Rethinking Education and Workforce Alignment with Scott Waller

In this episode of UnchartED State, co-hosts Susan Seal and Maddie Ludt are joined by Scott Waller of the Mississippi Business Alliance to explore the critical connection between education and workforce development in Mississippi.

From shifting perceptions of higher education to the growing importance of career pathways and stackable credentials, Scott shares insights on how students, institutions, and employers can better align to meet the demands of today’s economy, while also rethinking what “college” means and how success is defined beyond a traditional degree.

The conversation dives into how Mississippi can strengthen its talent pipeline, why collaboration between education and industry is essential for economic growth, and the challenges of retaining talent and creating clearer pathways to employment. As the state works to build a more resilient and competitive workforce, this episode underscores the importance of alignment, adaptability, and a shared vision for the future of education and work.

In This Episode:

• The rise of career pathways and stackable credentials
• Rethinking the value and definition of a college degree
• Aligning education with workforce and economic needs
• Strengthening Mississippi’s talent pipeline and retaining talent
• The role of business, policy, and education in driving growth
• Why clearer connections between learning and careers matter more than ever

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

We have to play to our strengths. And that's what the Applied Sciences program did. So you've learned these skills and you put these skills to work every day, but you may want to move to the next level. Your employer may want you to have a bachelor's in order to move to the next level. Now you have that opportunity. You're going to take what you've learned in the work world, and now you're going to apply that back into the classroom again to get to where you need to be to really advance your career. That's what the College Professional Continuing Studies has that opportunity to help those people do.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Uncharted State. I'm your host, Susan Steele, along with Maddie Luke. Good morning. We are post-graduation and I keep waiting for everything to slow down.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Yeah, is this summer vacation?

SPEAKER_00 0:52

I thought it was going to be, but uh, we're still going wide open. Traffic is a little bit easier. So today we are exploring the changing landscape of higher education and our deep connection to Mississippi's economic future, but also how universities and business communities can come together and not just move Mississippi forward, but maybe whatever state that you're in also. And so our guest today is Scott Waller. Welcome, Scott. I'm glad to have you here.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

It's good to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Uh Scott is executive vice president of the Mississippi Business Alliance, the state's unified chamber of commerce and president of the Mississippi Foundation. He brings more than a decade of leadership at the Mississippi Economic Council, where he served as president and CEO, guiding the organization to be named America's State Chamber of the Year in 2022. Before his work in policy and advocacy, Scott spent more than 20 years as a journalist. This is our second journalist in a row. Stacy. Stacy was a journalist also background. So apparently we have an affinity to uh journalist. He uh was business editor of the Clarion Ledger, which is kind of Mississippi's uh state newspaper, I guess, out of Jackson. And uh as owner and publisher of the Madison County Journal, a Shabuda native. And so we may do a test later just to see how many people know where Shabuta is. Uh and uh Mississippi State graduate and also a graduate of our uh online program. I think then it was called uh Academic Outreach and Continuing Ed. I think that's correct, yeah. We've been through a couple of name changes, but uh and he also serves on our uh College of Professional and Continuing Studies Advisory Council. So there's a lot that uh that you've done and are a part of, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

You gotta stay busy.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

That's right. Uh so you have had uh quite a journey from small town Mississippi to journalism to leading the state's most influential business organization. So tell us a little bit about that path and and how you got to where you are today.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

You know, I grew up a huge sports fan and and and still am today, but wanted to come to Mississippi State, got an opportunity to come here, was actually in the band for a couple of years and all that, but I wasn't the best student. So I I spent a little time working in journalism while I was in college, built up a portfolio, was able to get out and go to school. Now I only lacked just a few hours from graduating, but I couldn't sp past Spanish three and four. But nevertheless, I got out, I went to work, and and built a career in journalism all the way working in sports, a good portion of that, and then eventually as business editor. And that's where I got to know um MEC and the work that it did there. And I had a chance to go to work there. Um Blake Wilson, who was the CEO prior to me, called me up one day and said, Let's go to lunch. Didn't think anything of it because we did it a lot because we would talk about story ideas, what was going on with the business community. And we were sitting at the table and he offered me a job. I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. Wait, what this isn't what I was thinking about. But it was the best thing that could have ever happened because I was able to use some of the skills I had as a journalist, and then I became government relations. So I was working with the legislature year in and year out, which I did for the past 20 years, and ultimately allowed me to understand some of the needs in our state and some of the things we want to do to grow our economy, to grow our workforce, to give our citizens an opportunity. Again, coming from a very small town, Shabuta was one of those places where you knew everybody. So if I got in trouble, if I did something wrong, uh I wasn't just gonna get, you know, my parents weren't the only ones that were gonna get on to me. And and you you didn't have to worry about it. Um they had permission to.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

I mean, they were gonna hear about it too. And they were gonna stop it.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

And they were gonna hear about it. But you know, it it gives me an affinity for Mississippi. And there was a few years ago I was looking, I mean, this was probably um before I became the CEO at MEC, I was looking around and I had a mentor of mine who lives in in north northwest up in Idaho. He said, Look, dude, you're you're Mississippi. You don't need to leave Mississippi. And I said, Well, that makes sense. And so that that was fortunate that I was able to continue to grow my career at MEC and then build into where we are today with Mississippi Business Alliance.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Scott, I really love how you connected your career journey to helping it better understand the needs of people. And we see a lot of students who are making career pivots. Um, your story really resonates with that. What do you think that that says about the changing nature of work and maybe the future of work?

