With the opening of its new Providence campus, Roger Williams University is recommitting to its roots.
Founded 60 years ago in Providence as a two-year institution that aimed to educate working adults, RWU is taking the opportunity to make deeper connections with its original home community.
A key to the success of this pivot is the School of Continuing Studies, which gives RWU the opportunity to make collaboration a central part of a reinvigorated mission.
Groups such as Unified Solutions, which is dedicated to finding education and employment opportunities for young people in the city, will be using new classroom space in the building. Dozens of groups are looking for higher education institutions to partner with.
While it would be simple to see higher education institutions reaching beyond their traditional student body as one way to more fully utilize assets, or more public relations than public interest, that would be missing the point.
Rhode Island's workforce is woefully underprepared for the economy of the future. For the state to prosper, it needs to upgrade the educational attainment of those people who are here and who will stay here. The Ocean State cannot count on those who parachute in for a rocking four years and then go back home.
So Roger Williams University is to be commended for taking this issue on directly. And just as importantly, the community now needs to take advantage of the opportunities that RWU and other schools are offering. That is the only way we will move forward together. •