Good afternoon. Welcome to the Bloomington Rotary Club's weekly celebration of service. I'm Steve Wicks
and I'm honored to serve as your president this year. Please silence your electronic devices. On this
day in history, May 5th, 1893, one day after the previous day's failure of the National Courtage Company,
the panic of 1893 caused a large crash on the New York Stock Exchange.
It was part of the then largest economic crisis to hit America. It triggered a depression that lasted
until 1897. Loans were called in across the country, 600 banks failed, 15,000 companies collapsed, and
the unemployment soared to 25%. So has anyone else here ever heard of the National Courtage Company?
No, I hadn't either. I guess they were a really big thing in rope in their day.
But anyway, so I learned about the Panic of 1893. Don Hustler will deliver today's reflection.
What's that? I will say that if at any time you want to pledge money, we are very receptive.
Well, I will just say my longest friend in the world, Mike and Sarah with me today, our fathers ran
cross country and track at Eastern Michigan University. His dad's name is on this. They were clearly
in competition other ways too because Mike was born three days before I was. So,
I would guess just about everyone in this room at one time or another has found themselves in some kind
of leadership role. It might have been a church committee you were on. It might have been a sports group.
It might have been where you work. It might have been an organization you volunteered for. I've always
been interested in how organizations work. I can't explain why I am that way. I have just always been
fascinated about how organizations work.
whether in my own workplace or nonprofits or a church I've been involved with. I can't turn this part
of myself off. I've just always been curious about organizational dynamics and leadership. Now, I'm
going to talk, I'm not going to name names, but most of my experiences with leadership have been sometime
during my, from 1985 to 2015 when I was at IU.
Before coming to IU, I was a professor at Loyola University of Chicago. I had to teach a course in group
dynamics. It wasn't my strength, but I started reading up. And I kind of got fascinated with the research
on leadership. One of the best known people writing on leadership at the time was a fellow by the name
of Warren Dennis. He was a distinguished professor at USC. He went on to be the president of the University
of Cincinnati. Didn't last very long and was a total failure.
My words here. So I'm still interested in how organizations work, but I've come to realize that I have
no clear understanding about how leadership actually works to make organizations more or less successful,
make them better or worse. I chaired an unsuccessful search committee at IU and became the vice chancellor
for enrollment for eight years.
And I tried to ask how high thought should leadership be enacted, which I kind of, kind of a consultative
approach. Bring the heads of all units together whenever we have problems. Behind closed doors, we all
argue about what the best solution is. I might make the final decision against consensus or use consensus,
but I said, but I walk out, everybody should walk out of the door with a smile on their face. They had
their chance to influence decisions.
During my time here, I observed other forms of leadership. I know one senior administrator that, as
near as I could tell, his primary goal was to make everybody happy. And I couldn't tell that that worked
out very well for his organization. I saw someone else who played it like a grand chess master, observing
all the pieces. And he, not in an authoritarian way,
But my sense was he tried to move those chess pieces around in the way that would be most successful.
I also observed leaders who always knew what was best, just ask them. And if they have positional power,
they usually got their way. They could decide how things would turn out. Well, as I look back,
I'd like to say that my approach worked sometimes. I did surveys of all the staff every year, and there
was a fair amount of job satisfaction. But if I had to name the names of the two folks I thought were
most successful in terms of having the long-term impact at IU, it would be the grand chess master and
the guy who knew what was best. Just ask them.
have come to believe that because organizations are idiosyncratic, so is the leadership role. And one
of my first doctoral students did a study of how, I was a professor of higher education, so she was
studying how universities went about searching for new presidents and how that turned out.
40% of the people I interviewed ended up saying they weren't really happy about the way it turned out.
And in the reflection, what seemed to emerge was they focused on the weaknesses of the current leader
and ignored the person's strengths. And it turned out, in fact, that some of those strengths were pretty
important, but they hadn't looked at them. So at this point,
I simply say I'm still interested in organizations and how they work. I'm fascinated with the idea of
leadership, but I don't believe any group that chooses a leader, whether they come from outside or within
the organization, can be certain how things are going to turn out.