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Well, I I think it says a lot because in my opinion, as I mentioned, I I left school, but I came back and and through the the continuing education department, which is now this college, I was able to complete my degree. But it it was later than I wanted. My mom passed away, and we didn't have much, but I had I I was left just enough money to pay tuition. And it was something I'd always promised her I wanted to do. And and coming back and finishing that degree allowed me to no longer have to check the sum college box. Okay. Because if I'm checking the sum college box and the guy that only went to one semester of school is checking the sum college box, how's an employer going to know the difference? How the landscape is changing to answer your question is now there are a lot more options to allow you to say what you've accomplished with your post-secondary education. And that and that's what I love about this. It it's y'all use the term stepladder, I think, and and we we have some other things that we talk about, but we call it stackable. We were we were in a discussion yesterday about that every job out there is gonna need something additional beyond high school at some point, and it's coming sooner rather than later. But we also talked about how we've got to rethink about how we look at education and and view it. I've been a proponent for years of changing the terminology of what college really means. No, everybody needs to go to college. Well, when somebody hears that, what you're thinking is Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Southern, whatever the case may be. But it could be that you're going to a community college to get an industry certification that's going to help you start your career, build skills, and move on. That's college. But ideally, it doesn't need to be an endpoint when you finish that. You build on that. You go back, you get your associates, you come here and you get the ability to, you know, add on to what you what you've learned and eventually get to that degree. It it should be steps along the way that you're getting credit for.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Pathways. Pathways.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

And those not just a checkbox of some college, because that nobody really knows what that means. If you have defined pathways that people understand, that's how we change the landscape. That's how we make a difference. And that way, no matter what their age, they feel like they've got that opportunity to move to the next level at some point. And that's that's why, and and y'all know this because y'all have been around me enough. That's why I love what this college is doing. What the College of Professional Continuing Studies is doing is they're not looking at, oh, we just got to get somebody a degree. We're looking at what is it they need to be successful in their career, to grow in their to grow in their career, and to get that accomplishment that helps them feel like, hey, look what I've done.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

So with the Mississippin Alliance, it is um a merger of three kind of legacy uh organizations. Tell us a little bit about that and why that came about and and how that's gonna lead forward and and and how universities kind of fit into that as well.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Well, I I it I I am so excited about where we are with Mississippi Business Alliance. It's something that I've really uh felt like needed to happen in our state to truly represent our business community in in a good way. We had three organizations, three very good organizations. I was uh, as you mentioned, the CEO of Mississippi Economic Council, who'd served as the state chamber. John McKay was president of the Mississippi Manufacturing Association, and then the third organization is organization called BIPEC, Business and Industry Public Uh Political Education Committee, uh, who was run by Derek uh Easley. When uh when I took over MEC ten years ago and started thinking about what was next, uh the same the same person that told me that I was too ingrained in Mississippi to go somewhere else was was a great mentor. He and he called me and congratulated me, said, Now look, I want you to understand something. I'd been serving as the COO at the time. He said, the difference between a COO and a CEO, a COO is always thinking about the here and now. The CEO thinks about 20 years from now. And I had been involved with our National Association for a number of years, and there were a lot of organizations across the country that these organizations, these three organizations that we brought together in January, they were all those functions were under one roof, under one organization. So I began to have conversations with John and Derek and you know, really say, look, it's it's about the future. And it's about not just the future of our organizations, not the future of the state, but their futures as well. And and our board was very much on, the MEC board of directors was very much on board of bringing these groups together. Because what it did is it allowed us to have everything we needed to do to be successful as a business organization and represent the business community in a way that it had not been represented in the past. Now, look, again, all three of us were strong. All three of us did what we were supposed to do. The other side of it, we were all being supported by a lot of the same people. So having it all under one roof with a unified focus has been amazing. So in January, we officially integrated as the Mississippi Business Alliance. We are the State Chamber of Commerce, we are all the state affiliate for the National Association of Manufacturers, and we now have that political arm that we did not have in the past because that's what BIPEC brings. And the reason that's important is that we need to make sure our elected officials, whether they're statewide or whether legislative officials, they have an understanding of what the business community needs and how we grow our economy in our state and what how policy impacts that. So we're very excited about it. Collectively, the three groups are over 160 years old. So, you know, we've got a lot of experience, but we've got a lot of really runway to do some really good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Is the political piece a little bit unique in when you compared like to other states of the state chambers of commerce?

