By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Missouri Western State University wants to train the workers for the high-skill jobs of today as well as tomorrow.
Director of Workforce Development at the university, Rebecca Lobina, says that is the object of the new Houlne Center for Convergent Technology which teaches students how to merge technology and human capability, especially in modern manufacturing.
“I don’t predict that there will be fewer jobs in manufacturing, just different jobs in manufacturing,” Lobina tells KFEQmmunity. “So the current workforce may have to upskill and learn some of these AI technology things and robotics that they kind of have had to learn on the job. But now, as you know, technology is changing daily.”
Lobina says the lessons being taught at Houlne don’t just apply to manufacturing. Mechanical engineering, construction engineering technology, and cyber security have all become popular courses.
Lobina says the center uses a variety of methods to prepare students for their careers. Lobina says the center steps from the classroom to the shop floor where students get hands on, applied learning from machines.
“Those machines are called trainers, which I find interesting, because you think of trainers as a person, usually, not a piece of equipment,” Lobina says. “But this is equipment they can actually put their hands on and do things and trouble shoot and learn how to utilize the same types of machines that they’re going to encounter at their real-world job, if you will, when they leave the university.”
Cyber security is a growing field and attracts students savvy in technology who like a challenge.
“And inside of the Houlne Center we actually have, they call it the War Room, where students actually get together and they problem solve on how to fix something that is going wrong,” Lobina says. “They have to be able to identify how someone is getting in through a computer system in order to block them from coming in that direction”
The Houlne Center is a joint operation of Missouri Western and North Central Missouri College of Trenton. It is located on the St. Joseph campus.
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