Well, Don, I'm sure I speak for Steve in saying, if you'd like to take on a leadership role in this
organization, I'm sure they can find a spot. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Hank Walter
and I'm here to introduce our guest today. When your name is called, if you would please stand if you're
able and we can recognize you. If you have any questions or have any interest in further participation
in the club, I'm sure there will be
lots of people at your table to, uh, to fill you in. So first, uh, guest of the club and John Zoti,
uh, Julie Halbig. Go ahead. Thanks. Uh, guest of Glenda Murray, Betsy Coffee. And, uh, passing the baton
to Don Hostler, Michael and Sarah Marks.
guest of Heidi Scholl's, Adam Gross. And do we have any guests online today? We do not. Not today.
Thank you. Thank you, Hank. If you'd like to learn anything about rotary, just turn to a rotarian at
your table and ask away. We have four birthdays to celebrate this today. First of all, Judy Schroeder's
birthday is today.
Joy Harder just slipped in is sitting at the back. She has a birthday tomorrow. Emily Herman sitting
right here has a milestone birthday on the 8th. And Katie Sensabaugh has a birthday on the 9th. And
we have no rotary anniversaries to celebrate this week. And so Tyler, if you want to go ahead and start
my PowerPoint.
OK, start with a celebration of service. Those of you who listen to what I have to say know that I've
been almost begging for someone to prepare our district conference rotary basket. And Judy Whit reached
out last week, and she has prepared a beautiful basket. So we're going to blow away the competition.
So thank you, former district governor, former club president, Judy Witt. Help wanted, I mentioned this
a couple of weeks, but we still need additional club members for the membership committee. Senior Lori
Garrity, if you're interested. District conference is this weekend. It's not too late to register. Friday
evening and all day Saturday at the Galt House in Louisville. In the just
off chance that someone here has $2,900 and they're interested in a seven-day home rental in Aruba,
see me and I will bid on your behalf at the district conference. One other thing, district conference,
we have the shoe drive and we've gotten a number of shoes and I'll be picking up some more between now
and Friday. So thank you very much. So Rotary sponsored wonder lab summer blast off schedule for May 21st.
We'll need club volunteers that afternoon and evening. Dave Meyer and the Community Services Committee
will be working with Leslie Kutsenko, a club member at Wonder Lab. But it's going to be a really fun
event. And so you can see the website address there. So consider volunteering on the 21st. A few days
after that, 5th Annual Refugee Summer Pitch In,
Sunday, May 24th, 5 p.m. Upper Cascades Lions Den. Refugees, volunteers, friends are welcome.
Bring a dish, share if you can. Cindy Neidhart, sitting over here. See her for more information. And
if you know someone in the refugee community who might be interested, please let them know.
A couple of save the dates a little bit further out. We have some meals and wheels work for a couple
of us on the 29th. See Diana Hoffman, the Beacon Solidarity Sleep Out. That's the night of June 5th,
awakening on June 6th. That's coming up and then I don't have the date yet, but in July we'll have the
teachers warehouse supply drive and that is our biggest volunteer effort of the year.
Okay, it's the 11th. Good, thank you. Member of election, if you're registered to vote and you haven't
done so already, please get to the polls this afternoon. Those of you who weren't here last week and
didn't read the roundabout, our president-elect, Sam Udak, resigned. He's planning to move to the Chicago
area near the end of May, and we wish him well. And the exciting news is that our last year's club president,
Tracy Yovanovich, has stepped up and will serve as club president.
Happy dollars. So today is a little bit different. Today is what we call our hyper happy dollar effort.
And this is what we use for the club to help fund a portion of club scholarships. And so every year
the club pledges fifteen hundred dollars. We finished last year. We didn't quite meet that. So this
year some of our regular happy dollar efforts have gone to the Bloomington Rotary Foundation for scholarships.
So we're at the point today where we have $900 to raise. We do have a club member who said he will match
whatever is raised. So we actually could raise more than that. So when I start hyper happy dollars,
at the beginning, the bids will all be or pledges will all be $100 or more. And then we'll finish that.
And then we'll just go into regular happy dollars. And anyone who's happy, who wants to pledge or give
a dollar or more, have at it. So that's coming up in a minute or two.
