours of training, licensed practical nurses in one year or registered nurses in two years. The same career ladder is available for each vocation, whether it is music instrument repair or machine tool and die.

Tech track

The school uses technology to teach its 1,650 full-time students, whose average age is 28 years old. The technology helps keep students at the college and gives them information that they can apply, said Mohamed Elhindi, the chief information officer.

"When a student graduates from us, they don't just graduate with book knowledge," he said.

Nursing students practice on patients, but not just any patients. Johnson said they take care of rubberized "human" robots -- including simulator babies, boys and men -- equipped with simulation technology. The hands-on activities with the $25,000 to $30,000 robots prepare them to work on live patients in clinics.

"It builds up their skill levels before they go out to clinical," Johnson said, "so it helps us reduce the time that students have to spend in clinical."

Technology takes up a large chunk of change, but it has been worth the investment, he said. The school spends $50,000 to $60,000 each year on a Web service that makes lectures available to students 24/7. The students like the system, which records class talks automatically, because it's interactive and helps them retain information better.

Future prospects

Johnson will have to review the school's technology and program budgets to see where he can cut back. He's not sure how much the stimulus money will help because he's waiting for the government to tell him how it will impact his school and when the funds will come.

"We can't do everything that we have been doing over the past few years," he said, "because we're going to absolutely be doing it with less resources."

While he waits for answers, he's looking for ways to make the college more efficient. He said he has to run the school like a business and find other sources of funding.

Jim Johnson will speak about the stimulus funding and technology in a Webinar on Wednesday, April 15. To register for the Webcast, visit the events page.