Centers of Excellence
Building North Dakota's Future Together
Governor John Hoeven
In the coming months, educators, business leaders and policy makers will gather on campuses across our state to map out our Centers of Excellence initiative, which we proposed during the State of the State address last January. It's an exciting $50 million plan that combines education and economic development to create higher paying jobs for North Dakota citizens. When leveraged with federal and private funding, the amount available could be as much as $150 million. Centers of Excellence make the North Dakota University System and all of our campuses dynamic partners in building the economy of our state.
Business leaders, students, faculty, Chambers of Commerce, economic developers, elected officials, city and county officials, campus foundations - all are invited to help us build the future of North Dakota using our Centers of Excellence.
The concept behind a Center of Excellence is simple: If we nurture a place where some of our best and brightest minds can find ways to commercialize their ideas into products, skills and services, we will create and attract new businesses. Those businesses will generate higher-paying, skilled jobs for our citizens, especially our graduates.
A Center of Excellence then becomes a hub of research and development around which dynamic new businesses cluster because they offer access to new technologies and an educated workforce. They are excellent in two vital senses - first, they provide excellence in education and training, and second, they promote job creation and economic growth.
We have targeted certain specific industry sectors for growth in North Dakota because we have clear advantages in those areas owing to our natural resources, our heritage and our people. Centers of Excellence will focus on these targeted sectors, which are technology, including aerospace; value-added agriculture; energy; advanced manufacturing; and tourism - all of them selected because we have the resources, infrastructure and talent to help them thrive.
Today, we see a cluster of businesses forming around North Dakota State University, with companies like Phoenix International and Alien Technology taking the lead. To help Alien Technology commercialize its research, the state of North Dakota, in partnership with local developers and private investors, put together a $35 million funding package for a new manufacturing plat at the NDSU Technology Park in Fargo. The University of North Dakota is moving forward with businesses centered around its aerospace program, The Center for Innovation and the EERC.
But we also see Centers of Excellence coalescing around other campuses. Williston State College could be a center for oil and gas training and innovation, and Dickinson State University could be a center for biosecurity. Bismarck State College is developing a Center of Excellence for training a whole new generation of highly skilled power plant operators. Minot State at Bottineau could become a Center of Excellence for tourism. As a laptop university, distinguished nationally for its teacher preparation program, Valley City may pursue something that combines its Rural Technology Center to create a center combining technology with education and business. The choices are limited only by the imagination and energy of our campuses and their business communities.
In the coming months, we will be meeting around the state at all of our university campuses to begin this kind of dialogue about building our future in North Dakota. Our plan is to encourage each campus, in dynamic partnership with its business community, to map its future and move forward.
It's an important task, because prospective Centers of Excellence mean better paying jobs, more dynamic campuses and a more vibrant economy for our communities and our state. Centers of Excellence, combined with Opportunities 2020, our new student internship program, can link college graduates with exciting new prospects to retain more youth in North Dakota. Most importantly, Centers of Excellence mean a better standard of living for graduates and a brighter future for North Dakota. We look forward to working with our campuses and our communities to build that future together.
For additional information, Contact Kathy Ibach or Don Canton (701) 328-2200.