Rotary International, seven areas of focus. And we have just started May is Youth Service Month. Big
deal for Arch Club. We have a very active Youth Service Committee. You know, we help sponsor the Rotaract
Club at IU. We help
the Interact Club at Bloomington High School North. We send several students to RYLA each year. And
here just a year ago, we had an inbound exchange student. So youth services, a big deal for our club.
One other announcement. Daniel caught me coming in. Monroe County History Center. My wife and I went
to a program there a week or two ago, part of the preparation for the Sesquicentennial, 250th birthday.
have another program this Friday, 7 p.m. to 8.30. It's free of charge and you can go to the Monroe County
History Center for information. So let's go ahead and start hyper happy dollars. And I need one bid.
Hank, you're gonna go ahead and start it. Okay, this is my favorite meeting in the year is always when
the scholarship winners are introduced and it
always fills me both with pride about what's happening in Bloomington and a little bit of feeling about
what's my kid's been up to. They're just not any anyway. Don't quote me on that, please. So I'm in for
$250. Okay, put up your hand if you're willing to pledge $100 or more.
and I also really support the scholarships. I'll do 100. Okay. Anymore for 100 or more? It's one of
my favorite things. I'll pledge 100. We have someone online. Yeah, I'll match Hank and I'll do 250 as
well. I'm happy.
I didn't hear who that was. This is Jeff Richardson, and I'll match Hank with $250 more. Thank you,
Jeff. We can contribute $100. Dave, $100. I also will pledge $100. Thank you, Winston.
Okay, any others over 100 or more? Sally. $100. We have one couple more in the back. $100. $100.
Thank you, Tina and Patrick. Okay, let's open up. Anyone else? Wait a minute. I am happy to do $100.
100 oh Okay, is there anyone else who's happy for a dollar or more I Was on a wreck for car wreck like
three weeks ago two and a half weeks ago And I'm really happy because instead of junking my car and
salvaging it they're gonna repair it
So I am happy. Well, we made it through the first month of the baseball season. The Cubs are in first
place in the National League Central, and they are the third best record in Major League Baseball. Yep.
Hi, many of you are probably not aware that we are, the club is sponsoring another refugee family after
the Mohammadi family. That is the Alani family, they're from Iraq. And yesterday I learned through a
series of misadventures and miscommunications from the family not understanding what they had received
in the mail, that they have been granted
permanent residencies, and their green cards are in the mail. And if you guys have been following the
permanent residency story for refugees, that is like the golden ring. If you went back a couple years
ago, we would have celebrated like it was citizenship. But today, celebrating permanent residency is
really amazing, because it's so hard right now.
So we have time for one more. I don't want someone online. We have online. Yeah, it's wonderful student
for this scholarship. Go ahead, Raj. $50 for the scholarship. Thank you, Raj. Thank you, Raj. Hi everyone.
I'm just happy to be here. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you all. Chris Ramji will introduce our speakers today.
Good afternoon, everybody. Chris Frimjee from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, and I hope
I don't knock anything over here. It's my pleasure to introduce our speakers today from the Regional
Opportunity Initiatives. I know them as ROI, an organization that has been doing some very important
work and, frankly, some strategic workforce development across our region. So I'll share a personal
note. I think it was 10 years ago today,
I graduated from O'Neill School, I think it was still called SPIA then, and I had a job interview with
Tina Peterson. And it was partially for ROI, which was just appearing at that time. And in true spirit,
I wasn't applying for that job, but the job I wanted. I don't know if you recall that you were at Fountain
Square Mall. And then maybe a year or two later, I went to your first conference at French Lick.
And what I've been seeing from them is just growth in the uplands region. The mindset has only grown
stronger in the impact over time. It kind of sits in that intersection of education, workforce, and
economic development, right? Where sort of the chamber is on a micro level, but on a regional level
for them. So joining us today to sort of represent that sphere are two leaders,
in the middle of the work. First, Michi McLean, the Vice President of Talent Development at ROI, who
leads the organization's education and workforce strategies and works across the region to connect talent
to opportunity. Second is Jen Staub, Director of Career Connected Learning, who brings more than 25
years of experience in education and now leads initiatives like youth apprenticeship and career coaching
to better connect students to the real world opportunities. And I work with them.
success school at the chamber and they do a wonderful job. So together, they are helping shape a region
to think about talent, not just as a pipeline, but a long-term strategy for prosperity. Please join
me in welcoming Michi and Jen. Good afternoon.
