Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the history of Detroit has been a history of labor. As the sun set on the 1800s, Detroit was home to machine and stove manufacturers, cigar makers, pharmaceuticals and food production, but the 125 automobile companies that emerged in the early 1900s — led by Ford Motor Company in 1903 and encouraged by the city's proximity to massive ore reserves and navigable land and water routes — put the city at the center of a mass worker migration that had rarely, if ever, been witnessed in the United States. By 1950, when one out of every six working Americans was employed directly or indirectly by the automobile industry and Detroit was the nation's fifth largest city, it seemed impossible that the Motor City would ever run out of jobs for the white- and blue-collar workers that built its wheeled empire.
Alas, that day has come.
Buckling under stymied sales and frozen credit, GM, Ford and Chrysler are responding to the economic crunch with layoffs and the elimination of benefits, prompting copious and varied questions about the companies' future. But as Michigan's media follows the erosion of Detroit's automobile sector (at press time, the Big Three were lobbying Congress for a portion of the recently approved $700 billion Wall Street bailout package to fund their business operations), the region's higher education community has cast its eye in a different direction: to the new industries emerging on Metro Detroit's 21st Century landscape and the skills that area workers will need to thrive therein.
A survey of Southeast Michigan universities reveals their keen focus on the need to "retool" the region's workforce to prepare it for these growing industries, chief among which are alternative energy, nanotechnology, life sciences, health care and information technology.
While these growing business sectors provide much needed employment opportunities for Michiganders, they also pose a number of challenges with respect to training and certification. Veteran Big Three employees have advanced skills, to be sure, but they're restricted to auto-centric assembling or engineering and at best need "tweaking" before they're applicable to other sectors. And workers pursuing new or advanced skills with the help of Big Three tuition reimbursement have found themselves suddenly without money to complete degrees or certification programs after GM, Ford and Chrysler dropped the financial assistance this summer.
Fortunately, area universities say they can help — with financial assistance, counseling, and certification programs tailored to companies that are hiring. Ahmad Ezzeddine, associate vice president for educational outreach and international programs at Wayne State University in Detroit, says the university is "watching the development in the auto industry with great attention, because it impacts us on multiple levels. Students who are employees are losing tuition assistance or even their jobs, so they can no longer afford to continue their educations. We're trying to anticipate some of the changes in the employment picture so we can support them."
Ezzeddine, who sits on a task force assembled by Governor Jennifer Granholm to examine the effects of auto industry downsizing on the workforce, says Wayne is working to identify scholarships, grants and loans to help employees who've lost tuition reimbursement. It's also customizing degrees to meet the needs of local companies and offering fast-track teaching certification in the maths and sciences for employees in technical fields who are interested in teaching.
"To me, the brain drain is the most serious problem," Ezzeddine says. "People with a lot of talent and expertise may end up leaving the state and going elsewhere. That's a very significant problem if we can't figure out ways to hold on to them." He says Wayne has put an advisor in its placement and career services offices to assist WSU alumni who have lost their jobs, identified undergraduate and graduate advisors and counselors to help workers interested in retraining, and set up an e-mail address, to take inquiries from people with questions.
Similar efforts are underway at all of the area's universities, including University of Michigan-Dearborn and Oakland University in Rochester.
Oakland Associate Director for Undergraduate Admissions Dawn Aubry says the university has participated in three town hall meetings, hosted this fall by the Detroit Free Press, to help employees navigate company buyouts and weigh related options. Aubry says Oakland is steering individuals to three major university resources to help with retooling: an advising center on campus, the Graham Health Center (which offers a sliding scale to community members based on their ability to pay for counseling), and an adult career counseling center run through Oakland's School of Education and Human Services. Aubry says advisors are educating visitors about 50 "hot" careers in Michigan and apprising them of their earning potential and requisite level of education.
Meanwhile, UM-Dearborn is working to identify people who are ripe for reenrollment in college, says Director of University Relations Terry Gallagher.
"There are more than 160,000 people in a three-county area between 25 and 34 [years of age] who have started college but not completed a degree," says Gallagher. "We already know they have an interest in going to college and the foundation to be admitted. That's a group we can really make a difference in."
Gallagher says UM-Dearborn is using telephone polling and other market investigations to "better understand the demographics and characteristics" of this group, as well as the obstacles that prevented them from continuing their studies. Those who dropped out because class schedules conflicted with work or family responsibilities could be persuaded to finish through online degree programs or other "asynchronous" options.
Meanwhile, says Gallagher, University Chancellor Daniel E. Little is among the coordinators of a $5 million Workforce Innovations and Regional Economic Development (WIRED) grant given to the Detroit Regional Chamber by the U.S. Department of Labor in late 2006. The chamber, which is overseeing the grant in cooperation with Southeast Michigan organizations of various ilk, will use the funds to implement regional workforce development, economic expansion and entrepreneurial growth initiatives.
At the same time, says Gallagher, UM-Dearborn is not ignoring the needs of workers who will remain in or enter the auto industry. The university is "very far along in talks" with regard to developing a Ph.D. program in automotive systems, he explains, adding that "in a global sense, there will be more people buying cars in the world next year than this year," and while sales may lag in America, cars across the globe will continue to be engineered, marketed, and designed in Detroit.
Lawrence Technological University is particularly interested in using nontraditional arrangements to help Michiganders finish their degrees. According to Assistant Provost for Enrollment Lisa Kujawa, the university was founded in 1932 by the Lawrence brothers to serve part-time students who were working in the field of engineering but lacked engineering degrees. As a result of this mission, she said, the university has long developed "alternative delivery systems," including online, weekend and hybrid courses.
Kujawa said Lawrence Tech has identified more than 500 students who have lost tuition reimbursement from Chrysler (392), Ford and GM (roughly 100 from each). President Lewis N. Walker is talking to Big Three executives to "try and change the shift," she said, but meanwhile the university is creating more short-certificate programs to speed up the process for students. (As a private school, Lawrence Tech is more "agile" and has greater flexibility than public schools when it comes to requirements, she explains.)
Meanwhile, Lawrence Tech is adding courses in life sciences, biomedical engineering, alternative energy and health care informatics, as well as working with companies to develop certification programs, as it already has for Bayer, Chrysler Tech Center, Jeep/Truck in Detroit, and the Ford Windsor Engine Plant.
According to Kujawa, meeting the rapidly changing and immediate needs of Detroit's workforce is a matter of self-preservation for universities, and not just for the city.
"We serve two populations: incoming freshmen, who have one need, and adults who want to be educated and need new abilities. If universities don't wake up and say we can do this, then the economy and the global market will make us do it."
Lucy Ament is a freelance writer and regular contributor to Metromode living in Grosse Pointe. Her last article for Metromode was Reinventing The Mundane: Detroit Design Center.
Photos:
Chrysler 1936 Aerial - Detroit - Public Domain, Library of Congress
WSU Old Main bldg - Detroit
Ahmad Ezzeddine, associate vice president for educational outreach and international programs at Wayne State University - Detroit
UM Dearborn Director of University Relations, Terry Gallagher
UM Dearborn Institute for Advanced Vehicle System R&D facility
Lawrence Technological University Assistant Provost for Enrollment, Lisa Kujawa
All photographs by Metro Detroit photographer Marvin Shaouni
Marvin is the Managing Photographer for Metromode & Model D.
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