SPEAKER_02 12:06

No, one of those this is an interest this was an interesting conversation. This was in 2019. We started having a discussion with our board of directors. I had brought uh someone in to do a strategic plan for us, and and it's someone who had been in the business for a while, and he and I got talking about what do you want to see? I said, Well, I I really think, you know, he came from an organization where everything was combined. And I said, we've got to figure out how to move to that. And we started having that discussion. And I think the key question that was asked by one of our board members is how many people, how many state chambers are actually involved in politics? And the answer stunned the room. The answer was everybody except MEC. And what that told us, and and again, part of the reason we had not done it, BIPEC existed to serve that role. There was a little bit of, you know, MMA had a pack at the time. If we had started it, we'd have just been siphoning off everything else because it's it's it's all the same people. And I think what that made us realize is we didn't just need to figure out how to bring together the chamber and the the manufacturer association. We need to figure out how do we do the political side of it properly. And that's where BIPEC, the experience that Derek had and that organization had, allowed us to bring all three together. So it was sometimes it's sometimes you say, well, we're gonna merge these two organizations, it's gonna be great. Well, in our case, it would have been, but it can be even better by merging all three. And so we're doing that. As I mentioned, John McKay is the CEO. John um is I I always tell the joke when I'm talking about whether we're generations and stuff. If somebody's looking at me and says, You can tell I'm not part of the younger generation anymore. My hair's already turned gray and now it's turning loose. I'm at that point in my career that I'm I want, I want to, I want to eventually build some stuff out and fade into the background. John's young, he's he's very bright. I'm very excited about what he's doing with our organization. Derek is an expert when it comes to political stuff. We've got a tremendous team. And then we were able to bring all their staffs together and and get them in the right places as well. So I it it's just a it's really important to have the business community involved in everything. And how it really, what really matters to me is now our foundation, which that's my primary role, is gonna have the ability to really focus on workforce and education as we move forward in a way that we really haven't been able to do before. And and make people understand that is that is the key to us building our economy, is how we educate our workers.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

You you mentioned that somebody told you you were so embedded in Mississippi you just needed to stay. Um, what is the quote that you can't understand the world until you understand a place like Mississippi? Yeah. And I think, you know, because there may be people listening, like, well, I don't know, I don't know if I'm gonna get anything from this. I'm not in Mississippi, but there's so many aspects of of what we do and where we lead in certain areas that we're kind of a microcosm of uh of a lot of different places.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Yeah, we really are, but what I'm most excited about is I think we have a lot of opportunities here for people to either stay or come back home. That is one of our goals, is to to to grow our population. I truly hate the term brain drain because you it it's usually followed by we are losing our best and our brightest. I don't agree with that. We got some really great people, some really young, bright young people that have chosen to stay in Mississippi. We did uh a few years ago, we did round tables across the state with young professionals. There are so many bright people in the state that either decided to stay or in many cases came here. And when they realize what Mississippi has to offer, that's great. What we've got to do is a better job of preparing them and matching uh what their skill sets are with what our businesses are needing. We do those things we can keep more, we can get more to come. So I I really prefer to say we're focusing on how do we grow our talent, our retention, and attraction in order to address the issue of of serving our workforce and serving our business. And I think that's there's so many things in Mississippi that gives us an opportunity to do that. And I think that that the business community is beginning to understand, hey, we are gonna we've got to step up and be part of that as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Well, and Mississippi's uh has really experienced economic growth in the in the past few years.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

It really has. And I think when you think about it, it's it, you know, capital investment is has been just crazy. But I mean, and again, a lot of it's in the in the data center world, but I think if we can capitalize on the fact that technology is growing in the state, we have those opportunities, that that opens doors for other places. But when you when you think about how much growth we've had in the last really since 2020, and you you look at you know over sixty billion dollars of capital investment, that's we didn't even have ten billion in the ten years prior to that. So I I think you're seeing people pay attention to what Mississippi has to offer. Regulatory environment's good, the you know, tax environment's good. And I think you're focused so on workforce development and education in a way that we have never done before, that we're gonna start to see the needle move there as well. And that's what that's what excites me the most. That's the what what a great place to be at the kind of the the end of my you know run with all this. And and it and I'm I'm not retiring yet. I I went to an event I went to an event two weeks ago and I'm gonna. This is not Scott's retirement. No, I went to I went to an event two weeks ago and and literally two people came up to me and asked me, How are you enjoying retirement? I'm like, I'm not retired. Yeah, we merged organizations, I have a different role, but I'm still working as hard every day as as I can. And uh I I'm excited about doing that for for a little bit longer, but it's just you know, we've got we've got so many opportunities. We just don't. I had a quote I used to when I was giving speeches, I used to say that you know, the difference between temptation and opportunity is you're always gonna get a second shot at temptation. We can't blow these opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

So yeah, this this podcast is not a uh announcement of Scott's No, no, no, I no breaking news here.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