It is a pleasure to be here to share with you our work. Many of you may less step back. Okay,
how we doing? You don't want me to yell at you for 20 more minutes.
Well, like I said, thank you very much for having us this afternoon. Many of you may remember that our
president and CEO, Tina Peterson here has presented for you about the Community Foundation. We are part
of that. We are kind of a sister organization of the Community Foundation under one happy umbrella serving for ROI.
an 11 county region that we have come to love to call Indiana Uplands region as it has been branded.
So again, Michi McLean, VP of Talent Development, happy to be here with Jen this afternoon talking about
education and workforce in the Indiana Uplands region. So that there is
the beautiful rolling hills of Southern Indiana. So hopefully that looks familiar to you. We are proud
to be able to support and serve 11 counties in this part of the state through place and education and
workforce. That's just us. You don't need to see any more of that. So I pulled this from a presentation
that Tina did for you all at one point.
for the Community Foundation. And this slide shows the programs and organizations that the Community
Foundation is part of. So you'll see there ROI there under organizations, along with some others too,
but really just the incredible support from the Community Foundation, the work that really is, this
is the heart of so much that is happening, not only in Bloomington and Monroe County, but much of Southern Indiana.
So these are the 11 counties that make up the Indiana Uplands region, Monroe County, Bloomington being
one of them. And when, my gosh, Tina, 2014 is when the listening session and studies began-ish.
2013, 14, 15, a long time, really, that the Lilly Endowment said, you know, we are interested in this
idea of regionalism and thinking about how we can support economic development and education in a regional
manner. And so a group of stakeholders and leaders really set about to study the potential
of this part of the state. And come to find out, this part of the state had much potential that was
not yet being realized, but could with strategic planning, strategic investment. And from that significant
listening session around this part of the state, investment by the Lilly Endowment,
We were able to stand up regional opportunity initiatives and I wasn't even there then. Soon after it
was stood up. So nine years for me. So really early on.
Being able to say, okay, with this opportunity, what could we do with this? From what we know, we have
some really informed decisions that we can make with the data that we have, with the listening that
we've done in this very much rural part of the state and what it's capable of. So that set out to start
with an occupational needs assessment.
The Occupational Needs Assessment really could say, was able to say, wow, you know, this type of potential,
if you were to really hone in on three particular sectors and build strategy around that, we could see
this part of the state really excel.
So that's our mission is to advance economic and community prosperity in the Indiana Uplands region.
And we do that through advancing this idea of regionalism. So with 11 counties who are used to working
in isolation, small, rural,
prideful communities working in isolation. How about if we come together and we convene and we bring
resources together to this part of the state and we ideate together. We think of what could be and what
could be brought to this part of the state with strategic planning. And it is strengthening those particular
industry sectors that I'll talk more about in just a minute about how to connect talent
to strengthen these industry sectors and developing the talent in STEM. So what we found was that across
the board, across these three key sectors, very much for when we think of workforce development, talent
development, talent retention, talent attraction, talent development, it is around the STEM fields.
So also enhancing
placemaking assets. So Julie has been introduced already and she is with us as well. Julie is the VP
of Economic and Community Development at ROI and so things that, strategies that include housing, really
working closely with those county leaders, regional leaders in terms of what does it take to attract talent.
who, no matter the age, right, in the workforce, why will they want to come live, work, play, stay in
the Indiana uplands? And what do we need to do to really enhance sense of place?
These are the three sectors that were found early on. We've brought in some since then. We've really
started to diversify. But really true to form, these three key sectors, advanced manufacturing, national
security and defense, and life sciences showed the most promise in terms of if you focus and bring that
STEM talent to the region or develop that STEM talent, really could see a lot of reward in that effort.
Of course, advanced manufacturing, no surprise, we're Indiana, right? Manufacturing state. And we look
at that in terms of automotive, food processing.
and furniture making. So down south, you know, Jasper, Indiana, very much known for craftsmanship,
entrepreneurship, and furniture making. And, of course, Crane Base and its contractors that support
Crane. And then Life Sciences, mostly in terms of medical device manufacturing. So, of course, Cook,
Boston Scientific, Cimtra.
those like significant concentration in in this part of the country actually. So all three of those
all three of those sectors really were saying
it is the STEM fields and building that career awareness and making those connections for us to build
our workforce, to have that workforce here could really make a difference. This is a slide I don't expect
you to be able to read. In fact, that list is now even needs updated because we have more going on.
