CLC-Conference-Proceeding-2018

4) Education and Infrastructure.
This must be done in alignment with the
Higher Education system to shape and link the
new school infrastructure to higher education
standards with early learning and K-12 pathways
to ensure students are prepared for higher
learning and the workforce. The university must
utilize its intellectual and Human Capital to
redesign and uplift communities in distress due
to crises like Maria.
Higher education and secondary
education have an obligation to ensure that
children have a clear path to college beginning in
the stages of early childhood development. With
human, social, political, and physical capital,
universities can garner influence and resources to
affect systems of education for children and
families in all of the years of schooling.
The university needs an educated pool of
applicants. It must ensure that students are
prepared for the college level experience through
intentional, targeted college access, and
readiness programs, beginning as early as
possible. In order to secure the future of higher
education in Puerto Rico, universities must
ensure that the pipeline of early learning to
college is readily flowing.
Higher education is also an important
resource in transforming teachers and school
leadership preparation. Teachers and principals
are at the core of good schooling and hold the
keys for transferring teaching and learning.
Puerto Rico has an opportunity to adopting
programs that place education students in
classrooms as part of the required teaching
clinical experiences under the supervision of
talented faculty and outstanding teacher mentors.
Teacher Residencies like the Boston Residencies
could serve as models for replication.
5) University as incubators of
innovation and startup capital
Higher Education institutions can play a
paramount role in advancing innovation through
new technologies, new processes, new products,
and new ideas that can be catalysts for rebuilding
the local economy and for connecting Puerto
Rico to the global economy.
University faculty and talented students
can leverage their strengths in knowledge
creation to generate economic benefits.
Attracting transfers and two-year students is
critical. Innovation is happening much fastest in
the outside world and universities are largely
struggling to keep up. The higher education
sector can support the private sector through
knowledge transfer that is deployed through
worker training, capacity building for
management, help in incubating startup
businesses and development of industrial parks
and small business incubators.
The University needs to welcome
innovators and entrepreneurs into co-working
spaces where they can connect on ideas, build
business plans, and access startup capital to
implement their projects. Universities can
embrace models of university innovation centers,
like Pennovation at the University of
Pennsylvania or Cornell Tech at Cornell
University, where tracts of land and old factory
spaces have become tech centers of incubators
for new businesses and technology.
With open spaces indoors and outdoors,
creative minds unite to design solutions to the
challenges of our times, including poverty and
climate change. Firms and individuals interested
in investing in startup companies should be
incentivized to provide funds for these
innovations to test, implement, and scale.