TAMPA, Fla. - A new culture for a new economy - bringing together education, the private sector and state leadership - should be the goal of a contemporary governor, Michigan State University President Peter McPherson today told the nation's Republican governors.
In a keynote address at the Republican Governors Association annual conference, McPherson said that technology and related human capital are the critical resources in, and the drivers of, the new economy that has emerged from the rapid expansion of information technology in the last decade. Neither technology nor the related human capital, he said, should be considered independent of the other - on a statewide, national or global scale.
"We should begin to think about human resources as a global resource that moves with opportunity, somewhat as has become the case with financial resources," he said. "Clearly, educating and attracting the necessary people is an important factor for success in the new economy."
The new culture that must grow from the new economy, McPherson said, will be critical for attracting people and new businesses - more critical, he said, than the traditional factors that business and industry have considered when choosing where to locate.
This "culture of technology and change ... is critical for attracting people and new businesses," he said. "It is a central piece of the growth and friendly economy most governors seek to establish for their states."
Among the critical factors for states, he said, are:
- Science and math education. "Science and math K-12 education in the U.S. is a mile wide and an inch deep," he said, citing research conducted for the National Science Foundation by MSU Professor William Schmidt. Although technology is more important to the economy today than at any time in the nation's history, he said, neither the general public nor the education system are focused as intensely as they should be on math and science.
- A global viewpoint. "States need to take steps to globalize their citizenry to take full advantage of the new economy," he said, noting that the state's universities, with their Internet resources and study abroad programs, can be key in these initiatives. For example, they could provide an international experience for non-traditional students, such as teachers and business executives, with short, intense study abroad experiences that would complement the undergraduate study abroad experiences that are rapidly expanding at MSU and at universities nationwide.
- Commercialization of research. "Strong universities have a culture of questioning in the sciences, an intellectual entrepreneurship if you will," he said. "This is not necessarily a culture of commercialization, however." He cited work by Michael Darby, a former U.S. Treasury official now at the University of California-Los Angeles, that indicates that high-tech regions are likely to develop near large research universities that have "scientific stars" - extraordinary researchers who collaborate with private companies.
He also recommended that the governors appoint a state science adviser to help anticipate the impact of rapid scientific advances on individual states.
In general, he said, he has noted in both business and universities a heightened interest in working together, and that interest has benefited the states in which it is encouraged. The state of Michigan's recent commitment to a "research corridor" in the areas of the life sciences is an excellent example, he said. It teams the state's three research universities with the Van Andel Institute in a research consortium that will both benefit people's health and well-being and bring about mutually beneficial university-business partnerships. Proposed by Gov. John Engler and approved by the state Legislature, it is funded at the rate of $50 million annually for the next 20 years from the state's tobacco settlement money.
The benefits, he said, will be significant, and long-lasting.
"From my time in Washington, I know the pressure for short-term impact," said McPherson, a former treasury official and administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. "The idea has created immediate excitement. But there is no doubt that what the governor and Legislature have done will have most of its impact well beyond the tenure of any of the elected officials."
He also challenged the governors to tap into university expertise to help close the digital divide that can keep financially strapped families from benefiting from the vast resources of the Information Age.
"Technology changes daily; winning states and nations will use universities and their spin-off companies - the very engines of technological change - to ensure that their populations are empowered and enriched by every change as it occurs," he said. "We are eager to serve."