CWU convenes local industry advisory boards with help from NSF grant

One of the most important responsibilities of a university is ensuring that its curricula give students a head start in their professional careers, as well as building strong relationships with partners in industry.

This is achieved by aligning academic programs with the current and future needs of the job market.

To this end, Central Washington University’s Business and Community Services (BCS) is partnering with academic departments to implement a $400,000 Enabling Partnerships to Increase Innovation Capacity (EPIIC) grant from the National Science Foundation. Awarded last fall, the grant supports the creation and facilitation of new advisory boards designed to align curricula with industry needs.

BCS Executive Director Rob Ogburn sees that cohesion as critical to industry and community alike.

“The National Science Foundation provides this support to help regional colleges and universities build the capacity to innovate and better serve their communities,” he said. “This program brings together a nationally recognized advisory board expert, forward-thinking faculty, and industry partners to ensure CWU programs equip students with the skills they’ll need after graduation.”

Ogburn believes the work will build on the strong foundation already laid by several existing advisory boards on campus.

“Many of our programs have already established strong and ongoing relationships with industry advisory partners as a core element of their strategy,” he said. “Our College of Education and Professional Studies is a great example. They took an early lead role in leveraging this opportunity to ensure they are maximizing the effectiveness of programs for students, making strong programs even stronger. It’s not too surprising to see this relentless dedication when you consider that their course offerings include quality and continuous improvement.”

One recent on-campus event for the project was attended by 29 faculty members, 25 of them from the College of Education and Professional Studies.

In order to facilitate this work, CWU has enlisted the help of Dr. Ann Beheler, director of innovation at the Center for Occupational Research and Development. Beheler will leverage her extensive academic and corporate experience as she helps form a number of advisory boards at CWU and in the local community.

“I’ve got a perspective that is often different to that of most academics, having spent a lot of time in corporate America, in addition to my experience in higher education,” she said. “I leverage that experience to facilitate these kinds of collaborations.”

The advisory boards will be formed using Beheler’s own Business and Industry Leadership Team (BILT) model, which prioritizes efficiency and foresight, with convened teams often working up to three years in advance. Thinking ahead will reduce the time commitment for industry partners, better facilitating their long-term buy-in.

“It’s an extremely efficient process, which means our industry partners commit minimal time to helping us gain very detailed information,” Beheler said. “Through this process, we get the information we need from the busiest and most forward-thinking industry experts in a timely manner without bogging down the process on their end. We can get very granular information on the knowledge and skills they’re looking for in new hires in less than four hours a year.”

The work is still in its early stages, currently focusing on identifying programs that could benefit from a BILT, as well as faculty members and industry partners who might serve on those teams. While those industry partners will be lending their insight and recommendations to the process, Beheler’s approach recognizes that faculty members are in the driver’s seat for the curriculum.

“It’s structured, it’s repeatable, and it’s extremely efficient,” she said. “We treat faculty as the subject matter experts that they are, and let them develop the curriculum based on industry metrics while continuing to incorporate feedback and suggestions from our partners. That co-ownership of the process helps foster the kind of commitment it takes to make programs like this successful.”

As the project picks up steam, Ogburn is confident in the ability of BCS and CWU to facilitate the conversations yet to be had in a way that’s productive for everyone involved.

“We have the opportunity to create dialogue, and we do that by showing up and being small,” he said. “We don’t solve problems — we don’t even necessarily define them — but we are experts in process, dialogue, and bringing the right people to the table to have the conversations that need to be had.”

Ogburn explained that the CWU team includes current and former faculty members who chose to pursue the EPIIC grant project because it would increase faculty access to industry experts, which ultimately benefits students.