No, not going anywhere anytime soon.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Uh so talking about you know the workforce challenges, and uh I think higher education really does sit at the center of of that uh as as well, as part of the solution to what we're talking about. And with MSBA uh foundation leads initiatives like the Workforce Institute for Workforce and Educational Excellence, the Ascent to 55%, and you can you can tell us a little bit about what these are and the leadership Mississippi that all connect education and employment. So tell us a little bit about those and and how it connects to maybe what what we're doing at Mississippi State.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

Well, I think that part of when we when we started thinking about this bringing these organizations together, I started thinking about what did we want the foundation to look like? How do we need to build that out? And and started developing what we it we were introduced it back in October of last year. It's called the Work Future Institute for Workforce and Educational Excellence. And we're very intentional to make sure we said workforce and educational, because it's I think just like that word college I talked about earlier, that everybody says, Well, where are you going to college? And they they're talking that four-year route. I think when you hear workforce, you don't think about the role that higher education plays in workforce. Higher education plays a huge role in workforce. The goal for anyone who walks across that stage and gets that that bachelor's or gets that master's is they're going into the workforce with a specialty that's going to let them be successful. So, yes, everything that higher education does should be should be part of the workforce discussion. Everything our community colleges and even the certification programs needs to be part of the education discussion because they're getting more education and getting more skills. So to me, they've always been interchangeable. For years, you you wanted to hear them separated. And I'm not gonna lie, I we were working on some legislation one year, and there was a community college president that came up to us because in that legislation, which dealt with dollars for workforce development, it's a community colleges and IHL. And this gentleman really came up to the two of us, it was Blake and I. What's IHL got to do with workforce? I said, everything. Everything. Everything. I said, we got to get out of these silos. And I think that's why when you think about what we're looking the work we're starting to do, and we get into some details of that in a few minutes. But I think what we want to do is make sure that we're talking about every level of education has to be focused on what is the outcome for Mississippi's workforce, whether that's K-12, whether it's community colleges, whether it's IHL, whether it's degrees beyond bachelor's, all of those things have to have a focus of what is the outcome of that person who's gonna get that when he completes the program that they're in, what does that mean? Is there a job? Is it does it pay well? And can they stay here in Mississippi? Those are the things, those are the outcomes that we want to focus on.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

I don't know if you remember, but I remember you and I standing at Founder Square at the Neshoba County Fair. And if y'all don't know what that is, just look it up. And we were talking about really but what what the Bachelor of Applied Science did, because it It was this uh kind of before that in in Mississippi in particular, you either went to did a a technical program or you went to college. It was a either or. And with the the BAS, you can do both. You can go the technical route and then transfer those credits in and also get a degree, which quite often helps you move into uh supervisory levels and you know increase expand your career throughout your lifetime.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

If our goal is to make sure when someone finishes something, that's not the end point, the the Bachelor of Applied Sciences was the first step in making sure that happens. Because before, if you had you had 60 hours, you had an associate's degree, but it was none of those could come forward. So if somebody wanted to come back and get a bachelor's, they had to start over. That's start over. So all that all that education that they got, earning that, all that work experience that they've got by using it didn't matter. You you were basically a first semester freshman. And that just made no sense. And when when when Mississippi State, and again, I'm I'm an alum and I have to work with all of our universities, please understand that. And and we got some great stuff happening out there, but I'm a little partial on certain things. But on this one in particular, this was a leader in getting something done that nobody else was doing in a way that I think has changed it. And I think that y'all know this. It's been successful. Whenever I talk to Dr. Shaw, he's always talking about that program. But he's always now now, he's always talking about Shaw's program, too. So I mean it's like we're okay with that. And and and that's a good thing. That that's a good thing. Because what it it's what it shows me is you're thinking differently. And I think we're we have to plate our strengths. One of my favorite books is David and Goliath by Malcolm Cladwell. Um one of the one of the things that I learned in back when I was coming through high school and even college, there was not a lot of focus put on dyslexia. And I'm dyslexic. And I wasn't diagnosed until five or six years into my career. And the doctor looked at me and said, now what do you do for a living? I told him I was, you know, a journalist. He said, How? You know, how do you how do you write? How do you read? You find ways, but what that book talked about is you find different ways to do things. You play to your strengths. And he used the story of David and Goliath because, you know, he basically said, you know, he wasn't questioning David's faith at all. He knew that that was the leading, what led him to take on that challenge. But when he took Saul's armor and gave it back to him, everybody went, What? He says, if I fight him traditionally, I'm dead. But I'm an expert slinger. If I get my position, I can make my shot, I can take down the giant. And he did. So all of those things were playing to the strengths that God gave him. We have to play to our strengths. And what I think that's happening, and the reason that I'm so honored to serve on the advisory council for this college, is we're trying to figure out a way to play to people's strengths. And that's what the applied sciences program did. So you've learned, you've learned these skills and you put these skills to work every day, but you may want to move to the next level. Your employer may want you to have a bachelor's in order to move to the next level or to take on additional responsibilities. Now you have that opportunity. And so you're going to use the strengths you have here and what you've learned in your education to get your certification or your CTE associates. You're going to take what you've learned in the work world, and now you're going to apply that back into the classroom again to get to where you need to be to really advance your career. That's what the College Professional Continuing Studies has that opportunity to help those people do. And that's that's why, again, I'm I I probably am overpassionate about this, but it's it's kind of become the it's kind of become what I really want to see happen. And and I, you know, I again, I love Mississippi State, but what you're doing needs to be looked at by others and how you scale this up other places so that we can so we can serve as many people as possible and give them those opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

