2006-7 Work Plan Goal 2

From EDtHEwiki

GOAL 2 – To connect academic areas within higher education with businesses and economic development initiatives.

• Provide for clear, accountable, and proactive support for economic development activities by each public college and university.
  • Action - Each institution will clearly form an economic development unit showing the coordination of its personnel engaged in economic development activity (e.g., entrepreneurship/small business development, workforce training, research, commercialization, etc.). The unit will include the institution’s EDC representative.
  • Action - Each president (working with the academic vice president and other appropriate senior administrators) will create an Economic Development & Learning Task Force that will meet at minimum, on a quarterly basis. This group will consist of selected internal stakeholders of the college or university (faculty, staff, and administration) and external stakeholders (representatives of private and public sector organizations). The group will have at least these five specific duties to perform:
    • The external representatives will help the internal constituents better understand economic development and the roles the college/university can play in support of economic development, and its significance to the mission of the institution.
    • The internal representatives will help the external representatives understand the current capacity of the institution to support economic development needs and opportunities.
    • The group will identify and prioritize economic development needs and opportunities that are not being met.
    • The group will assist the president and academic vice president in designing a fast response unit that can support unmet and future economic development needs and opportunities, with an initial emphasis on those activities related to learning and training.
    • Each academic vice president shall work with faculty leadership to identify and implement how engagement in economic development and community development activities as incentives to the faculty. Incentives should address qualifications for promotion, tenure, continuation, etc.
  • Action - Each academic vice president (in consultation with the president and other senior administrative leaders as appropriate) will implement the fast response unit for economic development support. This unit will be primarily organized to offer learning and training for economic development opportunities. Each unit will have the capability to generate revenue for its operations and to support the institution through its flexibility and responsiveness. This will include but not be limited to:
    • Credit and non-credit learning opportunities;
    • Support for small business development and entrepreneurship, including incubators;
    • Compiling and analyzing data, information, and research related to economic development in the region of the institution;
    • Designing a faculty development program to strengthen the ability of full-time and adjunct instructors to deliver learning and training programs with flexibility, creativity, and evaluation of competencies related to the targeted economic development needs;
    • Work with faculty and private/public sector organizations to modify or design curricula for identified economic development needs. Review and refine the use of advisory committees for occupational certificate and degree programs, and assessment of their advice into curricular revisions and responses, include the desire by the private/public sector organizations to have the institution promote the use of WorkKeys and KeyTrain to enhance essential workplace skills; and
    • Meet the expected standards of academic integrity but with the capability to move apart from traditional methods that limit flexibility.
  • Action - OSRHE will require each institution, through its president, to document the responsiveness of the institution to economic development in Oklahoma in its annual academic plan report.