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February 2016 • SMT Magazine 69 some engineering courses and thinking, "But how does this connect?" It needs to make a connection. Borkes: That's the advantage we have. We'll ac- tually be able to talk in real time about solder paste or about flux chemistries in the chemis- try class, yet teach the traditional classwork that's needed for accreditation, as well. Mor- timer Adler, who is one of my heroes, was an American philosopher. He died in 2001. He led a group responsible for an educational strategy called The Paideia Proposal, and he was fond of saying "You know, there's learning for learning and there's learning for earning." Many students have no clue as to the value of what they're being taught. They're relying on schools to provide them with educational con- tent that's going to be valuable to them going into the real world, as well as develop a love of learning and general knowledge that will en- hance their lives. Adler said, the most successful schools are the ones that instill a combination of both. They provide their students with learn- ing for learning and earning. Certainly in man- ufacturing what we've done falls far short of the mark on learning for earning. The skills that are learned have very little relevance in manufac- turing. That's why we don't get people who are attracted to manufacturing—they don't really even know that it exists; the professors in most cases have no real-world experience, either. It's a dilemma. It's a big ship to turn. I'm convinced that we can change this using the theory of concurrent education. Some people tend to think we do this already with these ap- prenticeship and co-op programs. I call those weakly concurrent. There is no real correspon- dence between what the student is doing in school and their apprenticeship program at a company. Concurrent education is the educa- tional theory that all of what we've discussed is based upon. We really want to merge the two worlds, academia and the real world, for the benefit of the student, and our manufacturing industry. A successful student, in many cases, is being guar- anteed a good job upon graduation. Goldman: Well, Tom, we've been talking for quite a while here! Borkes: Yes. As you can see with me it's a pas- sion at best, an obsession at worst, but it's some- thing that needs to be addressed. In a sense, it's like peeling back an onion. Instead of more and more onion, you find more synergy with stake- holders who have much to gain with the con- cept of concurrent education in the context of high-tech electronic product assembly, in gen- eral, and trying to compete in high labor-rate markets, specifically. Many have learned the hard way that you just can't buy the automa- tion and hope to be successful; you need to pair the equipment with a world class workforce— a workforce that has been trained differently, structured differently, and focused on product teams and not departments. Nibbling around the edges with short, disjointed apprenticeship and co-op programs and politicians waving the STEM acronym around will not get it done. Goldman: Thank you very much for your time. Borkes: My pleasure. SMT references 1. The Jefferson Project. Patty Goldman is the managing editor of The PCB Magazine and a 30+ year veteran of the pcb industry, with experience in R&D of imaging technologies, wet process engineer- ing, and sales and marketing. To reach Goldman, click here. " it's a big ship to turn. i'm convinced that we can change this using concurrent education. " tHe JeFFersoN ProJect, Part 2