As industries adopt increasingly advanced technology, the demand for skilled workers who know how to navigate the evolving workplace grows.
Mississippi State University and East Mississippi Community College are tackling that challenge with a formal partnership that incorporates advanced manufacturing and workforce development programs from MSU into the Workforce Services Division at EMCC’s Communiversity.
During a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday, the presidents of the two schools unveiled new facilities established to house the Advancements in Manufacturing Upskilling Program, or AiM UP, the Mississippi Advanced Composites Training Center and MSU’s Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems Extension Center.
The facilities offer advanced manufacturing and robotics education and training to students and workers to ensure they are prepared to work with evolving technologies.
“We’ve got tools here that community colleges around the nation just don’t have, and I think that’s really, really going to be impactful,” EMCC President Scott Alsobrooks said during the ceremony. “I know it will be when we’re wooing more companies to create more good jobs, create more good opportunities for people to earn and learn and live here in our area.”
The initiatives at the Communiversity are designed to provide experience using state-of-the-art technology in manufacturing and automation. The programs aim to help address a projected shortage of more than 100,000 skilled workers the state will need by 2030 by training current and future employees.
Built in 2019 with $42.6 million from federal, state and local sources, the Communiversity serves as the region’s educational and workforce development hub. Students there can enroll in career technical programs for credit, and local industries provide training at the facility.
Brian Smith, an associate professor and undergraduate coordinator in MSU’s Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, said the goal is to give students an opportunity to learn additional manufacturing skills whether they’re still in school, just entering the workforce or already employed and looking to upskill.
“We have a great opportunity where we have the two-year students, the trained employees and the four-year engineering students, who don’t necessarily get that hands-on experience, working side by side just like they are in the workplace,” Smith said.
Bringing students with different skill levels together also creates apprenticeship opportunities, Alsobrooks said.
“Think about a traditional 18- or 19-year-old young man or young woman that gets to sit in the lab next to somebody that’s already worked, that’s already earned, that’s here learning,” he said. “There’s a lot of career exploration that’s going on inside these walls as they’re learning.”
Alsobrooks said students who have the chance to expand their skills locally may be more likely to stay in the region and contribute to the local workforce.
“Our community college students tend to stay here in Mississippi,” he said. “They come here, they go to school, they get a degree, they go to work and they stay here. … We want to give them good opportunities to stay here in the Golden Triangle and earn, learn and make a good living.”
‘One of the most advanced training labs in the country’
The new facilities at the Communiversity are the culmination of roughly four years of work, Alsobrooks said.
The MAC Training Center brings industry training offered at MSU’s Advanced Composite Institute to the Communiversity, providing industrial-scale composite manufacturing training. Local industries can train employees at the lab, where they have access to a laser system for precision cutting, an autoclave (a high-pressure oven) for curing parts and a clean room with an air infiltration system.
Another space housing the new MSU CAVS Extension Center will give engineering services and professional development training to industry across the state. The program gives manufacturers training in product and process improvement, advanced engineering tools and initiatives aimed at building the workforce.
The AiM UP lab is a space where students can get the hang of the industry’s latest advancements. Smith said the equipment inside the lab was intentionally chosen by an advisory board of industry leaders across the state, so students use the same tools they would be using inside a factory.
Students learn how to work with cobots, which are robots that operate alongside humans to streamline processes and perform repetitive tasks. With a robotic assembly line, students can practice troubleshooting issues when machines are programmed to break down.
Carver Middleton, a research engineer with MSU athlete engineering and center for advanced vehicular systems, helped procure and install technology for the lab, starting in November 2023.
“We’re constantly adding new technologies, trying to stay with the latest and greatest to showcase to industry (and) do workforce training and career technical education,” Middleton told The Dispatch. “We’re working on identifying how to incorporate some of these more advanced systems and even bringing over engineering students from the university to be in this space.”
With the advanced technology, Middleton said students and workers have an edge in the manufacturing sector, while also providing a well-trained workforce to sustain industry in Mississippi.
“I’ve been around the world getting caught up to speed on all of this automation equipment. This is one of the most advanced training labs in the country, and we can say that definitively,” he said. “We’re really excited about the opportunities that this will allow for in terms of bringing industry to the state for economic development and supporting them for years to come.”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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