But once you to kind of be able to see the big picture of the work, so there on your right, regional economic
community prosperity, that's the mission, right? How do we get there? We are looking at metrics like
educational attainment, population growth,
and per capita income. So if those pieces in this part of the state are growing, increasing, really
what we wanna see that should be leading to regional economic and community prosperity. And so how do
we get there, right? How do we do those things? How do we find and realize those metrics are through
a number of initiatives and programs and efforts there on the left. So I have the,
great pleasure of being able to oversee education and workforce programming. And then Julie, those are
some of the place programs that I had mentioned. And so when it comes to education and workforce programming
or initiatives and collaborations and bringing partners together, it has to do with thinking holistically.
And so ROI knew very early on that you that we can't wait until they're seniors in high school.
We can't wait until they're in college or we can't wait until they don't have a plan when they graduate
from high school. So we need to start a lot earlier. So we have been gifted with the ability to think
about that in terms of K through 12, and truly building the capacity for STEM. How do we even interest
them in careers and opportunities they don't know exist in their backyard? They don't know exist 30
miles. So this region, Indiana Uplands region, is really based on, right, let's look at where the workforce
is commuting.
What are the in and out patterns of the workforce? And so very much we will have workforce from living
in Bloomington commuting to Crane, commuting to various parts all over this part of the region. And
so we really want to think about that regionally in terms of where that talent is, where they want to
live and work.
So this is just a visual of some of the education and workforce programs that I'm going to talk a little
bit about and Jen is also going to talk about those. I'm going to start with Ready Schools and that's
been a flagship initiative for us.
to walk alongside school districts. We have 27 public school districts in the Indiana Uplands region.
This is a map of all of them. It kind of looks like a quilt, but those colors represent so far the districts
that we've worked with for this particular initiative, Ready Schools. So that idea is let's
think transformatively in terms of how do we align your students to the opportunities that await them in the
Indiana Uplands region to retain that talent. And so we spend a year with them in planning through a
design thinking process to think career awareness, work based learning opportunities,
re-imagine innovative learning spaces. All of those types of things come from our work in Ready Schools
to say, if you had the opportunity to have a three to five year strategic plan, what could that look
like? To really say, our students are prepared for their future. Our students are prepared for the advanced
technologies that exist now and are at a
fast pace in evolution. And so how do you create those environments in school systems that allow for
that creativity, the innovation, the new ideas, and really prototyping?
So that, we've been able to work with 18 of the 27 school districts so far. We are hoping to work with
another three districts in the coming school year. And each of those districts have funds to develop
plans and then implement strategic plans. And with that,
I am going to turn it over to Jen, who's going to talk about the really bridge programs for experience
opportunities and then career coaching. Great. Just checking the microphone level. Am I good? Yep. Great.
So I get to talk about two of the really exciting programs that ROI implements. And the first one is
the Upskill program. So next slide. Oh, it's me.
So Upskill is really an exciting program and that it really connects the employers with the students
in a very tangible way. It's different than what you think of it as an internship. We're all very familiar
with internships and you probably many of you have had interns over the years, whether they were high
school or college students. This is an intentional opportunity for students to get real-world experience
over two years during their high school career, and then potentially even a third year afterwards. And
they actually have to apply and interview for the positions, and they become employees with the employer
over the course of time. So a student in their junior year goes to school in the morning and at lunchtime,
gets in their car and drives to their employer and works not just the two or three periods they have
free, but often through the rest of the afternoon. The students see this as an investment in their future
and are willing to commit to the big picture because it gives them that exposure
The employers are willing to do it because it is a talent strategy. These students come out at the end
of their two to three years as a slow interview with the employers. And so they get to not only see
the students, but they get to train the students for the type of person they want at the end of that.
Over the course of time, we've had 208 students. This is our fifth year. We just recruited our fifth class.
this last week, and we do that by recruiting students all spring long, helping them prepare to compete.
