Reflections on a Century of Co-op
ASEE Conference for Industry &
Education Collaboration
January 25, 2006
San Antonio, Tx
Bryan Dansberry, Assistant Professor
Steve Gilby, Assistant Professor
Division of Professional Practice
University of Cincinnati
University of Cincinnati
P.O. Box 210115
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0115
E-mail: bryan.dansberry@uc.edu or
stephen.gilby@uc.edu
Todays Historical Topics
1906 –1919
The Birth of Co-op
1920’s
Breaking Down Barriers
1930’s & 40’s
Adapting to Circumstances
1950’s & 60’s
Proving the Concept
1970’s & 80’s
The Uncle Sam (Savilla) Era
1990’s & 00’s
Contraction with Expansion
What you’ll see in the next hour:
A mix of facts and perspectives
• A Basic History Lesson
– Timeline
– Facts
– Anecdotes
• Student Perspectives of Co-op:
– Flash Movies
– “Cool Co-op” entries
– Quotes
• Employer Perspectives:
– Value Analysis
– Our Analysis
Plugging steam (and money) leaks
UC’s Andy Eding led a refinery-wide steam-leak
audit and repair project. Subsequent audits
documented improvements in two areas of the
refinery.
Estimated savings: $1,200,000 per year
Background
•Co-op Student
•Co-op Supervisors
•Co-op Faculty (2002 - ????)
Transonic Dynamics Tunnel
NASA-Langley
Herman Schneider
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1872 – Born in Pennsylvania
German & Dutch Descent
“combination of English Quaker
and German Scientist.”
1894 – Graduated Lehigh in
Engineering /Architecture
Held positions in an architectural
office in Maryland and building
railroad bridges in Oregon
1899 – Civil Engineering Instructor
at Lehigh
1903 – Accepted Chair of Civil
Engineering at Cincinnati
Origins of the Cooperative Idea
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“Major changes in higher education
require both innovative ideas and
strong dedicated leadership.”
Idea originated in his investigation
of actual working conditions of
engineering practice.
State of the art in education:
Classroom teaching + practice
shops
Bethlehem Steel – Bessemer
steelmaking furnace
Replace school shops with
industrial companies
“Education in a democracy should
be based on brains and backbone
not social & financial status”
Rejection and Acceptance
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Lehigh
Lehigh Faculty reject the plan
– Cooperation between college and
industry “impractical”
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Practicing Engineers love the plan
– Theoretical training meant little
after graduation
Cincinnati
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1902 - First paper (syllabus) of
Cooperative Plan
1904 – First presented to UC
President Dabney
1905 – 5 to 4 vote of board
authorizes 1 year trial program
President Charles Dabney
The Experiment
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First Plan
Six year program
Work Summers
Weekly alternation of school and
work
Saturday morning meetings with
Dean Schneider
Enlisted Thomas Manley to help
recruit companies
12 agreed to participate for 9
months
– Machine tool, foundries, and
valve manufacturers
From the original class of 27, co-op's popularity
grew. Even though the University of Cincinnati did
not advertise it's co-op program, 400 students
applied for 70 positions in the second year of
cooperative education. In 1908 there were over
2,000 applicants
“Rah Rah” Boys
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First Students
28 men selected for the program
– Purely for financial reasons
After working that summer only a
few remained
Schneider recruited more
12 ME, 12 EE, and 3 ChE
students
“shop-mates”
George Binns
“Boilermaker” Boys
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Co-ops were the center of attention in the first year
“..a new type of student, more serious and alert due to the influence of
responsibility at work”
Co-op football team
The Cincinnati Plan
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In year two the cooperative
program had 400 applicants
- higher qualifications
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Co-op spread to Civil, Chemical,
and Metallurgical Engineering
Program reduced to 5-years by
alternating school/work every 2weeks year-round
- due to out-of-town positions
Flexibility to change majors and
type of company added
Program became the popular
choice rapidly.
Engineering Enrollment at UC
Year
Reg.
