Abstract:

The past three decades the face of higher education in the United States has changed. In 1985 McDonald wrote that colleges and universities were increasing their relationships with industry and business. She contended that this increase inclusion of industry provided students with invaluable access to industry leaders via participating in career-related opportunities, councils, and research. And, although McDonald sees value in such a collaboration she questions the growing role of industry and businesses in higher education and even queries who is doing the educating, higher education or industry. Researchers (Billett, 2004; Lehtimaki & Peltonen, 2013; Turk-Bicakci & Brint, 2005) have examined this very concern whereas others (Cairns, Mohaghegh, Cundy & Johnson, 2000; Thorley, 2014) have looked at the beneficial ways industry enhances the higher education classroom and how the college classroom can benefit industry and business (Fliedner & Mathieson, 2009). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the use of industry as a contributor to academic departments achieving their goals of updated curriculum, post-graduation success, and fundraising. The authors offer a model for using industry councils in academic departments and make recommendations for success. The creation of an industry or advisory council can be an effective way to use industry. Gabbin (2002) suggests that industry advisory councils are a great way to gain support, to get industry input, and to get external financial sponsorship for programs. The requirement of academic accreditation boards to involve industry is one of the forces guiding business programs to develop industry councils. The accreditation bodies are looking to increase accountability (Schaeffer & Rouse, 2014).

References:
[1] Billett, S. (2004). From your business to our business: Industry and vocational education in Australia. Oxford Review of Education, 30 (1), p. 13-35.
[2] Cairns, D, M. Mohaghegh, V. Cundy & K. Johnson, (2000). A model for industry/university strategic alliance in the classroom. International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education, 28(2) p. 95-112.
[3] Fliedner, G. & Mathieson, K. (2009, March/April). Learning Lean: A survey of industry lean needs. Journal of Education for Business, p. 194-199.
[4] Gabbin, Alexander (2002). Journal of Accountancy; New York 193.4 (Apr 2002): p. 81-86.
[5] Lehtimaki, H. & Peltonen, T. (2013). Relations of power and knowledge: university–industry relations in business studies in Finland. High Educ, 66 p. 203-219.
[6] McDonald, E. (1985) University/Industry Partnerships: Premonitions for Academic Libraries. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 11(2) p. 82-87.
[7] Schaeffer, D. M., & Rouse, D. N. (2014). Effective academic advisory committee relationships. Contemporary Issues in Education Research (Online), 7(1), 23.
[8] Thorley, M. Graduate meets employer- a model for embedding industry professional involvement in the development and assessment of student portfolios. Journal of Music, Technology & Education, 7(3) p. 325-339.
[9] Turk-Bicakci, L. & Brint, S. (2005). University-industry collaboration: Patterns of growth for low- and middle-level performers. Higher Education, 49 p. 61-89.

Keywords:

Councils, industry, applied learning.