{"id":1264,"date":"2020-12-01T03:41:29","date_gmt":"2020-12-01T03:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spokanetrends.org\/newsletter\/?page_id=1264"},"modified":"2020-12-10T00:12:07","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T00:12:07","slug":"fall-2020-main-article-1","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/spokanetrends.org\/newsletter\/fall-2020-main-article-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Spokane Higher Education Continues to Educate More STEM Majors"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by Dr. Patrick Jones<\/strong><\/p>

Spokane has long harbored ambitions\u00a0to pump\u00a0more technology fuel\u00a0in\u00a0the tank\u00a0of its economy. Over the past decades, the county\u2019s economy has turned away from\u00a0its founding\u00a0extractive industries \u2013 agriculture, mining & timber \u2013 and become heavily service oriented. Parts of the service economy pay well, but many do not. Technology based economic development (TBED)\u00a0has been seen here as a way of raising incomes.\u00a0<\/p>

To be able to point to a stronger tech presence, an economy faces\u00a0a shopping list. One item is\u00a0the formation of tech firms. They can appear as an offshoot of an existing company (Itron from Washington Water Power), a local \u201cbirth\u201d\u00a0(Medcurity, Cyan, Paw\u00a0Print\u00a0Genetics), or one \u201cimported\u201d\u00a0by the relocation of their founders\u00a0(Matrical\u00a0and Signature Genomics, from a few years back).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

Other items\u00a0on the list\u00a0include the presence of early risk capital, appropriate space, skilled managers, and certainly not last, a skilled workforce. With the exception of risk capital, the shopping list looks the same for\u00a0locally created or\u00a0tech companies\u00a0from elsewhere\u00a0that want to expand their presence with a Spokane area office or plant. This column looks at\u00a0workforce, increasingly a, if not the, most critical entry on the\u00a0checklist of\u00a0tech firms.\u00a0<\/p>

A workforce with technology chops can emerge by in-migration of highly skilled people. Or it can emerge from local efforts to grow our own\u00a0skilled workers (human capital). In most cases,\u00a0the presence of\u00a0strong tech human capital\u00a0is a product of both\u00a0forces. The approach to\u00a0grow\u00a0our own, however, is typically favored because it gives the\u00a0children of\u00a0residents an opportunity to acquire skills that lead to higher-than-average wages, and significantly,\u00a0to stay in the area.\u00a0Parents usually appreciate that, too.\u00a0<\/p>

Not surprisingly, the\u00a0Spokane\u00a0business community has pressed for greater tech emphasis\u00a0in\u00a0education. And both\u00a0local\u00a0K-12 and\u00a0high ed institutions have stepped up. At the K-12 level, the county is now graced with efforts like the Project Lead the Way in many of our county\u2019s middle and high schools.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

Over the past decade, local higher education institutions have\u00a0also\u00a0expanded programs\u00a0in a variety of ways. EWU now offers degrees in electrical and mechanical engineering. Whitworth University has developed an outstanding computer science program. Gonzaga has added nursing and human physiology majors to its already strong commitment to engineering. The University of Washington has expanded its medical school slots in Spokane, while expanding their physical footprint in conjunction with Gonzaga.\u00a0The Community Colleges of Spokane now offer some highly sought-after degrees in medical technology.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

WSU has perhaps undergone the greatest\u00a0metamorphosis by concentrating all its health disciplines onto\u00a0the\u00a0Spokane campus. And yes, in our view, health belongs\u00a0with\u00a0technology, or more specifically under the umbrella of STEM \u2013 science, technology, engineering and math. Schools of pharmacy, nursing, and most recently medicine now grace the Spokane higher ed landscape. To boot, WSU Health Sciences also harbors a renowned sleep research lab, active in basic and applied research for the private sector and military.\u00a0<\/p>

One way of keeping track of the progress of local human capital is to track degrees granted in the STEM fields of local higher ed. (Another would be to survey new residents about their degrees, an expensive piece of research.) The focus groups that guided the composition of indicators on Spokane Trends voted to show these degrees over time; the result is Indicator 3.5.7: Total and Share of STEM Degrees Granted at Regional Higher Education Institutions<\/a> on Spokane Trends.<\/p>

It is very clear that higher ed has responded to the request from the community to produce a greater pool of local STEM degree holders. Of the dozen-plus years covered by the indicator, total STEM degrees issued\u00a0have increased by well over a thousand, from 1,617 to 2,772 in 2019. That\u2019s a cumulative gain over 71%.\u00a0<\/p>

Indicator\u00a03.5.7<\/a>\u00a0breaks down the degrees conferred by type. It is easy to see that the most common one has been a BA or BS. For the most recent year, 2019, over 1,700 were\u00a0granted by local higher ed. It is also the degree that has enjoyed the greatest increase,\u00a0at least\u00a0in total terms, over the past 13 years.\u00a0Yet,\u00a0Masters degrees in STEM fields have almost quadrupled over the same interval. And the number of doctorate degrees\u00a0have\u00a0climbed from\u00a0zero to between 150-200.\u00a0<\/p>

This rapid growth raises the question\u00a0whether\u00a0Spokane\u2019s higher\u00a0ed\u00a0STEM degrees have caught up with demand. Probably not locally. And certainly not for the state. Hundreds of nursing and computer software jobs are posted nearly every month in the county, according to data from the Washington State Employment Security Department (ESD). From the state perspective, the number of postings for those fields\u00a0are\u00a0the thousands. Postings for other STEM fields easily find themselves in the top 25 jobs in demand published every month by ESD.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

It is this writer\u2019s hunch that for the remainder of STEM occupations in Spokane, a rough balance currently exists. But that doesn\u2019t\u00a0hold\u00a0for the state at large. Several STEM occupations,\u00a0in addition to nurses and software developers,\u00a0show large projected demands, mostly in the realm of computer science but also for engineers (civil and mechanical).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

For Spokane to keep its increasingly deep pool of STEM graduates, a greater number of tech jobs need to appear. Whether those jobs are created by local entrepreneurs or by branch\u00a0office\u00a0of tech companies headquartered elsewhere is probably not a big question\u00a0for\u00a0local STEM graduates. My hunch is that they just want an employer to give them a local opportunity to show their stuff.\u00a0<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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