We help them develop resumes, we help them practice their interview skills, and then we hold a big interview
day that some of you here in the audience were actually at the interview day. And the students can interview
for as many employers as they want, and at the end of that day, the employers let us know who their
top picks are. We work with the counselors, negotiate schedules to make sure it's gonna work out okay,
and then the students
and begin working as early as this summer and often work.
30 hours or more over the summertime with their employer on ramping into the school year for next year.
Students do it their junior and senior year. You can see on the slide here that we have worked in nine
of our 11 counties with 15 schools and have over 45 employer partners. The logos here are just a sampling
of some of them, but we focus on the three key sectors that Michi mentioned, so advanced manufacturing,
health, life science, and
and then national security and defense, and specifically around crane and the naval base with the contractors
in that area. We've expanded that out in supportive roles to business, IT, and education. So of those
students, they are actually physically leaving the school and going to work with those employers over
the course of their time.
To give you a better visual, I'm going to cue to a video that'll be a great picture, better than I can describe.
I haven't seen a program like this before. Even when I was growing up, there were high school students
who went out and worked at employers during the day or something like that. I don't think anything like
that was really focused on future career development. ROI has been a fantastic partner with
RTC Communications and the fact that they're helping Ryder get certifications such as CompTIA and his
networking certifications. So he's learning a base of education
to work with our network engineers, and the network engineers are showing him some real life applications.
I know a lot of the apprentices that come work for us, they're aspiring engineers, so having that ambition
coming in and that drive is a great value.
We're looking for employees with a fresh set of ideas, which a lot of the young students have. So it
adds to your innovation competitiveness. It makes total sense for employers to engage with Upskill.
It makes complete financial sense from a recruiting and talent standpoint, training standpoint, to go
this direction. We decided to partner with Upskill because we had a true need of finding local talent.
Partnering with Upskill allowed us the opportunity to, you know, really focus here locally on students
right here in our own backyard. The value that the Upskill program and the apprentices brought into
SAIC is the actual students themselves, and they have contributed greatly. They operate as employees
here. They're hired on as technicians, not interns, and they operate as technicians on the floor in
engineering groups with our team.
they are coming in with a wealth of knowledge, they have the ability to just immediately integrate with
a team and be professionals in the workforce. Just to see them over their two or three years grow in
maturity and start to make the connection between what they're learning in school and what they're doing
in the workplace, I think is one of the coolest things to see as an employer.
The apprentices will have lots of opportunities as they continue throughout their high school career,
college career, and us being just a small part of that is just a really good feeling. We have had a
big push in manufacturing to try to lose that stigma that this is a man only industry.
And the fact that we received Maddie and matched up with Maddie as an apprentice made me really happy
because it got her involved in manufacturing and she's very talented and has a good engineering mind.
I think she'll be very successful, whether it's with us or not. We'd like it to be with us. Having an
apprentice here, having Tyler here, it definitely provides a breath of fresh air.
You know, these apprentices have a great opportunity to find out about careers. In the past, maybe we've
just been out on the West Coast or the East Coast or somewhere like that, and they have the opportunity
to come in and find out about these careers, and they realize that I don't have to leave Indiana to
go be an electrical engineer somewhere. We need to grow our own. We need to develop future employees.
We need to be embedded in our communities
not just an organization that wants to sell to our community, but an organization that wants to care
about the community. So it is important to us to have the relationship with ROI and to bring in these
students to the upland regions to make sure that we're continuing to grow our area in prosperity. Isn't
that a great video?
So we're excited this week that we were able to give 58 job offers to our fifth.
cohort. They'll all go through an orientation on employment skills later this month and then be able
to start their jobs in June. And as Michi mentioned, our goals here are to really keep talent local.
This is a great strategy to engage students with local employers and getting that experience. And whether
they go off to college and come back to their employers in the summer
or they go to IU and they're able to work at IU and work their job and do a combination of both, or
they go straight into the workforce, it's a pathway for all students. So the next program I wanna talk
about, I'm the clicker, is our career coaching fellowship. So the career coaching fellowship is a really
exciting opportunity to help bolster
career advising in all of our schools. And we do it by offering a fellowship that lasts the entire year.
