GE announced Oct. 13 that Greenville is one of four inaugural cities worldwide targeted for a $100 million initiative to recruit the next generation of engineers with a special emphasis on improving diversity.
The company is devoting $5 million to reach an estimated 3,500 students in the Greenville area and is collaborating with Clemson University to identify and recruit students from middle and high schools. Joining Greenville in the initial group of cities are Cincinnati, Ohio, Stafford, U.K., and Johannesburg, South Africa.
The program aims to expand to 25 cities and reach 85,000 students by 2030.
Serita Acker, executive director for Clemson’s Programs for Educational Enrichment and Retention (PEER) and Women In Science and Engineering (WISE), said that as one of South Carolina’s premier engineering universities, partnering with GE for the Next Engineers program is a natural fit.
She added that reaching out to students aged 13-18 through partner schools will have a major impact on opening the field of engineering to students who have traditionally been underrepresented in the field. She said the PEER and WISE programs’ 30 years of outreach to women and minority students to become engineers has a proven track record of success.
“I feel like we will be more equipped to highlight this path even more,” Acker said.
Tushar Desai, general manager for Combined Cycle Plant Engineering at GE Gas Power, has been involved in the initial stages of Next Engineers in Greenville for the past six months. He said 54% of companies worldwide are reporting talent shortages and that Blacks and Hispanics represent only 13% of engineers.
Desai added that labor forecasters anticipate the need for more than 120,000 new engineers in the next six years and the Next Engineers program is part of a broader effort to recruit top talent.
Next Engineers involves three components:
- Engineering discovery for students aged 13-14 where a number of one-hour sessions will offer hands-on experiences and interactions with professional engineers. The sessions are expected to take place both in the classroom and in the community.
- Engineering camp for students aged 14-15 where a week-long immersive camp experience will take place over summer break. The camp will be lead by engineering faculty and staff and will involve design challenges aimed at solving real world problems.
- Engineering academy for students aged 15-18 where participants will take part in a three-year college preparedness program geared toward pursuing engineering degrees. The academy will involve 80 hours of non-classroom programming, and students accepted into college engineering programs will receive a scholarship from the GE Foundation.
Raylan Dawkins, a Clemson engineering graduate and alumnus of the PEER program who is an Edison engineer for GE Gas Power, said Next Engineers is important because it will expose students to the field at a young age and teach them useful skills whether they end up as engineers or not.
For more information about the program, visit nextengineers.org.
