What’s so Cool About Manufacturing
12/16/2019
The businesses located in MidAmerica Industrial Park offer a plethora of jobs. We know that, but does the community?
To help convey this message, Rogers State University is partnering with area schools—Pryor, Salina, Locust Grove, Adair and Inola—to create videos that highlight companies and careers right here at MAIP.
The program is called What’s So Cool About Oklahoma Manufacturing. It is dedicated to changing the perceptions and attitudes about manufacturing jobs and careers by showcasing real people and giving a visual representation of 21st-century manufacturing employees, jobs and careers.
What’s So Cool About Oklahoma Manufacturing aims to create a globally accessible peer-to-peer marketing strategy and raise awareness of job search, application and employment resources. The program will provide professional development for STEM teachers and engage local manufacturing company leadership with the partner schools’ teachers and students.
This project will result in student-produced, both junior high and high school, video series designed to engage the emerging workforce at a critical decision-making point in their school-life experience. The students will produce two-to-three-minute interstitial videos showcasing a MAIP company and/or its employees talking about the workplace environment, their education and training background and the personal life impact of working in manufacturing. At the end of the project, they will produce a 30–60-second promotional video showcasing the student team members and what they learned about manufacturing at their assigned company. The students will film and edit the videos themselves which will be judged during a contest in February to select the best-produced video.
“Our objective for this project is to result in a student-produced narrative about hometown manufacturing jobs that speaks to peers, teachers, parents and the greater community in an honest and informative voice,” said David Stewart, Chief Administrative Officer at MidAmerica Industrial Park. “The ultimate goal being to destigmatize manufacturing jobs – adjust a prevailing and erroneous attitude by providing a first-hand, insider perspective of the value of work and opportunities in the Park.”
The program is set to launch in fall 2019/spring 2020 and begin engaging up to 10 teams. The teams will be matched with MAIP manufacturers and businesses while using existing STEM Lab teachers and equipment.
RSU TV will provide the media training and curriculum for MAIP STEM Lab instructors who will lead the student teams, as well as the professional production and final review of the student films. MidAmerica school and company liaisons will assist RSU TV and student teams in obtaining all necessary access for project success, support, authorizations, approvals and waivers. Finally, RSU will provide MAIP and the participating companies with a combination of all the student films for the final broadcast program which will air on RSU TV.
Royal Allis, General Manager at RSU TV said, “RSU TV is happy to be the driver of this new exciting program and wants to be a solutions provider for the ever-growing workforce needs. Since Public TV is educationally based, engaging with students in the Pryor area will generate excitement that draws students towards many manufacturing career paths, technical training and STEM education. We will ask the students to share their videos with each other creating a peer-to-peer marketing strategy that will create awareness of opportunities for students who want to find a job. It’s simply students telling students what's so cool about manufacturing jobs. That’s what gets me excited.”
Keep up with this project and the progress of the students via the existing MidAmerica Delivers web portal, RSU Public TV Broadcast, and social media resources to see the showcased work of the students.