The applicants have to apply for positions and then they experience eight different opportunities throughout
the year to explore employment opportunities for their students. So the typical career coaching fellow
is an educator. They're either an administrator, a counselor, a teacher, work-based learning coordinator.
We don't define who it is.
We just are looking for individuals in schools who have the opportunity to make connections with students
and help advise them and guide them on career choices as they move through school. You may not know
this, but the Indiana diploma has just changed. This year's ninth grade class will no longer get the
traditional diploma. Ninth graders need to select
whether they're going to go into what they call an employment seal, an enrollment seal, or an enlistment
seal. These coaches will be vital in helping guide students which of the three seals that they go into.
an upscale falls into that employment seal. If a student goes through the upscale youth apprenticeship,
they not only get an employment seal, they get an employment honors plus seal. So the other piece to
this is the coaches, when we accept 24 coaches a year to participate, every month we go to a different
place in our region so that they really get to understand what the employment life is like
in that area. So we go to furniture makers in the South. We go to General Motors. We go to Boston Scientific.
And then we also go to the different universities, because we really want to lean into where
the opportunities are.
at IU, at Ivy Tech, at VU. Where are the opportunities for each of our students where they can find
their next step? No longer is it acceptable for schools to just get the students to the May graduation
date. Schools need to help students be prepared for the step after. There's a statistic that is often
quoted in Indiana where if you ask a senior at the end of their senior year, what are you going to do?
70% say they're going to college.
In reality, only 35% of those go. So that alone tells us there's a huge group of students who don't
have a plan, who don't know what's next.
So what can we do to best support those students so that it's not just may they're done and nobody knows
what's happening next and provide those opportunities. So our coaches are intentionally working with
students and they then can say, last week when I was at SAIC and I saw them building these things, that
would be a great occupation for you. Or last month when I was at Boston Scientific and I saw all the
different jobs, not just production, but all the different jobs and they can better connect
students to those. So the additional piece to the career coaching that's been really exciting is we
were able to get some funding from first the commission from higher ed and then it's now switched to
the department of ed where we've been actually to hire career coaches that their sole job is to do career
coaching in schools. So we have
10 career coaches placed into schools that that's their sole job is to help connect students along the
way. And again, this piece reinforces all of the pieces that Michi showed on the slide of our ed force
work development. And they can help kind of guide and steer all the different possibilities. So I'm
going to turn it back over to Michi. OK, thanks, Jen.
There is just so much more that we could talk to you about, but I won't go through every single bit
of it. I do want to say that one important key finding of ours
through occupational needs assessment that I mentioned is that one of the findings was, you know, schools
are doing a better job with pathways or exposure to different types of career pathways. And they might
take a class here or there, or it doesn't go much beyond exposure because for every
six students that maybe dabble in something or learn something about a career, only one actually go
into that broad field. So it was then that we knew that we needed to really build tangible connections.
get out of the four walls of schools, get into these employers, really see across the board what the
opportunities are with companies, small, medium size, or even large. So that was a big aha, if you will,
for us. We have
a few other programming. One is STEM fellows. I just want to say that we start really early there. That's
elementary teachers to build their capacity for feeling comfortable integrating STEM into their classrooms
so that along the way, whether it's elementary, middle, or high school, those students feel like they
are more informed when they actually do choose those courses in high school and then
possibly in college or straight into the workforce. We have a student-run business network all over
the region where we seed that funding for students to create their own businesses in their schools.
Because in rural Indiana, it's hard when you only have a handful of employers to go out for that work
baseline. So we're bringing that into the school campuses.
Also, digital fabrication labs, so the advanced technologies that they might see with their employer,
we want them to know.
to feel very comfortable using 3D printers and CAD design and CNC machines and all of those that require
a lot of software knowledge to just run those. So we want them in their learning spaces. If you're in
social studies or if you're in an English class, you can go to the Fab Lab and apply what you're learning
by making a product.
And we also have a microelectronics workforce development program, a significant agreement to bring
to this country and for us, this part of the state, the skilled workforce needed in all things
microelectronics. So really focusing on with Ivy Tech as an incredible partner, their semiconductor
fabrication certificate that students will complete before they even leave high school. And they get
hands-on experience all along the way so that they're ready to be a technician when they leave high school.
