We are aware of contemporary changes in the national and state economies, and the effects these changes have had on our lives in this community. Manufacturing plants in our area have been closed or have reduced the number of employees. The impact of this change has been felt dramatically in small communities that send students to ASU, and in which ASU graduates live and work. Business and industry transition has had profound implications throughout the geographic region served by ASU.

Some of the employment opportunities available previously in our area have been relocated to other places, including those jobs that now are in other countries, and likely will never return. The economic realities of skilled labor availability at lower costs have made this job relocation attractive to business and industry owners and investors. While the jobs have gone away, the former domestic employees remain to seek employment in our area and hopefully to find work that is both gainful and meaningful.

As a result, we rejoice when announcements are made about new jobs that come to our area through growth and expansion of existing businesses, or the location here of new business and industry facilities. But we recognize the competition is fierce for these new developments and that there are many potential providers for these opportunities. How can our university be an influence to attract new employment opportunities or to expand the possibilities for more jobs within the existing industry we see around us?

Ironically, ASU will have a unique influence and perhaps the most significant influence in the economic development of our region. Moreover, this development will not occur without the successful integration in this area of the remarkable capabilities represented by a comprehensive university. As such, Arkansas State University has the opportunity and the responsibility to be the impetus for economic change in the area around us because of several unique aspects of our situation: ASU is in the knowledge business, and for that enterprise we use a process, teaching, which stimulates ideas. We are an idea factory.

While these ideas often are shared collectively, in classes, studios, and laboratories, and through means of mass distribution by way of publication, broadcast performance, exhibition, or spoken words, the ideas themselves are processed by each person on an individual basis. For this reason, ASU has always placed great importance on the value of the individual. We are known and appreciated for the attention given to individual students. We have made ways for individual expression to be made, to the greatest practical extent possible; we encourage and permit individual opinion to be heard. The “coins of our realm,” the idea and its advocate, the individual, continue to be the basis for our operation.

We have found new ways in the digital era to promote expression and distribution of ideas, and to support and connect the individuals who would wish to share and develop them. These capabilities are now available to us in ways unimaginable previously, and have become indispensably a part of our environment. Our university is the leader in our region for the development of an infrastructure to link ideas and the people who have them to create access to the vast resource of collected ideas, and to cause the generation of new ideas by many more individuals through application of this infrastructure. This is the age of information, and our university is one of the places for it.

And this new industry must replace the one that is vanishing in our time if we are to become a part of the New Economy. As many communities, regions, and states have realized, it will be necessary to achieve a balance between a manufacturing-based economy and one driven by ideas and the people and infrastructure to build upon those ideas.

An interesting discussion about the prospect has been conducted in our neighboring state of Mississippi. The result, Economic Development through Higher Education, is accessible as a PDF document by clicking on the title. The report by the McCoy Working Group focuses on the power of individuals, ideas, and infrastructure to change the economic environment of a state that is remarkably similar to Arkansas in many ways. The report focuses on several of those unique aspects of comprehensive universities that are found at ASU:

• We are currently involved in Workforce Development because we produce graduates (Associates, Baccalaureates, Masters, Specialists, and Doctorates) with information and knowledge necessary for today’s knowledge-driven economy. We produce these graduates in several locations across the state, but each of these places is concerned with economic issues.
   
• We are currently involved in Strategic Partnerships through myriad clinical, internship and instructional sites, through association with other knowledge providers, through relationships and networks established with academic colleagues worldwide, through outreach and service activities, and because of recently-defined alliances such as the Arkansas Biosciences Institute and the Oak Ridge Association of Universities.
   
• We are beginning to participate in the Generation and Transfer of Technologies from research to commercial applications through our graduate programs, the first patent applications to be issued from ASU, through participation in the Internet 2 System, and because of the interest shown by ASU faculty in lending their considerable expertise to solving the real-world problems around us.
   
• We always have worked to build the communities around us and to enhance the quality of life we experience in our place. We always will do this through the organization and presentation of events, exhibitions, presentations, games and contests, and through the provision of data, information, and resources that make our community greater than those without the presence of a comprehensive university. It has been shown that these amenities and the quality of life identified in such communities are important to attract and retain business and industry.

It is encouraging to see that the business and industrial leadership of the communities, region, and state are coming to understand the same recommendations advanced by the McCoy study, but that additional time and financial resources will be necessary to see these goals realized. ASU will work to support the goals to retain students in the university through graduation, to successfully recruit faculty and students in areas of critical needs to the region and state, and to work with communities to provide career opportunities for university graduates, both traditional and non-traditional students.

ASU is developing the capability to support, sustain, and reward faculty research to complement the historic strengths of our teaching programs. These research activities can ultimately lead to high-tech, high-paying job opportunities. We will need to encourage capital fund development and investment in the companies that will be based upon this research. The technologies and infrastructures used for this research will need to be updated and maintained as would be the case in any university, but we will have a special burden and challenge to extend our connectivity to our adjacent rural communities.

Economic development is a key to economic survival throughout the world. Those communities and regions that succeed at development will be the ones most likely to survive changing economic situations. Those that succeed will find a way to capitalize on the significant advantages represented by the presence of an institution like Arkansas State University. We are pleased to accept the challenge to make a change in the lives of the people we are privileged to serve.

As ASU is currently involved in a strategic planning process, it is timely that we note the potential directions of the institution that would lead us to participate more forcefully as a change agent for the economy. Capitalizing on our history with the exchange of ideas between learners, we now can anticipate that our university may respond to and be responsible for the economy, which we will need to sustain our future as a university and as a place of ideas and those who have them.

I would be grateful to have your comments on the McCoy Group report, any aspect of this article, or any other comments about ASU. I can be reached at president@astate.edu.

Les Wyatt, President
 

Attachments: Economic Development through Higher Education

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