Co-op
1906-07
107
27
1909-10
65
138
1915-16
36
441
1920-21
0
950
Movie Break
• Greg Koch
• Debbie Filabrandt
The Cincinnati Plan
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Post-War Innovation
1920 - Cooperative Course in
Commerce added
1920 - Women admitted to co-op
in Commerce and Chemical
Engineering
1922 - Architecture program
1929 - Aeronautical Engineering
From left in back are Ruby Schoen,
Charlotte Atherton, Ruth McFarlan
and Margaret Maynard. Seated in
front, from left, Kathryn Gillis,
Helen Norris and Myrtle Hay.
The Co-ep Story
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In 1920, no schools admitted women into preparatory programs for
engineering. Herman Schneider and UC changed all that thanks to a young
Cincinnatian named Ruth McFarlan and her aunt, Anna McFarlan. You see,
the aunt was acquainted with Schneider’s secretary and asked the secretary,
Anna Teasdale, to approach Dean Schneider on behalf of young Ruth who
wanted to study engineering. In Fall Quarter 1920, seven young women –
“co-eps” and even “co-eppettes” as they were called – entered the co-op
program as either chemical engineering or commercial engineering
(business) students.
According to Mary Blood who entered the program in 1921, she and her
fellow "co-eps" packed Crisco during early mornings at a Procter & Gamble
factory. They also hauled lumber and became handy with crowbars too.
The Spread of Co-op
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First Wave
1909 – Polytechnic School of the YMCA Evening Institute
(Northeastern University)
1910 – University of Pittsburgh
1911 – University of Detroit
1912 – Georgia Institute of Technology
1912 – Rochester Institute of Technology
1914 - University of Akron
The Spread of Co-op
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Second Wave
1917 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1919 – Drexel University
1919 – University of Evansville
1919 – Marquette University
1921 – Antioch College
1923 – Cleveland State University
1924 – General Motors Institute
(Kettering University)
The Roaring ’20’s
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Number of Co-op programs tripled
– 10 to 36
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Co-op expanded into Business
– UC (1920) & Northeastern (1927)
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Evansville added co-op program in Teachers College (1926)
Loma Linda College had co-op for medical students
Union Terminal
Cincinnati, OH
The Roaring ’20’s
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Number of Co-op programs tripled
– 10 to 36
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Co-op expanded into Business
– UC (1920) & Northeastern (1927)
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Evansville added co-op program in Teachers College (1926)
Loma Linda College had co-op for medical students
The Roaring ’20’s
• Riverside Junior College
– Pioneer in 2-yr co-op programs
– Pioneer in expanding outside of engineering:
– architecture, business, nursing, library work, and police science
• Antioch College
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First purely liberal arts institution
“Cincinati Plan” became the “Antioch Plan”
Philosophy differed: “character building vs skill building”
Might call it “Service Learning” today
Co-op was so closely associated with its founding school and city
that the 1934 edition of Webster’s Dictionary defined co-op as the
Cincinnati Plan.
Surviving Hard Times (The ’30’s)
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Co-op placement plummets (95% to 45%)
Guidelines and Programs created to handle unplaced students
– Research assistants
– Report Writing (Travel Quarters)
– Make-work jobs on campus
“Often advisors
would load their car
with students………”
Surviving Hard Times (The ‘30’s)
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Still, co-op unemployment
remained lower than the general
population
Co-op did expand thru the decade
– 36 to 49 schools
– 9,550 to 11,559 students
By 1940 things were looking up
War & Peace (The ‘40’s)
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Many co-op programs were suspended
Faced with empty campuses women were presented opportunities never
before available
Movie Break: Part Deux
• Vanessa Roland
• Matt Oscar
The Post-war Boom (’46 – ’56)
Growth in Co-op
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G.I. Bill drives a boom in
enrollment
Co-op programs return to their
pre-war high’s
– 50 programs by the 50th
anniversary
Year
Colleges
Students
1910
3
90
1920
10
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1930
36
9,550
1940
39
11,559
Cooperative Education & the Impending Educational Crisis
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Charles Kettering
Edison Foundation
1957 – Dayton Conference
– Co-op offers an economical way to accommodate increasing enrollment and
should be expanded in all areas
– Documented evidence of co-op’s value lacking
Co-op’s Silver Anniversary
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Second 50 years of co-op
characterized by rapid growth
The source of this growth?