I don't think you can be overpassionate about the BAS, but that's just my opinion because I really enjoy working with our students. And all the things that you said, Scott, are so important. But on like a personal level, interacting with them, I think it also says, we see you, we value the experiences you've had and the contributions that you've made to your field. And if you want to go deeper in that, we can help you. And if you want to make a pivot, we can also help you. But I think it's very validating to our students to feel seen and valued for the education and the skills that they've already developed.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

And I think that helps them grow. It helps them, it, it gives them something to shoot for too. I mean, there's there's something special about that, that crossing that finish line. I'm not gonna lie. It was even though it had not really I had been able to build a good career, coming back and going through the program to allow me to graduate was was a tremendous, you know, win and and great moment for me personally. And I think that that's what you are doing is you're changing lives in such a positive way. And you're doing it, y'all are doing it every day. That's that's what I respect. That's awesome. That's what I respect. Y'all do it every day. I I get to talk about it. Y'all get to do it. There's a difference.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

So at our advisory council meeting, uh, you shared a report, uh, Mississippi's talent pipeline aligning strategy for post-secondary attainment with workforce demands. And I want you to talk a little bit about that. The the data showed that Mississippi faces a shortfall of roughly 2,700 middle skill credentials and 1,600 bachelor degrees every single year for the next decade. Uh, when you when you put those numbers out in front of business leaders and uh policymakers, which are all the people that you're working with, what's the reaction and what are we doing about this urgent need to to make some changes?

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Well, I think the reaction is it just it just puts in to to form what we already knew exist. We knew we knew we had an issue. Nothing was surprising, nothing was surprising, it's just how do you accomplish it? So it goes back to you mentioned our cent to 55% effort earlier. So to give you a little history there to get us to to where we need to understand why this these numbers are so vital that we got to focus on, is about 13 years ago, there was a group called the Educational Achievement Council that was created. And they they basically looked at what what are where do we stand with post-secondary attainment? How many people have bachelors, how many people have associates, how many have industry certifications of value and things of that nature. And they set a goal of by 2035 that we needed to have 55% of all Mississippians with some type of post-secondary education. Well, that's that's that's a very meaningful goal. Well, Woodward Heinz Foundation gave our at the time our our foundation at MEC a grant to focus on how do we grow that number. And and we've had some success over the last when we started the process about five years ago, we were about 44% total. That was every that was everything that you could look at. And a person only counted one time. He could have multiples, but they only counted one time. We were about 44% of some type of post-secondary attainment. Right now we're close to 49%. So we still have a little base to go. But what has happened since then is we realize we need to really rethink how we go about doing that and focus more on how does that attainment line align with the jobs that are that are out there. So as you think it as you think through that process, we said, okay, post-secondary uh the achievement council has kind of outlived its usefulness because it's it's it's it was just primarily the academic side of it. When it was created, uh our Office of Workforce Development Accelerate didn't even exist at that point. So they this past legislative session, they passed a passed legislation to allow us to create beginning July 1, what we call the Mississippi Post-Secondary Attainment Council. And through our Work Future Institute, we're gonna work very closely and we we are gonna actually have a formal partnership with Accelerate to look at what are the needs at every single level of education uh and what is a plan to get us there. So when you look at this uh information that you just mentioned, we went ahead uh even before the legislation passed, we went ahead and started working because we knew this was really the next step with a cent to 55%. And um and we were very fortunate that Woodward Hines Educational Foundation liked the work we were doing, and they've re-upped their grant for us. So we're we're still we're still working, and they're they're so supportive and they're so in they're so committed to this. But what we saw is to your point, that over the next 10 years, we have to we have to get to a point where we're growing the number of people that have those credentials. Because there's going to be a need for it with new jobs, but you also think about there's gonna be a need for it because of retirements and more and more people leaving the workforce. How do we, how do we, how do we get to that? So when you see that you have that we need to be at 32 percent by 20, by 2036 of people in the state with a with a bachelor's degree or higher, well, that tells you right there you can't ignore higher education. You can't just focus on you just can't focus on training workforce. Well, at the same time, you need, you know, 18% certifications and associates, where are those middle skill jobs, uh each of those. So again, that's at 36%. So when you look at needing 30, that tells you 32% of IHL, 36% of the others combined, or 68% total, almost 70% of our population has to have some type of training after high school for us to be able to have the workforce that our business is going to need to grow our economy. So as we think about that, we got to get the numbers first. And then when the next step is while our report actually gave some general sectors that we need to focus our attention on, the next step is to get down into this specific occupations. What are the skills needed with occupations? And that's where the business community can come in and be part of that. So a whole part of what we really focused and the reason for starting the Work Future Institute was that we needed that conduit between businesses and education to help them understand kind of what we needed to be doing and what the connection was.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

