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SEAS Leads in Workforce Development

SEAS Associate Dean Jack McGourty, right, and Dr. Arthur Langer, left , founder and chairman of Workforce Outsource Services, flank members of a SLICE graduating class.

Under the auspices of the Center for Technology, Innovation and Community Engagement (CTICE), SEAS has become a leader in training members of the local Harlem community for new careers in information technology. Recently, the Boeing Company awarded CTICE a $900,000 grant to support its workforce development and youth education programs.

“Through this program, we are able to create authentic partnerships between the University and our neighbors in the Harlem community,” says SEAS Associate Dean Jack McGourty, CTICE’s executive director. “We’re helping our students learn, which is our primary goal,” he says, “but, at the same time, we are building real capacity among our neighbors in the community. The School’s educational philosophy is to encourage the formation of a new generation of engineers who are socially responsible as well as being technologically adept.”

SEAS Interim Dean Gerald Navratil says that these grants demonstrate “a recognition that Columbia SEAS is a leader in workforce development, and are an indication of the growing importance of the School’s involvement in the local community.”

The School currently has two programs designed to provide adults who have a high school education with the practical skills necessary to obtain a job in information technology. The two programs, BYTE and SLICE, sound more culinary than high tech, but their purpose is serious and their track record is impressive.

BYTE, or Begin Your Technology Education, is a six-week program for qualified local community residents interested in expanding their computer literacy. Once an individual has completed the BYTE program, he or she is eligible for SLICE (Service Learning in a Community Environment), a 16-month series of courses that teach sophisticated interpersonal and computer skills necessary for a career in information technology. SLICE students learn how to design and maintain websites, interact with clients, work in teams, ask for and cultivate feedback, solve problems, and communicate effectively, all while working for real-world, not-for-profit clients.

Through a strategic partnership with Workforce Outsource Services (WOS), SLICE students begin working part time in the IT field after one semester in the program. Upon graduation, CTICE and WOS help the students find permanent IT jobs. Since its inception in 2004, more than 90% of SLICE graduates have found employment in the IT field.

The Boeing grant will allow the SLICE program to expand to an entirely new population: veterans. The Veterans Administration estimates that there are more than 10,000 new veterans in New York City from the Iraqi War alone. In addition to the emotional adjustments they need to make upon leaving the military, many of these veterans lack skills necessary for a corporate job. Working with the federally funded Harlem Vet Center, and with support from Boeing, CTICE already has reached out to veterans from Harlem. The goal is to identify and enroll dozens of local veterans, training them at Columbia and giving them the opportunity to pursue valuable new IT careers.

“CTICE is well-positioned to serve this new population,” says Dean McGourty, “and the first group of veterans will begin the SLICE program in the summer of 2008.”

Timothy P. Cross, Ph.D., contributed to this article.