Delaware’s Status as Corporate Capital Shapes College Course Offerings
Published Apr 16, 2005
The University of Delaware in Newark has majors in many fields that cater to business.
Higher education in New Castle County is serious business.
More than half of the Fortune 500 firms are incorporated in Delaware, and the strong business climate affects college curricula. What’s more, the colleges help the corporations remain competitive.
“We’re staying in touch with what businesses need,” says Peter Bailey, assistant vice president of administrative affairs for Wilmington College.
Keeping pace with corporate America has helped Wilmington College grow from 148 students in 1968 to more than 11,000 students today.
Born in a vacated motel in New Castle, the college itself is a lesson in entrepreneurship. Wilmington College, which does not require SAT scores for admission, was founded as a private institution to provide an education regardless of students’ past academic performances.
The dream almost died in 1979. The school had no assets and a debt exceeding $700,000. Surveys found that 90 percent of its students worked. Just 150 lived in dorms.
Administrators closed the dorms and began to focus on career-minded courses for working students. Flexible class times and accelerated programs sweetened the appeal. “Many adult students just want to get that degree,” Bailey says.
The strategy has worked. The college, with assets now topping $70 million, has six locations statewide, including a new graduate center situated in an office park.
WC recently began qualifying corporate training programs for college credit. The process is painstaking. “We’re not giving away credits,” Bailey says. Students who have completed such qualifying programs enter Wilmington College with those credits. “It opens the door for them,” he says.
Ingenuity and practicality are in evidence on WC’s campuses. The education department began coursework leading to a master’s degree in applied technology after administrators read an editorial lamenting teachers’ inability to grasp technology.
Ideas for new programs also come from a business advisory board. When the board cited a lack of leadership and communication skills among some graduates, the college strengthened measurements to assess students’ abilities.
Goldey-Beacom College in Wilmington also seeks expert advice. “We’ve made a conscious effort to build a board of trustees that reflects regional business,” says Gary L. Wirt, vice president of Goldey-Beacom, a business college founded in 1886.
The college has a career-services advisory board that includes human resource professionals, and it surveys nearly 100 businesses that employ Goldey-Beacom graduates. The results guide coursework. If respondents say students require enhanced verbal-presentation skills, the college develops classes and integrates presentations into its existing curriculum.
Goldey-Beacom also monitors student internships. Employers must detail each student’s strengths and weaknesses. In addition, career-fair participants offer their impressions of students.
The analysis is worth it. Up to 94 percent of graduates find jobs – about 80 percent in their chosen fields. “Accounting graduates are gobbled up as fast as we produce them,” Wirt says.
The student body represents 60 nations, and Wirt isn’t surprised that so many international students choose Goldey-Beacom. “You couldn’t be any closer to the ‘corporate capital,’ ” he says. “There’s a wealth of opportunities here.”
The University of Delaware, whose main campus in Newark accounts for most of the school’s 19,000 students, also offers majors in many fields that cater to business. In addition, UD sponsors programs geared toward the corporate world.
Story by Pam George
Photo by Stephen Cherry
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