One of the lines that both of us uh picked up on in the document was about uh an argument that employers need to move from the end of the pipeline to the beginning, which is something that we work on here, is is sitting down with employers on the front end of really, you know, finding out what they need. And we've talked about before, sometimes it's a struggle to get universities, get the uh the higher ed institutions and the business industry at the same table. And we want to, and a lot of times universities show up and maybe there's an HR person or maybe not, or they, you know. Um how do we get at the same table to really start? Because we can talk about the data and we, you know, all that stuff, but at the end of the day, it's gonna going to take industry and education. How do we come together to solve this problem?

SPEAKER_02 34:45

I think there are a couple things.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

Because we have the answers, I think, together.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

If if we get together, we can come up with the the and I mean we there's probably answers on each side and they may be different. Well, how do you how do you how do you reconcile those? How do you get them together? I I think the the biggest thing, as I mentioned, with the Work Future Institute, our our whole idea was to be that conduit between business and and workforce and education. We think the post-secondary attainment council is a big, big step in helping us do that because this council now not only just it will have all the same academic uh representation from IHL, from community colleges, from K-12, et cetera, but it now has a lot of business representation as well. It it will have private sector business leaders. And what we're trying to do is we're I'm right now I'm working with with Dr. Courtney Taylor with Accelerate to identify sector leaders, but we don't we don't want the CEO or the president or the plant manager. We we want the workforce development director, we want the hiring director, we want to know what are the skills that you're needing in your organization so that you can do that. And I think part of what we have been working on for the last few months at our with our team at the foundation is starting to try to identify who is that person that you need to have in the room to have these discussions. Because again, while we love our CEOs and we love our leaders of our companies and they work hard, we really want the person that that they can make it happen to have in place that can make it, they can tell us that they can tell us, okay, when you develop this program at at CPS at CPCS, that this program needs to have these competencies included in in the curriculum. It needs to have these things in here for us. And um a friend of mine up in who used to be with U.S. Chambers, now with a um different group in Washington, was speaking back in October and I was there, and she says, until businesses step up and lead, they can't expect education to change because education don't know what to do, so they're gonna keep doing the same thing they've always done. But I think from the flip side of that, education has to understand they've got to change, do things differently. And I think the biggest obstacle that even you and some of the conversations we've had, we're not gonna call them run into is well, we've never done it that way. Or what about this aspect of the academic side of it? We've gotta we've gotta think differently if we're gonna get to where we need to be. Yes, the the general studies in in the the process of education are extremely important. It it teaches critical thinking, it teaches uh general knowledge, it teaches all these things that you gotta have. But sometimes you gotta think differently about how you go about doing that so you can relate it to what someone is putting on on on the line on a day in and day out basis in their job. So I think that as we think about the role of of what we're doing with the Work Future Institute, the the opportunity, again, that's that big word again. It's don't blow this opportunity. The opportunity we now have with having this newly created uh you know post-secondary attainment council that has everybody at the table, how do we get to the answers we need? So we we're excited about this. I think you've got to you've got to have good data before you can really figure out where you are so that you can determine where you want to go. So that's that's what we're trying to do right now in the early stages is to say, hey, look, here's the real need, and here's what we got to do. Here's what we got to address. Now, how do we go about addressing?

SPEAKER_00 38:47

We can't just stop with the data.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

No, can't stop with the data. Okay, here it is. There we go. Now we know this you can't just say, okay, here's what you gotta have, guys. Y'all go do it because y'all are in education. No, no, we've got to be at the table and help you figure out how to do it.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

So one of the things, um, well, we've talked a lot about today the credentials, the degrees, kind of the academic side. But universities contribute more to the economy than just the academic side of the university, the research, the entrepreneurship, different health systems and vendor relationships, all these different things. So, how does that fit in? I think I've said on the podcast before that for every dollar invested in Mississippi State, we give $25 back to the state of Mississippi, which is a pretty good investment. That's a tremendous investment.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

How does all that fit in the tremendous investment, which makes me wonder why the legislature doesn't understand that more money needs to come from education? But that's the or higher education in particular. No, uh I think that it that that's all part of it. You know, one of the things that state chambers across the country and and and MEC and now MSBA is is doing this as well, is is how do we how do we figure out what is it that we need to be focusing our attention on? And and through Blueprint Mississippi that that was created a few years ago, one of the things we talked about is how do we capitalize on the research and the commercialization of those research opportunities uh with our universities. Because to your point, is there's so much that that's taking place at the universities that that can then be either commercialized or put into use. That helps drive our economy. And when you think about the different divisions within all of our universities across the state, whether it's Cavs here, CME at Ole Miss or some of these other places that are I said that word didn't. You're not allowed to say Ole Miss on the smart.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

You gotta be fair. Worse there, where's there?

