Education looks to business partnerships for financial support, real-world experiences
Daily Transcript 4/24/07
"It's important that the education system adapt to what business requires," said Craig Barkacs, an attorney and University of San Diego professor, during a recent Daily Transcript roundtable discussion. "And that's where the voice of the business community is so important -- to come in and see to it that we're actually providing the skills that are needed that the business community wants."
The University of San Diego solicits that opinion with a corporate-partnership program called Business Link.
"(It is) designed specifically for business leaders to come to the university to connect with us on what their needs are, where it is that we can better support them," said Pam Gray Payton, USD's assistant vice president of public relations.
The school, like many other private universities, also relies heavily on its business partners for financial support.
Public schools, such as California State University San Marcos, depend on corporate funding as well, said Marty Ummel, the school's senior director of development.
San Marcos is building a new social and behavioral science building with money from a state proposition, but the school is still $5 million short because of escalating costs. Even if buildings are paid with tax dollars, money is needed to equip the labs inside.
"There are still a lot of needs within the public university," Ummel said.
Seeing a need for a construction management/engineering degree in the region, the Associated General Contractors -- along with various donors -- provided $7 million for an endowment enabling San Diego State University to offer the program.
Dollars aren't the only contributions companies can make.
Cox Communications has partnered with several programmers, including VH1, A&E and the Discovery Channel, to bring educational events into the schools. Last year, in a joint venture with C-Span, Cox hosted a program called "Students and Leaders," in which five area officials shared their career experiences with local high school students. The cable provider also brought in a Disney illustrator to work with students in a hands-on demonstration
Additionally, Cox Communications hosts "A Salute to Teachers," an annual Oscar-style awards show designed to honor the best of county's 20,000 public school teachers.
"It's really raised their morale," said Ceanne Guerra, media and public relations manager for Cox Communications. "Classrooms get excited when their teachers are nominated or they're on television."
Cox does provide financial support, too, offering several scholarships through its Cox Kids Foundation. Nearly 1,000 employees contribute a portion of their paycheck to the fund, and the amount is matched 100 percent by the company. Last year, Cox awarded $55,000 in Innovation and Education grants to middle school students and another $55,000 in Cox Heroes Scholarships to high school and adult re-entry students.
Cox, along with State Farm Insurance, San Diego construction company Barnhart Inc. and more than a dozen other businesses, also helps the education community by supporting Junior Achievement, a worldwide scholastic program designed to teach students about business and the free enterprise system.
"What Junior Achievement does is we make sure that children understand what careers are available to them, and what kinds of skill sets they have," said Joanne Pastula, president and CEO of Junior Achievement of San Diego and Imperial counties. "We also teach them such things as ethics, character, all the things that you need to know about and actually experience when you get out into the world of real work.
"We're also very interested in having our children understand the concept of being an entrepreneur. Not all children are going to start a company, but everybody needs to apply some of the principals of entrepreneurship into their daily work."
The program is available to 42 school districts in San Diego County and 12 in Imperial County. Entirely self supported, it depends on money from businesses, foundations, individuals and fundraising events.
In San Diego, the group has a waiting list of schools that want to participate.
"We're almost a matchmaker between the educational system and the business world," Pastula said. "That's really our job -- to bring business into the classroom to augment what the teachers are teaching."
Cal State San Marcos' Ummel, who participated in Junior Achievement when she was a student five decades ago, said the experience proved invaluable. It helped her, she said, to manage a savings and loan
"It gave me real hands-on experience," she said. "There weren't that many vocational opportunities that women were encouraged to go into, so it made a very big impact on me. I felt at an early age that I could do things that maybe other people did not expect of me."
A centerpiece of Junior Achievement is its model city, which consists of 20 businesses all run by 5th graders. The participating students prepare for one day in the village -- JA Biz Town -- with five weeks of classroom time. The city, being built by Barnhart and nearing completion, will host 120 children a day. The kids will assume such roles as mayor, bank manager and company CEO.
"The two things they focus on are entrepreneurship and financial literacy. ... Those are the two things we look for in our giving programs," said Mike Rossman, manager of public relations in San Diego and Imperial counties for State Farm Insurance.
Cox, Guerra said, will use the opportunity to teach children that the cable provider is more than simply television and the Internet.
"They don't think about all the different professions that help them get those services, whether it's engineering or human resources or being a field tech," she said. "It really gives us an opportunity to not only support the kids but also really give them an idea what kinds of careers are out there."
The Associated General Contractors also will have a shop in JA Biz Town, showcasing the many jobs in construction, including management, engineering, design and architecture.
"They (children) need to step out of the envelop of the education system and experience the real world," said Brian Cahill, executive vice president for Barnhart Inc. "And I think that's what Junior Achievement is doing with their business partnerships. Business people come into the classrooms, and (students) get to go to the businesses and then they get to go down and experiment with the business at enterprise village."
More programs like Junior Achievement are needed, said Parker Pike, a college professor and marketing director for University of California San Diego Extension.
"It's providing that connectivity and the realism to the things that they're studying," he said. "So it's the bridge to your local community."