– Federal dollars
Year
Colleges Students
1910
3
90
1920
10
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1930
36
9,550
1940
39
11,559
1961
60
29,547
1970
195
70,000
1981
1,100
200,000
The Wilson Report
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1961 - Work-Study College Programs: Appraisal & REort of the Study of
Cooperative Education
James Wilson (Rochester Institute of Technology)
Edward Lyons (University of Detroit)
Ralph Tyler (University of Chicago)
Co-op should be expanded in all areas
Show Me The Money
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Two Organizations founded:
- National Commission for Cooperative Education - 1962
- Cooperative Education Association (Now CEIA) - 1963
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NCCE mission:
- “double the number of co-op programs and raise number of co-op students to
75,000 in 10 years”
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1965 Higher Education Act
– First language for funding for co-op
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1968 – HEA modified to fund existing programs
1970 – 74 institutions are granted $1.5 Million.
1973 – 355 institutions received $10.75 Million
Feeding Frenzy
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1976 – language defining of cooperative education was loosened
From 1976 – 1996 $275 Million was awarded
As many as 1/3 of Higher Education Institutions reported having a co-op
program
By the 1990’s guidelines were so loose a program with almost any work
component could eligible for federal dollars
This lead to “fierce” discussions of the definition of co-op
The Morning After
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In 1986, Northeastern’s Cooperative Education Center for Research found
1,012 co-op programs
In 1999 less than 450 institutions responded after multiple mailings
Both CEIA and CED have had a reduction in attendance at their annual
conferences
Takes a Lickin’ But Keeps on Tickin’
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The explosive growth resulting from the infusion of federal dollars may
have been transitory, but co-op is not.
1994 – ASEE ranks co-op second in it’s list of important innovations of the
20th century.
In 2003 WACE had over 1,100 members representing 43 countries
CEIA, CED, NCCE, and WACE continue to represent and advocate co-op
in many forms.
Guidelines of accreditation have been established (ACCE)
Research is ongoing
Curricular reform
Co-op continues to expand and evolve on multiple fronts:
– International co-op
– Graduate co-op
– Research co-op
Movie Break III
• Leanne Wagner
• Joanna Powers
Perspectives on Co-op: Employer
• Employer role is the most important component of co-op learning
• Employers fall into 3 categories:
– (A) Companies that use co-op as prime recruitment tool
– (B) Companies that provide learning experiences, but few hires
– (C) Companies that view co-ops as cheap temporary
employees
• Mandatory Co-op programs generally need all three
• Co-op advisors need to find the time and approach to upgrade Clevel jobs to “B” or “A”.
Perspectives on Co-op: Employer Benefits
• Six major empirical studies have documented benefits of co-op
• Benefits cited by these studies include:
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Stable & pre-screened pool of intelligent & upwardly mobile manpower
More economical & flexible source of pre-professional manpower
Allows experienced employees to focus on more challenging tasks
Improved quality in the screening and selection of new college hires
Better dissemination of companies employment opportunities among
students & faculty
Improved yield from offers and reduced recruiting costs overall
Improvement in promotability
Reduction in orientation and training costs
Reduction in early attrition and turnover
Christopher Hummer
Aerospace Engineering, 2008
Wright Patterson
Air Force Base
“For my work, I was
nominated for Engineer
of the Quarter at WrightPatterson, and I will be
competing against
career engineers for this
award.”
“I have the ability to predict the behavior of
fluids using supercomputers.”
Brian Myers
Computer Science 2008
Medical Systems
“It was unbelievable
to see these giant
scanners spinning
around a couple times
per second”
I was writing software for CAT Scan Machines,
which was amazing…
James Ott
Fashion Design, 2006
Designer Ralph Rucci
“I will never forget the
perk of being able to
attend my first New York
runway show knowing I
had several pieces of my
work parading on the
models in front of me.”
“I cut, assembled, and hand sewed the chiffon /
organza flowers”
Jill Collet
Biomedical Engineering, 2006
“It was a great chance
to meet not only
fellow engineering
students from the
Midwest and beyond,
but also in other
disciplines supported
by the co-op
program.”
“These are just SOME of my fellow co-ops.
Laura Myer
Industrial Design, 2006
Hong Kong
Polytechnic University
“I soon became very
aware of my own
customs and sayings,
which I had never given
much thought to, as they
didn't translate in this
new world ”
“Within one week I went from not knowing where I was
going on co-op to being on a plane flying to Hong Kong.”
