Looking beyond the ivory towers

EXPANDING HORIZONS: When Durval Tavares founded Aquabotix Technology in 2010 he took advantage of incubator space available at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's Advanced Technology Manufacturing Center, now re-branded as the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. / PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
EXPANDING HORIZONS: When Durval Tavares founded Aquabotix Technology in 2010 he took advantage of incubator space available at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's Advanced Technology Manufacturing Center, now re-branded as the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. / PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

Editor’s note: In celebration of Providence Business News’ 30th anniversary, staff writers and contributors examined the stories and trends that defined the region’s business scene for the period.
Higher education in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts has been marked by a steady evolution in recent years, with an ever-increasing focus on enhancing training in industries ranging from cybersecurity to health care.

New health care education facilities and programming stand out, as a joint nursing school shared by the University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College is scheduled to open at South Street Landing in 2017. (The project includes offices for Brown University, housing and parking.)

Likewise, Johnson & Wales University in Providence and Bryant University in Smithfield added physician assistant programs in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Bryant added a School of Health Sciences, but also is expanding to include an Innovation Center.

Steady ambulatory care job growth over the past decade has translated into greater demand for better-paying, advanced-practice jobs for nurse practitioners, physician assistants and hospitalists, economists and employers said in 2015.

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URI launched the George & Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience in 2013 with a $15 million gift from former CVS Health Corp. Chairman and CEO Thomas M. Ryan and his wife, Cathy. In connection with it, four other institutions forged a neuroscience research agreement – Lifespan, Brown, Care New England, and the Providence VA Medical Center. The pact is expected to yield benefits that include cross-institutional appointments and the sharing of resources.

URI also has introduced a master’s degree in cybersecurity and Salve Regina University offered coursework as new threats continue to emerge globally.

JWU and Brown also have new academic buildings for engineering and other programs in the works, while Providence College is constructing a new center for business studies. Meanwhile, New England Institute of Technology is pursuing a $120 million expansion at its East Greenwich campus and Roger Williams University is doubling the footprint of its campus in downtown Providence.

And the nearby University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, in late 2015 moved to expand its business reach, relaunching its 15-year-old Advanced Technology Manufacturing Center as the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Already having graduated 40 companies in the marine and “clean” technology and biomedical engineering sectors, the revamped mission is not only to incubate companies but accelerate their launching, and also offer more incentives to faculty and student entrepreneurs.

Regionally, higher education is fostering the increasingly popular path of entrepreneurship, although educators here admit most student-run startups have trouble getting off the ground. To that end, Providence Equity Partners LLC founder and CEO Jonathan Nelson gave $25 million to his alma mater, Brown, to establish a multidisciplinary center for entrepreneurship.

But it’s not just Brown that is supporting student entrepreneurs. At URI, business administration majors may choose the entrepreneurial management major in their junior year, said Bob Comerford, who teaches and coordinates the program.

“A lot of students are interested in pursuing their own business rather than pursuing this résumé and rejection game,” Comerford said.

In conjunction with all of this growth, universities continue to connect students directly with businesses through internships and other programming. In fact, it’s become “more mainstream” for corporations to take part in developing lessons or to offer experiential learning opportunities, said Daniel P. Egan, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

Lawmakers also have been trying to tie state funding colleges and universities in Rhode Island to student graduation goals, with the aim of producing graduates who businesses say they need. That’s part of the rationale for state legislation that would tie a portion of state funds to performance goals for the Community College of Rhode Island, RIC and URI.

Improvement in student academic performance and test scores has been set as a priority year after year, with the R.I. Department of Education set in 2016 to revise graduation requirements as a means to help students better prepare for future studies or the workforce.

In preparing educators, parents and students for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (or PARCC) assessments, the latest standardized test that the state Department of Education has implemented over the years, Commissioner Ken Wagner in 2016 said the statewide assessment is “the only way, using a common measure, to determine whether all students are making progress.”

Also in 2016, computer education was being expanded in K-12 classes through the Computer Science for RI initiative.

And Rhode Island has seen the number of public charter schools climb to 29, operating with more autonomy than public school districts, and tending to have lower fixed costs and improved results. •

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