Associate Professor, History, Department of History and Politics, Drexel University
Mary F.E. Ebeling, PhD Assistant Professor, Sociology, Department of Culture and Communications, Drexel University
As heavy industry and even newer service sector jobs contract in many parts of the United States, regional schemes for economic redevelopment turn toward high-tech areas, including the many scientific and engineering specialties included under the term ?nanotechnology.? In southeastern Pennsylvania, a partnership among schools, industrial firms, and government agencies has emerged in the last decade to prepare a new workforce for this nanosector. This study considers the goals and content of certificate and associate?s degree programs among the 22 two- and four-year colleges involved in the Pennsylvania Nanofabrication Manufacturing Technology Partnership (PaNMT). Many PaNMT partners see widening opportunities in nanomanufacturing, in much the same way that enthusiastic planners embraced computing technology in the 1960s and biotech initiatives in the 1990s. Today, proponents forecast nanoindustries as likely to provide both steady corporate expansion and means of economic uplift for disadvantaged citizens. These outlooks have in part been accurate, but in part overly optimistic, as nanomanufacturing grows slowly and continues to employ primarily those with doctorates.
Combining methodologies of the sociology and history of science, this project examine examine the hiring and bench-level practices in use by PaNMT?s 30 partner firms in nanomanufacturing, positions intended to employ those who undertake associate's-degree training in nanofabrication. The expectations and experiences of students form a significant focus for the ethnographic research. Finally, the study examines the goals and practices of private organizations and local and state governments that have lent support to the PaNMT. Research questions include: ? How well do educational practices fulfill the workforce needs of regional nano-based industries? ? To what degree do industrial expectations about technical skill and mobility determine the nature of two-year degrees? ? Are optimal practices, for students or industrial employers, likely to result from these, or from other practices? ? Do educators, employers, planners, and students see these matters in the same way?
The outcomes of this study will include a book aimed at social scientists interested in science and technology, and associated articles and presentations on workforce planning and technical education. This study will provide suggestions that may lead to more efficacious workforce training policies and practices. Because two-year technical training programs have historically engaged a disproportionate number of economically disadvantaged and minority students, this project should also shed light on longer patterns of occupational equity in high-tech engineering fields.
This project studied the recent growth of two-year programs in nanotechnology across the United States and the likelihood of these curricula actually preparing graduates for industrial employment. These programs, based at community colleges and also at some four-year schools, are aimed at preparing technicians for work in a wide range of manufacturing settings, including pharmaceutical, electronics, energy, materials, and other industries. We found that nanotechnician curricula of this kind, generally centered on the provision of Associate’s degrees or certificates (and not focused on preparing their students for transfer to Bachelor’s degrees programs or beyond), have emerged in the last five or eight years in all regions of the country and often make the promise to their students of secure, well-paid employment following program completion. By 2012, dozens of such programs were operating, with many more in the planning stages; the steady growth of this new subfield of technical education was easy to chart. Our aim was to bring the questions of social scientists (rather than simply the expertise of economic and educational planning) to this trend, and thus we tried to find the social and cultural conditions that might be driving this growth. A general excitement about nanoscience and nanotechnology, which has accompanied these fields since their emergence in the late 1990s, seems to part of the story. We also found that a national climate of excitement about science and technology "innovation" more generally, spreading widely throughout popular media, political debate, and education policy in recent years, has encouraged schools and advocates of high-tech education to support nanotech programs and to promise benefits for participating students. However, we also found that employment for holders of AA or certificate credentials in nanotech seems to be somewhat uncertain. Graduates of nano-focused sub-baccalaureate programs routinely find work in a few locales around the nation, but in most regions nano-scale industries (if they exist at all in the area) still primarily require employees with far more knowledge and experience than these sub-baccalaureate programs can supply: PhD holders predominate. One of the broader impacts of our project is to clarify the value of different educational options for those seeking economic opportunity in the current recessionary climate, and this finding helps us clarify such differences. Of additional concern for us is the slow rate of scale-up in nano- related R&D, meaning that few commercial enterprises are currently undertaking assembly and production operations that require new employees. What is more, across high-tech manufacturing in the U.S. today, automation and outsourcing limit the number of jobs likely to call for two-year technical credentials. However, in the course of our research, which included dozens of nanotech programs in many parts of the nation, we also encountered a number of instances of innovative and promising nano-related instruction among the community colleges we studied. Many instructors fully understand the disconnect between the promises being made by their programs and the actual likelihood of graduates finding jobs, and seek to correct this situation. In addition, in listening to instructors and employers we identified a need for better communication between schools and local employers and this study has revealed the means by which such improvements might be brought about. Such findings may contribute to more effectual educational planning and policy for parts of the country hoping to increase industrial employment. We will now continue our research by outlining those improvements and by studying the micro- and nano-scale sub-baccalaureate curricula that do seem consistently to secure placement for their graduates, extending the positive impacts of our study.