SPEAKER_02 40:51

Uh but but the Polymer Institute, so all of these things are things that we can use to our advantage to grow our economy here in Mississippi. And and you know, when you think about all the opportunities that exist now throughout the state, that all of our institutions of higher learners are involved in, it's driving the economy. And and ultimately, businesses rely on that. I mean, you think about whether it's in aerospace engineering or whether it's in automotive or whether it's in any of these programs and growth areas that we have across the state, our universities are are have been at the table, but they gotta they gotta maybe take a bigger spot at the table and really utilize all this. I mean, when you think about the economic development just in the Golden Triangle area, how much of that is driven because you're sitting right next to a major research university that has the resources to help you. That's a big part of what's happening. And we have to have that happen all across the state.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Are there some examples of places that are doing it well? I mean, we, you know, the research triangle in North Carolina is one that always kind of comes to mind. Um, but are there some places that you look around the the nation and boy, they're they're getting it. They're really making it happen, what we're talking about today.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

I think that's probably the best example. It took time for that to grow out. And then you've seen, you know, you've seen some of that. Uh there's in um in in Virginia and Richmond, there's some of that with the universities there uh that are that are part of that, that that I've had an opportunity to to see. They've kind of got that research park that that involves all of the universities. So I think that's the that's the thing that we've got to really kind of how do how do we focus and continue to build this consortium that's out there in the state right now with our research universities in a way that that businesses can tap into it. But I think so many times and I I think what what you see, look, again, I told you I love our state and and I I I believe in it and I know that it's it's gonna even be better than what it is today. But I think one of the things that I want us to to remember is we've gotta do as good it it it's twofold. We gotta s we gotta make sure people are aware of what's happening, what's available, and then the business community has to take advantage of using it. So again, it comes back to just like just like with the workforce issue where we've all got to be at the table talking about it. Same with this. We we need to just make sure we're we're people understand, hey, I can go to a research university and they can help me with problem X, and I can then utilize that and grow in my my business just like what Cavs does everyone. every day and helping the automotive industry be more efficient, more effective. How do we do that in other industries as well? So I think we've got, we've got those, you know, uh, we've got those opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

And and Cavs is the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems.

SPEAKER_02 44:17

As I was saying that I stood, I thought about I we've we referred to it a couple of times and never told people what it was. But yeah, that's it's a big part of the research part of that. And that came up and honestly that how how the economic development you may recall when when Mississippi landed Nissan, that that was developed and created at that point as part of that project. So again, it goes hand in hand. Economic development is is is it has to rely on our universities and our universities can play a big role in helping driving our economy.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Are we moving fast enough? And if if not, what's the catalyst?

SPEAKER_02 44:53

Are we ever moving fast enough? I mean university I'm gonna turn that back on are we moving fast enough, Susan? We're never no we're never moving fast enough. We know that I I think that you know uh at our our our last council meeting you know I mentioned Dr. Shaw earlier when when David came in he was speaking Mississippi State um he came in and he used a word in his his his comments that I called him out on I said David use the word nimble I said how higher education has to learn to be nimble and if you're gonna move fast you can't you can't do it without being nimble part of part of what you see and it comes to the accreditation problem all these things that y'all are up against that sometimes it's really really hard to move fast and change it it's it's hard for us in the business community but we don't have the same we don't have the same we don't have the same constraints that y'all have and I think that's how do we how do we get past that how do we figure it out and I think that's one of the things that that y'all do every day is y'all figure out how do you how do you get past this problem and and I think that as we go forward it with everything that's in education it it just I I had a conversation this this week about a a funding issue and it was someone involved in philanthropy that said you know sometimes it just takes long it takes a long time to get something in place in education where the private sector of philanthropy can come in and and at least support it on the front end to make it move faster. That's that's kind of the role we can hopefully play. But we we want to be able to do that with the assurances that the changes are coming and that we're gonna be able to do the things that we need to do. So I think that we we've got so many really great things that are happening right now from an economic development standpoint. I think we got so many great things that are happening now in the workforce and educational front that hasn't happened in in Mississippi before I mean you know a lot of a lot of states across the country have been paying attention to our growth as it relates to our rankings with K-12 primarily with reading. So when you think about the growth we've had at K-12 and how people are paying attention to what we're doing. And now when you think about what's happening in workforce development and and you know we've gone from being really not even on the the chart to being one of the top states particularly in the Southeast on how we're handling workforce development and now how you parlay that into a higher education role I think Mississippi is on the verge of having a lot of people take a look at what we're doing. And again that's one of the reasons I'm excited about the work that's taking place about the the fact that when we think about postsecondary attainment we're not thinking about it in a in a silo anymore. And and I think that's the that's the key is it's it's it's gotta be more than just it's gotta be more than just oh you're going to college no it's gotta be what are you going to be doing? How do we align your skill set, your aptitude your interest into a program that number one, when you finish there's going to be a job waiting on you that education to employment pathway and number two it's something that you really want to want to do and that it pays well enough for you to to be able to stay in Mississippi have a good living raise your family get back to the community and ultimately be part of helping address growing our state for years to come. I I we're at a very very important very very important moment in our state in my opinion and it's programs like yours that are going to help us think differently to allow us to take advantage of that moment. And and I just I just appreciate the opportunity to get to work with y'all and and do the things that we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 49:10