Kristen Kesse
Materials Engineering, 2007
Toyota Motor Manufacturing
North America
“My work experience
has proven to be
very motivational in
my school work. My
grades have rapidly
increased since I
began co-oping!”
“If this [discrepancies in coating] occurs,
samples are sent to me at TMMNA to
analyze on the Scanning Electron
Microscope (SEM).”
Shelby Shenkelman
Operations Management, 2006
Delta Airlines
“I have seen the world,
met new people, and
learned about an
amazing industry. ”
“I can travel anywhere in the world; and have been
to Spain, Mexico, Los Angeles...”
Kyle Francis
Chemical Engineering 2006
“BP treated the co-ops to
events such as a dinner
cruises on Lake
Michigan, Cubs games,
Second City, and more.”
“At Millennium Park before the
Cubs vs. Reds Game.”
Andrew Sampson
Electrical Engineering, 2006
NASA Kennedy Space
Center
“you get to see your work
launch into outer space,
with a 1000 foot fireball
trailing behind”
Kyle Blakley
Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2008
“Topics range from
storm water
management,
roadway layout and
design, traffic signal
and speed warrants,
environmental
studies…”
“One of the many bridge projects
completed by our office.”
Ryan Stobbs
Mechanical Engineering, 2007
Nevada
Automotive
Test Center
“The military came to
the company wanting
to test the durability of
a new turret design”
“You fire several hundred 50 caliber machine
gun bullets and drive it through the desert for
several hundred miles”
Owen Schelnez
Electrical Engineering, 2006
“Besides going to
the famous ‘Deutche
Museum’ and
getting to know
Munich, I enjoyed
the Carneval
festivities”
“I had the opportunity to work with some
of Europe’s finest engineers.”
Timothy King
Digital Design 2006
“Working at the New York
Division of Warner Bros, we
have to craft early online
and marketing materials for
upcoming movies.”
“Some of the work done for Corps Bride”
Jillian Fox,
Marketing, 2006
Ausburg, Germany
“My job position has
allowed me to visit
France, Scotland,
Hungary, Austria, Italy
and many parts of
Germany…”
On the cover of the
German Business Journal, Nebenwerte
Brian Kodrich
Aerospace Engineering, 2007
Defense
Contract
Management
Agency
“I can’t go into any
details because of
government
restrictions;
General Electric
and Rolls Royce
proprietary
rights.”
“First Engine to test with
3,000+ sensors installed.”
Paige Strohmaier
Graphic Design 2007
Adidas-Salomon
Sports
Annecy
France
“Each day offers a new discovery and
opportunity as I adjust to European culture
and the French language.”
Geoff Baldwin
Industrial Design 2006
NIKE, Oregon
Developed
Concept Shoes
for Active Life
and Yoga
“The coolest slippers you
will ever see; a Swoosh on…”
Jordan Callahan
Chemical Technology 2009
Sun Chemicals
Cincinnati
“I'm already ahead of
my class because I
know how to run most
of the instruments
taught in my
instrumentation
classes.“
“Now, I have experience with and understand 17
instruments and have only been working for a quarter.”
Zach Norman
Graphic Design 2006
Harpers Ferry
Design Center
“ I had the opportunity to design an award
that was presented to First Lady Laura
Bush”
Joel Willis
Information Technology 2006
“This opportunity
allowed me to support a
great cause and work
directly with a Vice
President and the CIO
of one of the most
important companies in
Cincinnati!”
“I took the initiative to organize a Flying Pig
Marathon charity drive to benefit the
National Kidney Foundation.”
Robin Ventura
Aerospace Engineering, 2006
NASA
Langley
Research
Center
“to enhance an
aerodynamic model
for a simulation of a
twin-engine transport
aircraft”
“This simulation is now used in to train NASA research
pilots to fly a highly advanced remote control model of
the aircraft and obtain real aerodynamic data”
Debate and Discussion
Steve Gilby, Assistant Professor
stephen.gilby@uc.edu
Bryan Dansberry, Assistant Professor
Bryan.dansberry@uc.edu
University of Cincinnati
Division of Professional Practice
P.O. Box 210115
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0115