(09-06-2020 11:00 PM)geosnooker2000 Wrote: (09-06-2020 07:40 PM)tkgrrett Wrote: (09-06-2020 11:00 AM)geosnooker2000 Wrote: I think you are missing MY point. Which is - Universities unintentionally strive toward engineering the majority of the population out of jobs and tasks through automation in the name of advancement and progress. When people become less important than machines... well.. we're almost there now. It all sounds great, until you account for the cost in human fulfillment and a meaning or purpose in life.
Going to need you to explain your point to me slowly. You implying that universities should stop doing basic research because technology is getting too good?
FYI.. I work in tech and automation isn't the magic you describe. Behind every "automated" palletizing machine there is an army of data scientists and software engineers.
I agree with you... to a certain point. I work in the Architecture industry, mostly home design. Every year we are treated to horror stories of self-designing computer programs (or "apps" as people have started calling them for some reason) that will run us out of business, because home owners will soon be able to drive these things themselves. But they've been telling us this for over 20 years now, and it still hasn't happened. Still, I see it happening eventually.
I am under no illusions that I or anyone can stop progress, but I'm a free enough thinker that I think about the big questions like this. Namely, what is the sense of creating creature comforts and automation to the point that A) we sit around all day watching a screen because there is nothing physical to do anymore, and B) what about the segment of the population that are not mentally capable of becoming one of the "army of scientists and engineers"? We need ditch digger jobs, because there is a portion of the population that are not capable of anything else. Backhoes (to GROSSLY over simplify just to make a point) are job-killers. I think it is criminal that society tells young men and women that if you are "going to amount to anything" you've got to go to college. Some people need to go to trade school, and that needs to be okay.
College only as a definition of success is harmful to the career mindset but calling the college community Unintentional job killers is warped thinking also. We are created with a brain capable of creative and analytical thought. The more knowledge we create, the more innovation changes how we spend our lives and the greater the burden on every segment of society to value work and life-long learning. Choosing skilled labor should not just be ok but celebrated with the same vigor as getting an acceptance letter to college. In some countries, apprenticeships are still valued and the concept of career pathways with multiple entry and exit learning opportunities helps keep the distribution of career paths current.
That means constant change has to be embraced, valued and promoted. A segment of my career was working in career and technology education. I was part of a team that reinvented what CTE looked like. In the center I worked with, few changes and upgrades were implemented over a 20 year time frame and it had lost relevance to labor market demands.
We reintroduced masonry, upgraded from mechanics training to auto and diesel technology, we changed some courses from traditional business to offering high school dual enrollment classes earning Cisco Network Administration Certification, chartered a Bank to teach financial literacy to a community that embraced check cashing businesses over bank accounts, added An entire department for health/medical training, added a criminal justice pathway to create a pipeline to the police academy and PSTs, aligned with multiple apprenticeship and union shops and encouraged internships in every program. We grew enrollment from a sleepy 300 students in ineffective education programs to over 800 engaged in active current learning opportunities. We promoted both post secondary skills training and all levels of college equally as well gave the military free access to talk with students.
When I made the choice to move in a different direction I was seeing a change in commitment to what we proved to be a successful approach, budget cuts began to impact programming, planned expansions and active programs were eliminated.
Ive been to DC promoting what I described, met with Congress, spent time with apprenticeship professionals from Sweden, traveled to Colorado to observe a star-wide effort to support apprenticeship models. I’ve been honored with the highest recognition in my profession but I was never successful getting Memphis to fully and widely embrace an apprenticeship model that adopted the college and trade pathway structure as seamless transition.
Sorry this is so long but your comments aligned with a passion. The closer I get to retirement the greater regret for the work not being completed.
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Board of Trustee Meeting Sept 2nd: New Fund Raising Campaign