I will end there and see if there are questions for Jen or myself. Thank you. In case I missed it, what
does STEM stand for? And is this only for people, young people who are in school or can it be for people
who have graduated and are still looking?
Yes, great question. I'm sorry. There are so many acronyms, science, technology, engineering, and math.
All of those areas are very much needed in the Indiana Uplands region. And a lot of what we do is K-12,
but we do also think about
the population that's looking to upskill and reskill in their career journey. So in particular,
for instance, that semiconductor fabrication certificate of Ivy Techs that
will this also available to adult learners, right? For instance, part of that could be getting their
soldering training just as a start and then building from there. We really think a lot about how do
you stack into your next thing, right? If I'm in high school, what's my next step? If I am coming out
of a particular career, but I want to reskill myself, what are those opportunities? Thank you so much.
I apologize if I missed this information of your
apprenticeship program, can you share the success rate of the kids that have participated, whether they
stay employed with these groups or whether they stay in Indiana would be a success? I'm just curious
about some of the metrics on that. That's a great question, and it's one that we're tracking often with
a lot of different variables. One of the things is it's a three-year program, so we're only five years
in, so this is our
first group finished last year and we're just now kind of gathering the data for the second group but
we're at about a 75% retention rate and whether they're with their actual employer or a partnering employer
in the same occupation area in the same region and our goal is for them to stay in the region and so
it's still early on in that because many of those first-year students
maybe off at a four-year college somewhere. So don't have great numbers yet, but hope to have that soon.
I will say to that point, the stories that have come from students involved in these experiences are
just ones we couldn't even imagine. Students who did not know that maybe college was even for them.
They just didn't see that in their future. They didn't know all the different types of engineering.
I'm giving an example, whether it's technician level right out of early training or a four year degree.
So many that didn't know what they wanted to do, didn't know what existed and are now, I mean, we have
students in the program who are in the engineering program at Purdue. So they just never saw it in themselves
that they could do that.
We just have time for one more question. Jeff Richardson online. Yes, I was very startled basically
by the number of students, 70% that thought they were going to college, but only 35% went. Besides poor
planning, which you referenced, do we have other metrics or data that suggests maybe it was lack of
resources, for example, or other factors that why this disparity exists? Thank you.
Well, cost has a lot to do with that, and so really helping students see where those entry, realistic
entry points can be. You may not go straight to a four-year college. You might start with a certificate
and work with an employer who then pays, right, for that continued education.
you might start at it with Ivy Tech's incredible programming and they have articulated agreements into
those four-year stackable but a lot of students just don't know these things so a family might see that
sticker price and decide no we can't do this there's also right the comfort level of leaving your very
comfortable small community that you love and going to a big university. So the completion of the first
year is another data point that we look at. Do students return after the first year of high school?
Do they feel comfortable in that transition? Thank you.
Jen and Misha, will you be able to stick around for a couple of minutes? Because we had some people
with their hands up. Thank you for most interesting presentation. One of my grandfathers was an apprentice,
so it hit very close to home. In honor of your talk, a donation will be made this quarter to Wheeler
Mission. Thank you. I'd like to thank today's volunteers, Randy Saunders, Hank Walter, Christopher M.G.,
Laurie Garrity, Don Hussler, Bill Oates, Michael Shermas, Dave Meyer, Sally Gaskell, and Marcy Hibbard.
We cut off the happy dollars. If you have something that you'd like to pledge, please see me. I'll probably
reach out by email. But thank you all for the wonderful participation there. Next meeting will be here
in the Georgian Room next week, May 12. Our guests will be the group of high school seniors who have
been awarded Bloomington Rotary Club scholarships. As we've heard from a number of our members, it's
our big feel-good meeting
I mean, I love all our meetings, but boy, when we see these high school seniors, and I'm sure Hank's
kids fall in the same category, they're just very accomplished individuals who give us all hope for
the future. So anyway, please join us next week. Tyler, if you put on the slide for the four-way test,
please stand if you're able.
of the things we think, say or do. First, is it the truth? Second, is it fair to all concerned? Third,
will it build goodwill and better friendships? Fourth, will it be beneficial to all concerned? And fifth,
is it fun?