By: Albert C. Yates,
President Colorado State University

Recently, Gov. Owens officially launched the Colorado Institute of Technology, a bold new educational partnership that will help our state and its industries keep pace with the ever-increasing de-mand for high-technology workers. With the blessing and financial support of education and industry, the CIT promises to be an important addition to our state’s education resource base, assuring that opportunities for advanced skill development are widely available and accessible.

This move comes in response to a clear economic reality: The long-term strength and vitality of our state will depend on the availability of a skilled and adaptable workforce in all fields, particularly the high-technology arena. Today’s burgeoning Information Age promises to transform our culture and ways of doing business as significantly as the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution did within the context of their times. Within this environment, Colorado already is well-poised for sustained growth as a leader and ground-breaker, but we must take responsibility to ensure that we continue to capitalize on and invest in our state’s economic potential. The education and training of our workforce is perhaps the most critical area for investment, particularly in light of studies that have indicated a potential shortfall of 30,000 technical workers over the next decade.

Traditionally, high-technology workers have acquired their education and employment skills primarily through degree programs at colleges and universities, and this continues to be true. At Colorado State University alone, we have seen 70 percent enrollment growth in programs related to information science and technology over the past four years. The number of student credit hours in computer information systems alone has grown by more than 87 percent during the same time period — fueled by an employment market that virtually guarantees a job offer from a prestigious company at a high starting salary. And while the CIT is an important adjunct to our existing higher-education programs, it cannot succeed unless our state colleges and universities remain committed to preparing for life and work within a competitive, high-tech environment.

The mission of traditional institutions of higher education has always been twofold: 1) to provide students with the education needed to live full, rewarding lives and accept responsibility for their role and obligations in a civil society; and 2) to prepare students to be able to make a living in the world as it is and as we expect it to be in the future. The body of knowledge changes constantly, and the pace of such change has accelerated throughout the last century with dramatic advances in technology and science. Institutions of higher education have long recognized this, and have attempted to focus more on disciplining students’ minds, teaching them how to learn, than on simply filling them with facts. "Facts, as we know them, may change, but those who are able to study, think and learn will be equipped to cope with such changes.

Still, the emergence of computing and technology as cultural and economic forces poses a unique challenge for today’s educators, as they must confront what it means to be an educated, literate person in a high-technology environment. In the 1980s, E.D. Hirsch attempted to define cultural literacy as "the common knowledge or collective memory (that) allows people to communicate, to work together and to live together." While many took issue with the particulars of cultural literacy as Hirsch defined them, it is difficult to argue against the notion that there is a sort of shorthand we apply in our daily communication that reflects common understandings and experiences — that increases our efficiency and effectiveness in communicating with one another and in advancing our world.

But Hirsch did not predict the impact of e-mail and the Internet. He could not have known — even such a short time ago — that words once exclusively the province of computing specialists would now permeate our daily conversations: wireless devices, high-speed modems, downloads, URLs. Even those of us who can’t really define RAM know that we want more of it. And those of us who were on the cutting edge in the age of punch cards and computers the size of a living room have had to reassess our own ability to navigate this emerging vocabulary and its underlying meaning.

Our state’s colleges and universities now must do what Hirsch attempted to do a decade ago: survey the landscape and determine which elements of this "new knowledge" are lasting and essential, critical to the cognitive development of our students and to their cultural literacy — and which simply involve the application of technical skills that may be important at the moment but may well be outdated a few short months from now. Then we must ensure that we provide students with the academic experiences that will best prepare them for life and employment in this emerging new age.

Concomitant with this need to adjust in the changing face of literacy is the need to erase in our students, and ourselves, the fear of change. The pace of change will continue to accelerate, and those who will be employable must be adaptable. Those who earn a degree must be prepared to continue their education throughout their lives, updating and even reinventing their skills for an evolving marketplace. Those who have developed the discipline to learn and study will survive; those who place all their hopes on the development of a single technical skill set will be sorely disappointed.

The CIT is a significant acknowledgment of the importance of technological literacy and continuing education. Now the challenge falls to traditional colleges and universities to assure that students are prepared for a work life in which an institute like this one will be an essential resource — and a college degree is viewed as simply the beginning of a lifelong learning process.