Op-Ed New Hampshire Union Leader
A reply to the September 20, 2007, story,
“Kamen urges education funding at tech event”

Dr. Robert E. Myers
President Daniel Webster College

Recently, inventor and founder and president of DEKA Research and Development, Dean Kamen, made an impassioned case for higher education at a speech at the Tech North Technology Summit held in Manchester. As he told the New Hampshire Union Leader, “We need more technology faculty, more students engaged in becoming engineers and scientists … so that all the companies here have a bigger, better pool of talent to grow.”

His declaration of the problem is in line with what a panel of high-tech experts told the Nashua business community at a Greater Nashua Chamber event last month that confirmed New Hampshire’s technology sector lags behind most others in the country and that skilled worker positions often go unfilled.

This is not good news for the Granite State —and that’s not the half of it.

America’s competitive position in the global marketplace for research and development is eroding, and a significant contributor to that decline is our rapidly diminishing math and science literacy. Take a look at the literacy rate for 15-year olds among the world’s industrialized nations. The U.S. doesn’t even crack the top ten. And if you look among G8 members at the proportion of college graduates who receive degrees in any field of science, technology, engineering, or math-related discipline, the U.S. sits in the bottom half.

Those national trends are coming home to roost in New England as well. According to Chamber panelist, Matthew Kazmierczak, vice president of the American Electronics Association, New Hampshire’s stagnant job growth in high tech is attributable to a shortage of American workers with adequate math, science, and engineering education to prepare them for successful high technology careers within the state.

The region is now and for the foreseeable future anticipating large labor shortages in these skills and will be in dire need of workforce supplementation from those with the education and technical abilities in what we call STEM — Science, Technology, Engineering and Math-related disciplines.

Daniel Webster College (DWC) has followed these trends and anticipated the need for educated, “work force ready” high technology employees. We often speak with area industry leaders to ascertain their current and future needs and, as a result, have brought to the academic market programs that will best meet those needs and encourage New Hampshire college students to remain in the state to take on these good, much-needed and well-paid jobs. This is only the beginning; other academic programs are on our drawing board.

We can respond to these needs because graduating work-force ready, professionally-oriented students has been an important element of our history and of our Vision 2015, which affirms DWC will be recognized as New England’s Honors College, leading in the regions’ economic development to meet its demand for a skilled science, technology, engineering, and math-competent workforce.

The fact that we can respond in this manner is because Daniel Webster is already a recognized leader in one STEM area — that of aeronautical science, as it is practically applied to fight operations, air traffic control, and aviation management. And recent growing expertise in engineering and technology has drawn students from all over the country and the world to our campus.

In a great many respects, Daniel Webster College is on the correct course and simply needs to be precise with our heading to align our current and emerging strengths with market needs. We have dedicated ourselves to graduating students who not only are engaged citizens with a keen awareness, understanding, and appreciation for community service, the social sciences and humanities, but who are prepared to lead in the economic development within the science, technology, engineering, and math-dependent industry sectors.

Additionally we are mindful that the College must invest carefully and exclusively in new program and faculty development that is focused on providing workforce-development relevance to these industry sectors.

Many may be also aware of the new charter school, The Academy for Science and Design, opening this September, sponsored by Daniel Webster, that serves the important purpose of catching bright prospects when they’re young and primes the pump for future workforce development. That portends good news for the area and the state.

Lastly, I heartily applaud the Dean Kamen and the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce for raising everyone’s levels of awareness about what I consider the single-largest economic development challenge and opportunity for the southern tier of the state. 

All New Hampshire higher education institutions recognize that a positive future for the state requires that we encourage our graduates to remain in the Granite State for their professional careers. We anticipate that our vision will not only augment New Hampshire’s high tech workforce but will see young people settling and raising families in their native or adopted state. I look forward to working directly with the GNCC and other state higher education institutions to respond constructively and effectively.