U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez cautions Montana educators against thinking too narrowly about their jobs.
"It's a false choice to suggest we're either training people for the jobs of tomorrow or we're training people to be critical thinkers. Our workforce needs both critical skills and critical thinking."
Perez was the keynote speaker for the final day of an education conference at the University of Montana in Missoula.
During his presentation on Tuesday he told UM faculty, staff and students that business leaders regularly tell him the United States is a great place to invest these days, but he adds that they also say:
"Tom, I'm bullish about the future. I want to grow my business, but my biggest challenge is that too many of the folks walking through my door don't have the skills to do the jobs of today and tomorrow."
Perez says it's no longer adequate for universities to generally train and educate students hoping they'll find good jobs after graduation.
"That's yesterday's paradigm. Today's paradigm is we have to be demand-driven. We have to understand what some of the needs are."
He praises Montana's higher ed system for how it's producing well-rounded graduates. For example, he says the university system's online offerings are remarkable for rural students who live far from a physical campus. He also thinks allowing people to stack a degree on top of a professional certification, or a certification on top of a degree is great for non-traditional students:
"For a lot of folks, they have family responsibilities. They can't take 4-years off and take the traditional path. We've got to take the worker and the Montanan where we find them. Your deftness. Your alacrity in understanding that a certificate program might be that first step in - that is really smart."
Perez says he believes the best schools still require their students to get a well-rounded liberal arts education:
"These schools recognize that employers are looking for agile thinkers who can connect the dots. That's why they made the smart decision to keep the liberal arts at the heart of their curriculum. It's true that no matter if you're learning about croissants, criminology, coding or the classics, to make a big impact on the world you have to master the technical skills and you have to know why it matters."
In 2012, Thomas Perez was assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. That year he visited Missoula to announce the agency would investigate how rape reports were being handled by local law enforcement agencies and the University of Montana. While Perez didn’t refer to specifics of that investigation he did say he’s a big fan of UM President Royce Engstrom:
"President Engstrom always did the right thing. His North Star was always, ‘How do I treat my students correctly? How do I build a campus culture that is inclusive and productive?' I just want to say thank you because this [university] community is blessed to have you as their president.”