Well we appre appreciate your input certainly uh as as we as we wrap up how would you kind of summarize or or or want students or maybe recent alumni or stakeholders how would you want them to think about the connection between their credential their degree their connection to their university and what that means for the economic development and and really the qu which leads to a quality of life for them.

SPEAKER_02 49:47

Well I I think that it it comes back to we have an opportunity now in Mississippi to help them understand better what that pathway to get there is and and help them identify those ways of doing it. Because then once you do it then you appreciate it more and you understand okay every step of this educational process I just went through it's led me to where I am today. And they can appreciate it. As opposed to just come and and you know there's there's a lot of this well I'm just gonna go get a degree and then I'll figure out what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 50:30

Check a box.

SPEAKER_02 50:31

Check a box. Because mom and dad said I gotta go to college. Well their immediate thought is again college being go get a bachelor's degree in something. Doesn't matter what it is. Just go get it and you've done what mom and dad said. I think we've we we're to a point now where we can explain that that's just not going to get you to where you need to be if if you're gonna do it do it in a way that you pick you're picking a pathway, you're picking a major I mean I I know that um the one of the things that that the university's working on right now is is the majors map which is helping students understand what if they pick a certain major what their opportunities or like a better way of saying it return on investment will be.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

And it's not necessarily specific because a lot of times we we want to hone in on well these are the degrees um and it's not necessarily that the it just needs to be the one that fits you.

SPEAKER_02 51:27

It needs to be the one that fits you and and and again we're not saying that we need to tell people what they need to do. Right what we need to do is let them choose and understand what their options are and what it means for them.

SPEAKER_00 51:39

But a thoughtful choice.

SPEAKER_02 51:40

So if if we do a better job of that then to answer your question, what's going to happen is they're gonna be more appreciative of what they've accomplished. They're gonna be more appreciative of what the university or the college did for them to help them grow their career to have to have that quality of life that that our state offers in so many different ways whether it's a smaller a small town experience like I grew up in or a larger area like I live now in the metro area that all those things are part of what helped develop them. And it just gives you that appreciation that hey without that educational institution without that that workforce program without whatever route they took I wouldn't be able to be here. And it it just that's how they that's how they can give back and just you know feel like hey I need to I that's that's part of me giving back to the community to help that continue to help that grow but it it it all comes back to making sure that y'all that everyone's doing what y'all are doing. And that is helping them understand what their plan is and how do they accomplish that plan. It will make a big difference. And I think it'd make a big difference for our state as a whole.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

And and Maddie's uh kind of on the forefront of that working directly with the students and helping helping them make that connection.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

And I think that's another reason why it's so important that we have these shared spaces where we can come together and reconcile all these things because sometimes what we find from students and industry and here in our you know university bubble, we're speaking three different languages and we've all got to be speaking the same language.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

How how tough has that been for you I mean I heard a little bilingual Gen Z.

SPEAKER_01 53:47

I I don't um well I mean I'm a career changer so this is a totally different career for me um than I've had to learn over the last four years. Um and being you know a couple of decades now almost uh away from being college student myself. You seem surprised by that it's been a couple of decades not my strong suit but as I'm like thinking about it I'm like oh it's a lot longer than um but yeah it it's challenging to to speak in terms that students understand even from just my four years here I've picked up on the academic speak. And now you know students are getting their information from so many different places. I was just in a recruiting training yesterday with colleagues from different departments and academic colleges on campus here. And um students are learning about majors on TikTok and they're learning about majors that don't exist basically or aren't the terms that we would use here. So they're coming to us and they're wanting to major in something that they saw in a TikTok and we don't have that. We have something that we created a very academic name for but it's not what they're looking for. But it's a similar and does it match the skills that when a hiring manager is looking at that resume they're like what's what's this degree in you know we have to all be speaking the same language there so that we can accomplish this ecosystem that that we're working toward.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

We probably better wrap up today we can we can keep talking about this forever three efforts here. So but thank you for being here today Scott we appreciate uh the service that you have provided to the state of Mississippi and but also to us and to being part of our advisory council and our guest today.

SPEAKER_02 55:38

Well thank you and again uh to the point is we're all in this together.

SPEAKER_00 55:42

That's right. Yeah that's the only way we're gonna that's the only way we're gonna get to where we need to be so absolutely thank you thanks Scott thank you for joining us on Uncharted State we hope today's conversation sparks some new ideas about the future of higher education hit follow so you never miss an episode. You never know what uncharted territory we'll explore next